Question re Declaration of Trust and type of ownership

9wizard9

So it finally looks like we may get to exchange on our new house soon, yay!

I've got a quick legal question for anyone who might know (the solicitor confused me a bit, then went home - not back in till Tuesday, so I was hoping to get an answer before then).

My partner and I are putting in different proportions towards the purchase, both in terms of capital, and in terms of mortgage payments. Just in case we split up (though hopefully we won't!), we wanted to protect our unequal investment.

When I spoke to the solicitor ages ago, we were talking about setting up a Declaration of Trust describing our shares in the property. I had assumed that we would also need to own the house as tenants in common (as opposed to joint tenants), then we would make a will to leave our share to the other person just in case.

I got an email response today stating that we could use a Declaration of Trust regardless of whether we own the house as tenants in common or joint tenants. Now I'm confused.

Does anyone know what she might be suggesting about using a Declaration of Trust in conjunction with joint ownership - I don't understand how that would work?

Richard_Webster

It is probably technically true that you can still have a declaration of trust if you hold the property legally as joint tenants but in practice it is not very sensible.