Mortgage with ex dilema

Jilly7974

Hi,

Im looking for a bit of advice please regarding a shared mortgage with my ex husband.

We separated nearly 4 years ago and I moved out with our 3 children into a rented property, then we divorced last year (with just an agreement for the children nothing regarding the house). As he has never been in a financial position to re-mortgage in his own name we kept the house in joint names with a joint mortgage and he has continued to live there. The mortgage has constantly been run in arrears and he has been close to repossession a few times but managed to avoid it by agreeing a new repayment plan. We also have a defaulted loan in joint names that he took out for his car but has not paid, as such my credit record is pretty rubbish even though I have never missed my rent or car loan since I left.

He asked me a few weeks ago if I would like to take over the house with my new partner and he wants to move into his girlfriends house. My partner and I have steady jobs with the NHS and rent in a nice area about 30 miles away from my ex's house. I don’t want to move my children back as they are really settled and my son is doing his GCSE's so us living there isn’t an option, but we are not in a position to buy our own house as we have nowhere near the deposit needed for a mortgage these days.

The house is worth about £170K (if I tidied it up a bit) with a mortgage of £154K with Platform mortgage company (???), the mortgage payments are about £640 a month with approx 3 months payments in arrears at the moment.

(Sorry for the longwinded back story!)

So my question is finally can I take over the house with my partner, get him off the mortgage, put the deeds in our names and then rent it out?

We could probably get around £650 - £700 per month rental for it which would cover the mortgage (with current interest rates!). Even if we had to pay a couple of hundred a month towards insurances, interest, rate rises etc? I don’t know if it may be worth it to be on the property ladder and improving my credit rating by having up to date payments on the mortgage for a few years?

Any advice would be very gratefully received

LittleMrsThrifty

It's really a question for the mortgage company. You could do it if they will lend you the cash. Whether you would be advised to do it is another matter.

mountainofdebt

I don't know the answer to your question (although you would need to remember that a buy-to-let, which is effectively what you would be purchasing, would attract higher interest rates than for a mortgage if you lived in the property)

But what does your ex what out of the situation. Is he prepared to walk away from a share of the £16K equity ?

Jilly7974

He offered me £5K to sign the house over to him last year, so maybe the same?

paddy's_mum

When you divorced, why on earth didn't either of your solicitors point out the potentially dynamite consequences of leaving the house/mortgage situation so up in the air and wide open for future catastrophe?

LittleMrsThrifty

paddy's_mum wrote: »

When you divorced, why on earth didn't either of your solicitors point out the potentially dynamite consequences of leaving the house/mortgage situation so up in the air and wide open for future catastrophe?

I wondered this also. Have you completed the divorce in full or just reached the decree nisi stage?

One way or another the situation needs sorting as for you and your children to move out leaving your ex alone in a house you own, with your name on a mortgage he has run into arrears is complete madness.

paddy's_mum

My alarm bells are clanging fit to give me a headache:eek:

You are being dragged down by debt - by both the skin of the teeth mortgage payments and the defaulted loan - and yet it doesn't seem to have occurred to you to simply sell the house, clear the outstanding debts, free yourself of your ex-husband, clean up your act and start rebuilding your own good name in financial matters.

I really don't wish to be rude, insensitive or condemning but if the two of you didn't see the commonsense of deciding a practical route for dealing with the house/mortgage, do you think that you are now properly equipped to become a Landlord?

Let's suppose that the letting out plan comes to pass. How will you pay the mortgage if your tenant decides to play the unsuspecting Landlord for a fool, stops paying rent and trashes the house? You don't believe me? Nip across to the House Buying and Renting board and spend a few minutes there to have your eyes opened.

Finally (and as bluntly as I know how, for which I make no apology whatever) you are now proposing [as I read it at least] to go helter-skelter into getting your new partner's name on the deeds. Why? Have you no sense of danger? Do you think that lightning never strikes twice in the same place? Do you enjoy being made extremely vulnerable (and your children with you) because you hope that everything in the garden will remain rosy?

The very best advice that I can give you is this - find a good solicitor who specialises in property law. Good luck.

FATBALLZ

If your credit record is as poor as you're making it out to be I'd be surprised if the bank would agree to it. They'd probably rather have 2 unreliable people responsible for the money they're owed than 1, twice the chance of getting their money back.

Also I'd check whether the £170k valuation of the house is realistic, did you get it professionaly valued or is this just what you think it is worth? There's a hell of a lot of people at the moment with completely unrealistic ideas of how much they will get for their houses if they sell them.

FATBALLZ

paddy's_mum wrote: »

My alarm bells are clanging fit to give me a headache:eek:

You are being dragged down by debt - by both the skin of the teeth mortgage payments and the defaulted loan - and yet it doesn't seem to have occurred to you to simply sell the house, clear the outstanding debts, free yourself of your ex-husband, clean up your act and start rebuilding your own good name in financial matters.

I agree with this, if I was you I'd be selling the place - however this is also why the valuation is important, you may be in negative equity and not realise it, in which case selling could be a problem.

eklynne

paddy's_mum wrote: »

My alarm bells are clanging fit to give me a headache:eek:

You are being dragged down by debt - by both the skin of the teeth mortgage payments and the defaulted loan - and yet it doesn't seem to have occurred to you to simply sell the house, clear the outstanding debts, free yourself of your ex-husband, clean up your act and start rebuilding your own good name in financial matters.

I really don't wish to be rude, insensitive or condemning but if the two of you didn't see the commonsense of deciding a practical route for dealing with the house/mortgage, do you think that you are now properly equipped to become a Landlord?

Let's suppose that the letting out plan comes to pass. How will you pay the mortgage if your tenant decides to play the unsuspecting Landlord for a fool, stops paying rent and trashes the house? You don't believe me? Nip across to the House Buying and Renting board and spend a few minutes there to have your eyes opened.

Finally (and as bluntly as I know how, for which I make no apology whatever) you are now proposing [as I read it at least] to go helter-skelter into getting your new partner's name on the deeds. Why? Have you no sense of danger? Do you think that lightning never strikes twice in the same place? Do you enjoy being made extremely vulnerable (and your children with you) because you hope that everything in the garden will remain rosy?

The very best advice that I can give you is this - find a good solicitor who specialises in property law. Good luck.

Harsh, but so so true. I was/am in a similar situation. Split with ex, didn't sort out the mortgage which remained in both names with myself and dd staying there. Without going in to too much detail, I am now bankrupt, he has seemingly absconded off the face of the planet and I'm having to start again from scratch while some lucky sod will get our old place at a fraction of the cost at auction and I'll get nothing. I can't urge you enough, if you're happy and settled now, get your name off that mortgage asap.