Property investment gone sour - ex threatening small claims court
Thanks for any advice you can give me. I currently live in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
I was with my ex for 6 1/2 years, living as common law for 5 1/2 of those. My mother and I put a down payment ($10,995) on a condo that was not yet built and my ex loaned me 40% of the deposit money ($5000) with the thought that we would still be together when the condo was completed and we would sell it for a tidy profit.
All the legal documentation concerning the condo purchase and deposit is in mine and my mother's names, with no mention of his involvement. It has been 2 years since we put the down payment on the property.
Five months ago my ex and I broke up (obviously, as he's my ex now ;) ) and we had a relatively amicable break up with not many hard feelings. I had full intention of paying him some of the profit from the sale of the condo as I really wanted to do right by him. Well, since then things have gone sour in a big way. My ex and I had a huge falling out and have pretty much stopped speaking to each other.
I decided that the price of the condo was too good to pass up so my mother and I have agreed that I will purchase the condo for myself to live in. All the financial matters between myself and my mother have been resolved with no issues at all.
I met with my ex the other day and told him of my decision and also let him know that I had every intention of paying him back the $5000 he loaned me plus a bit more for his trouble and he totally freaked out!
The main issue I believe is that the property has risen in value substantially since we signed the original agreement (without having an official appraisal, we estimate it's gone up by at least $100,000 since then.) My ex is adamant that he is "owed" at least $45,000 as it is 40% of the total rise in value of the property plus his original $5000. He dismissed out of hand my original offer and has threatened to take me to small claims to get what's "owed to him."
His main issue is that he has put himself into debt quite badly in anticipation of the payoff (even though there was no guarantee as to how much money we would make or even if we would make any money at all) and he has become quite desperate as a result.
So my question is this - does he have any recourse here? I mean, I am more than happy to pay him back the original amount of the loan he gave me, with interest and more to show my appreciation but I cannot in good conscience (nor afford to) give him the $45,000 he is demanding.
His basis for threatening to take me to small claims court is that it was a verbal agreement and it was binding but my mother and I never sat down with him to discuss any sort of formal or informal agreement and as far as we were concerned he loaned me the money as a favor and I would have repaid him when we sold the property. My mother has agreed that she would testify to this as it's the truth and is backing me up 100% on this.
He has become quite mean and verbally disrespectful over this and I am due to take possession of the property in July so want to make sure that I won't lose my dream home because of an angry and in-debt ex partner.
Thanks for any advice you can give me - I really don't have a firm grasp of these matters and I believe that he might be trying to bully me into just paying him off as he knows how uncomfortable I am with these things.