Mortgages and marriage

happycamper7

Hi all,

My first post here, so be gentle with me.

My partner and I are looking to buy a house together either later this year or next year. We realise it may take a while to find the right property, but we want a mortgage on paper before we started seriously looking so we know we are not overstretching ourselves and that the finance will be forthcoming when we need it. We will have a good deposit (100k) and both have permanent full time jobs, so getting a mortgage should not overly be a problem. At the moment we are living in rented property, so no chain to worry about either.

However, we are also getting married in the autumn, and would like to know if there is any benefit to waiting until after the wedding to get the mortgage sorted. We do not want to have to pay any fees to change names or anything, and did not know if there is any legal difference in the contracts when we are married or not.

Thanks

kingstreet

Makes no difference. Simple process to change names and no charge as far as I know.

neverdespairgirl

And no need to change the names anyway.

happycamper7

Thanks for the replies. I'm bemused by the second one though, as if I change the name on my bank account, surely the mortgage company would expect me to change my name too, or the payments would appear to be being made by a third party? Perhaps you are going to tell me there's a whole section on here I should read about marriage and changing names and money?!

kingstreet

Nope. You can change the name on your mortgage now. Or change it when you take out a new one by applying in your new name.

Our mortgage still has my wife's maiden name despite us getting married in 2003.

CLAPTON

I'm not sure the point of getting a mortgage offer now if you aren't expecting to actually buy for some considerable time; it's likely an offer will be time limited

getmore4less

I would just do your own affordability calculations.

work out what you can afford each month

stick it in a calculator
http://www.whatsthecost.com/mortgage.aspx

with some average numbers say 25 years and 5% see what mortgage size that buys.

do a 4* salary multiple

pick the lowest
add £100k will that buy the sort of house you want.
is the resulting LTV < 80% good, higher not so good.

happycamper7

CLAPTON wrote: »

I'm not sure the point of getting a mortgage offer now if you aren't expecting to actually buy for some considerable time; it's likely an offer will be time limited

As soon as the have a mortgage offer we will be seriously looking (rather than just obsessively browsing property sites). If we have the finance lined up surely we are in a good position to make a quick offer should the right property come up? However we do have quite specific requirements, so I am trying not to get my hopes up and think we will find something straight away, as we know realistically it may not happen like that.

getmore4less wrote: »

is the resulting LTV < 80% good, higher not so good.

LTV?

kingstreet

Percentage of the price of the property you need to borrow is the loan to value.

EG - £100,000 purchase price with £80,000 mortgage is 80% LTV.

InMyDreams

happycamper7 wrote: »

LTV?

Loan To Value. How much you want to borrow divided by how much the house is worth. The bigger percentage of the value you want to borrow, the riskier you are to the banks so the higher rates you can expect to pay.

Edit: Argh - crossed posts!

happycamper7

Thank you both!