Adding a name to mortgage and remortgaging

RhiBi

Hi, I'm sure you guys can help me here!

I own my house with mortgage (around £35,000 left to pay over 20 years), although I have been married for nearly 10 years the house is in my sole name, as my husband had a mortgage on another house, and we wanted to buy this before the other house was sold (hope that makes sense!). Since buying this house, I have become a stay at home mother - my husbands wage funding the mortgage.

We are now looking to remortgage and also have some extra money to do a loft conversion. However, I believe as I am not earning any money, I cannot get a mortgage - please correct me if I am wrong, as it would make life a lot easier if I could!!

I guess, what I am asking, is, do we firstly need to see a solicitor to add my husbands name to the house, and if so is this straight forward?? Secondly, how do we go about re-mortgaging - i realise that could take an essay to answer!!!

Thanks in advance for answers!

TangentMan

In theory when you remortgage (lets assume to another lender) then it is a brand new mortgage and therefore adding someone to it isn't that much hassle. However when you remortgage there are certain assumptions made about the beahviour of the past mortgage. When you start adding risk to the process (i.e. by adding another borrower) then costs can go up - most lenders will offer a cheap remortgage deal to poach you from a competitor but they don't like these things to get too complicated.

One solution might be a transfer of equity (as it is sometimes known) to add your husband to your existing mortgage. And then to consider a remortgage as a separate task. This might cost you a couple of hundred quid in the short term, but might simplify things in the longer term.

Phone your current lender (if you are staying with them) and ask them about the process. They might have a whizzy remortgage with TofE process and not bat an eyelid at it.

RhiBi

Thanks for your reply!

We went to our mortgage lender (Principality) and basically they said we need husbands name put on the deeds. To do this we need to see a solicitor, and then they will charge us £135 to change the paperwork - I assume by paperwork they mean type the words Mr Initial Surname onto a computer - grrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!

Vincenzo

RhiBi,

Make sure you speak to your solicitor about the stamp duty implications of the transfer. By transferring the deeds of the house from your name into both names, this is deemed to be a transfer of ownership like any sale/purchase of a property. Please ensure you speak with a solicitor but my understanding is that the original purchase price with be the figure on which the calculation is based. The amount on which stamp duty may be payable will be half that original purchase price. Thankfully the stamp duty threshold for 0% is now £125,000 so unless the original purchase price of your property was more that £250k there should be no liability. If on the other hand you bought at £300k - stamp duty would be payable at 1% on 25K.

Also I would be very surprised if all it costs you is £135. I presume this is pruely for the legal advice and exclusive of VAT? There will be disbursements involved as the mortgage will need to be registered and some searches will need to be undertaken. I suggest doing the transfer at the same time as the re-mortgage. Many lenders will offer to pay leagl fees (for normal remortgages) - we were asked to pay an additional amount towards the deed of transfer. If the property is a leasehold there may be other costs involved.

Just to confirm I am not a property lawyer but have had experience of this recently when my wife and I remortgaged. I hope this helps.