Ex tries to claim partner’s cats, so the partner accepts inflated shared home buyout, leaving the ex with a €80000 loss: ‘The cats are with me and doing great! I am now living my life to the fullest’

Author image for Etai Eshet
Etai Eshet • Editor
Jul 15, 2025 10:00 PM EDT

Breakups often devolve into petty accounting, but nothing warps a ledger faster than the threat of pet theft.

 In one spectacular case, an ex decided that two rescue cats made perfect bargaining chips, discovering too late that feline leverage can claw a bank account to pieces.  

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  • The duo had purchased a modest home together after years of uneven power. The homeowner worked on-call nights, handled every chore, and served as sole caretaker for the cats, while the partner commuted, complained, and stored resentment. When the relationship collapsed, both agreed to part on equal terms, each reclaiming original investments. Peace lasted until a squabble over a broken vacuum triggered the nuclear option: the partner demanded either a larger payout or custody of the cats.  

  • Threaten to take my cats, lose €80K

    *SOLD FOR SALE
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    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • I had to shorten the story a significant amount, I hope it still makes sense, the numbers at the bottom are not the exact amount, but ballpark and relative. How it started Early in my teens I tumbled into a deep depres on, and struggled for a long time.
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  • Within the first week of dating, I poured everything out. I told Ex I wasn't ready to socially transition at all, mind you I only recently got a decent paying job, still lived with my parents, etc.
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  • AS BE
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  • Ex seemed very supportive, and assured me they have no problem whatsoever with me being who I am, and so 4 years passed when we finally decided to buy a house together. Ex's parents however were loaded, and they made a nice. donation to Ex,
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  • Cheezburger Image 10529620736
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  • by splitting up their savings between siblings, when we told them about our plans. At this point we also discussed, that if things were to go sideways, we'd just friendly part ways and split everything back to each other's original investment.
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  • We made some offers and ended up buying a nice place, in between our two places of work. Since I had a car, commuting for me was easy, but for Ex it was more difficult. They had to take public transport every day for 1 hour there and 1 back.
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  • Out of the frying pan, into the fire. We adopted two cats as we were both animal people and CO ID just hit, so I wouldn't feel so lonely when working from home while Ex was out working on site.
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    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • However, the high I was riding of finally being independant, and being able to live my own life was short lived. See, my job requires me to be on-call for several days of the month (usually 7, 14 if a colleague is ill).
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  • My phone would ring in the middle of the night, waking us both up. We never really argued before, but I recall this as the breaking moment. Ex started acting in a way that i'd already seen before, my parental home.
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    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • In situations like this, I learned that agreeing is usually the quickest way to end confrontation, and so I slept on the couch not even a month after moving into my own house. Things escalated from there, after a few more months, I was doing all the work around the home,
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  • SOLD FOR SALE
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    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • That ultimatum flipped a switch. The partner produced an elaborate spreadsheet, hiking the buyout price whenever spite required extra seasoning. Hidden in the formulas sat a simple truth: every increase raised the cost on both sides. The homeowner listened, nodded, and at the peak of greed accepted the inflated figure, reminding the partner that email agreements carry legal weight and that the buyer covers all notary fees.  

