Declaration of Trust

pancreas

Hi All,

Another FTB here. Here is where we are at:

Offer accepted
Mortgage offered, saying yes tomorrow - hopefully accepted?

I am buying with a partner. I am putting in a lot more than my partner, now we all know that things can and do go wrong, so do I:

a. Get a declaration of trust to safeguard my deposit or
b. Accept repayments from my partner so that overtime, we become joint owners? Likewise, is there a form we need to sign for this agreement?

thanks,

Robert_Sterling_3

pancreas wrote: »

Accept repayments from my partner so that overtime, we become joint owners?

You will become joint owners on day one and you will become jointly and severally responsible for the morgage on day one.

julieq

A deed of trust specifies how you own the house and in what proportions, so yes, you need one. Your conveyancing solicitor will advise.

If you're paying different proportions of the acquisition costs (deposit plus fixed costs such as stamp duty or anything you decide are essential, for example wiring and so on) then paying equal shares of the mortgage, you can specify that some of any profit or loss is split in proportion to the contributions with the rest 50/50. It's pretty much up to you what you do.

Richard_Webster

Make sure you both understand all the possible implications of what you are doing and how any formula you agree will work out in practice. Try different hypothetical situations of keeping the property a long time or splitting up after only a few months, along with dramatic increases and falls in proeprty prices - see whether any formula proposed works out in practice and whether you both think the result is fair.

A lot of the problem with these agreements./trust deeds is that people agree some formula without really thinking through what it means, and then something happens they didn't expect and they argue about what the agreement means....So a lot of the cost for me as a solicitor in dealing with these is to make sure that everyone concerned does understand the implications.