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How do you take a name off a joint mortgage?

by Della2 04 February 2013 |

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My Ex partner and I had a joint mortgage (60% for me and 40% for my partner), it has a 5year fixed payment on it. He has now left the property and doesnt want anythink to do with it, we had been in the property 12months when he left and for 6 months of the 12 he hadnt had a job with no income coming in. All the payments come out of my bank account. I just dont know how im supposed to get his name off the mortgage. Can anyone advise what steps I need to take he has been gone for 4 weeks now??

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881

MikeGG1 posted
You have 3 options.

The first is to sell. You would then each receive your appropriate share of the proceeds after repayment of the mortgage. You would need his agreement to do this, or you could get a court to agree to the sale.

The second is for you to take over the property and mortgage. You would need to consult with the mortgage provider as to whether, or not, they would accept you as the sole name on the mortgage. There would only be your income to support the mortgage so they might not accept the proposal. Again, you would need the agreement of him or a court.

The third is the least satisfactory and is to leave things as they are for a while. That could be until you found someone else to help you take over the mortgage, for example. If it continues for more than a few months, you should get a legally binding agreement from him with regard to the eventual shares on disposal reflecting his non-contribution to future mortgage payments.

Whatever happens, you will need a solicitor, but you need to decide which route you are able to go down first. Talk to your mortgage provider very soon.

Mike
Posted on 04 February 2013 | Love 0 loves Report
881

MikeGG1 posted
I should have asked if there was a Declaration of Trust in your original purchase with anything to do with what might happen in the event of a split.

It is always best to set out what should happen in the event of a split or of the death of either party when you are not expecting it to occur.

Mike
Posted on 04 February 2013 | Love 0 loves Report
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Della2 posted
Thank you for the advise, not that im aware of I dont think there is a Declearation of Trust in the papers, however I think there is a clause within the ratio of the agreement regarding unemployment etc, I think I need to read through my papers with the solicitor to see where I stand. But he doesn't want anythink to do with it, he has agreed to sign all the paperwork when it comes through
Posted on 04 February 2013 | Love 0 loves Report
881

MikeGG1 posted
In that case you need to check with the mortgage provider if they will accept your sole name on the mortgage before consulting the solicitor. Option 2 is best, if you can get their agreement.

Once you know what you can do, then you can consult your solicitor to get it done.

Mike
Posted on 05 February 2013 | Love 0 loves Report
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exportlink88 posted
Why do you want his name off the mortgage ?

Or you want his name off the title deed ?
Posted on 06 February 2013 | Love 0 loves Report
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jamesbailey20 posted
Hi Mike,

I am reading this post with interest as the same situation has happened witb me.

I wish in to have my ex-partners name taken off title deeds. To cut a long story short. This is a joint mortgage, however a large equaty sum was put into the house from the sale of my last house (solo mortgage). My ex partner has now left has house, is and hasn't really paid anything to the repayment costs of this mortgage. We had no declaration of trust documents before arranging mortgage (silly me) and although I am managing full repayments on my own, on paper, the mortgage company says that my income is not high enough to apply to covert to solo mortgage. To add insult to injury, my access to future financial products is now very limited as both of our credit ratings suffered badly during the split. All I know is that my ex-partner knows he isn't due or expecting any share of the house. My question is, is there anyway I can get a soliticors agreement drawn up (which he says he will sign) to protect my financial securities, in the future, over this house, if I am paying for everything and he has long-gone?

Thank you

Thank you,
Posted on 06 February 2013 | Love 0 loves Report
81

rbgos posted
If you want to take your ex's name of the mortgage, the bank will likely insist that the house is also in your name alone too. This will require a solicitor to transfer the deeds into your sole name, which will be an additional thing to arrange, and will probably cost a few hundred quid.

However, as jamesbailey20 has found, the biggest hurdle is often proving to the bank that you can support the mortgage payments on your own. The fact that you have been paying them without problem for several years is not good enough, they will still insist that you meet their standard lending criteria.

I'm going through this at the moment (taking my name off so my ex has the house and morgage in her name alone), and the bank are being VERY obstinate, not really helped by the fact that we both work freelance. I suspect the banks have been forced to tighten up their lending criteria after all the irresponsible lending during the noughties, and have now gone so far in the other direction that they cannot make a common-sense decision based on the fact that the mortgage has been, and continues to be, paid without problem.
Posted on 06 February 2013 | Love 0 loves Report
881

MikeGG1 posted
No lender would allow a name to be removed from the mortgage without that name being removed from the house deeds as well. If they did allow it they would finish up with an 80% mortgage, say, and only have security of 50% of the house. That would be a non-starter. However the various posters are really after the one name removed from both.

The problem is that in the last few years before the crash, lenders were allowing stupidly high multiples of both salaries. Now they are down to a sensible 3-4 x salary.

That means that they will only allow about half of what they were and if there is only one salary instead of two, that results in just a quarter of what was previously available.

In addition, they will no longer allow self-employed people to self-certify their earnings, now requiring 3 years audited accounts instead, which is probably what RBGOS has found.

One way round the situation of a shortfall under the new criteria is to get someone to guarantee the mortgage. Parents who have already paid off their mortgage or have a high equity level in their home are sometimes accepted to enable the transfer to go ahead. They wouldn't have to contribute to the mortgage if their offspring was able to do it him/herself.

The first stage is to find out whether the lender would be prepared to accept the single name and if not whether they would accept a guarantor. If they need a guarantor then one will need to be found before approaching a solicitor to do the work. If you employ a solicitor before then, you would run up extra bills and you might not be able to achieve anything for it.

Mike
Posted on 07 February 2013 | Love 0 loves Report

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