  • I was the only one caring for the cats. If I didn't do it, nobody would. Besides that, I wasn't free to be who I wanted, I received mean comments when I did something gender affirming (for example, a new haircut.), note that at this point I was not ready to come out yet.
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  • I created an entire plan and timeline for myself. 2022. During the course of 2022, Ex did their best to keep me down, but I wouldn't let them. At some point Ex decided it would be easier to give up.
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  • We had a talk where we agreed we'd mutually break up, and divide everything fairly. I had every intention to keep the house, as my cats got used to it, I made some friends in the area and my work was relatively close.
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  • As Ex had no intention to keep the house (commuting to work while their parents lived in the town they worked in) we went on from the assumption that I would keep the house. One evening, somewhere in November last year, we had an argument over the money that I'd have to pay them.
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  • It started small as Ex had listed a broken vacuum cleaner on the list of items, and I started asking questions if we could scrap it. The argument evolved and Ex threatened to take my cats from me as part of the deal.
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  • This was the hill I was willing to di on, never threaten to take away my cats. I stopped arguing and started calling a friend, as I needed some support. Ex knocked my phone out of my hands, picked up their phone, called their parents and put them on speaker phone,
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  • the words Ex spoke, will haunt me forever. "OP is trans and wants to be a /insert gender/". My first instinct I won't share, but you can imagine. After calling a helpline I calmed down and I gathered my courage, and called up everybody I could think of and told them.
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  • I wasn't going to let Ex win this one. An hour after Ex's initial phone call, their dad showed up and started threatening lawyers, and spouting things like that I was mentally ill, I would never be a /insert gender/, and that they would do whatever it cost to get the house from me or leave me with as little as possible.
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  • Revenge Maliciouss compliance time! Fast forward a week or so, Ex sent over a new version of the proposed financial resolution, the amount that I had to pay Ex was increased by a significant amount.
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  • I wanted this to be over quickly so I just agreed, as long as Ex would cover the costs of the notary, as their amount was the maximum I could borrow from the bank (they did not know this). Ex did not agree, and hiked their price again.
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  • Papers were signed, funds transferred, and the partner became sole owner of a house never wanted. The property then lingered on the market, shedding price tags like autumn leaves until finally selling at a steep loss. Between the bloated buyout, taxes, and endless listing reductions, the cat thief paid roughly eighty thousand euros for a hiss that never arrived. The cats now bask in sunlit freedom, purchased entirely by hubris.

  • Stating that if I don't agree, the price will just continue to go up. Ex made an entire excel spreadsheet detailing their investment as well as mine. What I noticed was that, in the excel, everything was tied together.
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  • If Ex hiked their price, the price to buy me out, was getting hiked as well. And that's when I realised I had them by the b lls, see, they were blindsided and thought I would do anything to not move to my parents.
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  • I argued back an forth and played dumb at one point, just to drive up the price, the email stated that Ex forgot to calculate how much more the house was worth now than 2 years ago, and hiked the price by 20%, as per usual Ex copy pasted their calculations and said "This is the price you pay me, or this is the price I pay you."
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  • and that's when I took my chance. I agreed to let Ex buy me out for the amount specified, and in my reply also stated that all previous negotiations of who pays the notary would also be valid (the buyer).
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  • I ended my email with "I don't have to remind you that an agreement over email is just as valid as a contract". I pushed them to contact a notary within a reasonable time, or I would seek legal counsel to force them to pay my share, fast forward 2 weeks and I receive a call from the notary that they are working on the deed and need my details,
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  • approx a month later it would be ready to sign, I double checked the numbers, it was all there, and shortly after it was signed. The reason I'm posting this now, instead of at the end of 2022, is because like I said, Ex didn't want to keep the house,
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  • it went up for sale immediately, approx €40.000 above market value. I had the house favorited and checked periodically, every so often it would drop in price and receive the "new" sticker on the website.
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  • It dropped approx €60.000 before yesterday in total. When it was finally sold. I calculated the damages based on their handy excel sheet, and if we assume the initial fair split like we agreed 3-4 years ago.
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  • My ex lost about €40.000 of their own investment, not only in buying me out, but notary costs, taxes, etc. If we assume the split I initially agreed on to get it over with, my Ex lost out on €80.000.
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  • I am now living my life to the fullest, with friends and an amazing partner who is truly supportive. Lesson learned however, I bought a new place for myself (funded by Ex), I will never share ownership of ever again.
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  • Never threaten to take away my cats. EDIT: The cats are with me and doing great!
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  • TL;DR Ex outs me to their loaded parents and is blindsided by greed, threatens to take my cats, and is too overconfident in thinking I would not sell them my share of the house, increasing the price on both sides of the equation, costing them up to €80.000 when I agree.
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