Selling a house 6 months after purchase

sh856531

Hi all

I have an odd and slightly unfortunate situation that I'm hoping someone can advise on.

My partner recently took out a mortage on her first home (about 3 months before we met). It is a very small flat and is only really suitable for one person.

In the future (maybe in another 4 or 5 months) my current tenancy agreement will expire and I may want to move in with my partner.

The problem - her flat is too small and we need something bigger.

I am totally ignorant about such things but is it totally mad to consider moving home within a year of buying a mortgage

I suppose the things I'm wondering about are things like is it punitively expensive? I understand moving home has survey costs, lawyers fees, mortgage fees and so on - but is there anything that would make it even more expensive because we had only barely started paying the mortgage on the first property.

Basically I need to find a way to get a bigger property one way or the other and I'm just trying to find out if there are any particular implications to the fact that my partner has only just started paying her mortgage on her flat.

In case it has any bearing:
- Mortgage is 3 years fixed rate
- Property was bought as a shared equity scheme where the house builders loaned 15% of the property value. I don't know if this complicates things

Thanks in advance

S

BitterAndTwisted

If you've got money in savings it shouldn't be much of a problem, as long as the property is not sold in under six months. Buying and selling again tn that sort of time-scale can be very expensive indeed, never mind in a falling market. Your partner is unlikely to have paid a single penny off the loan but only made some payments towards the interest.

loubel

If her mortgage is fixed for 3 years there will likely be an early repayment penalty to be paid for paying the loan off during that time. These are usually a % of the loan balance so she should check her offer to see what the charge would be.

poppysarah

How long have you known her?

FurryPaws

sh856531 wrote: »

Hi all
My partner recently took out a mortage on her first home (about 3 months before we met). It is a very small flat and is only really suitable for one person.

In the future (maybe in another 4 or 5 months) my current tenancy agreement will expire and I may want to move in with my partner.

You're jumping the gun abit there if you have only known eachother for 3 months! If you're still together after 4-5 months then I would think it more sensible to rent somewhere together if her place is too small and for her to rent out the house.

Buying = mortgages arrangement fees, solicitor fees, survey fees etc
Same for selling and double it if buying again.

I would consider it foolish for her to put her place on the market so soon after buying it. Also, if you both move in together in a rented capacity it means she will still have a bolt hole if it all goes wrong and you will still have the rented place. It gets very complicated trying to untie yourself from a joint mortgage if you were to break up.

Richard_Webster

- Property was bought as a shared equity scheme where the house builders loaned 15% of the property value. I don't know if this complicates things

Oh dear! Newbuilds always go down in value because they are generally overpriced to start with. So did OH get 85% mortgage? If so she is probably in negative equity.

Does the amount repayable under the shared equity loan go down if the value of property goes down? Sometimes you have to repay the amount borrowed or 15% whichever is the greater so there would then be a double whammy!

Also as others have said if you have only known each other for such a short time are you really sure you want to link your finances so inextricably at such an early stage?

sh856531

> You're jumping the gun abit there if you have only known eachother for 3 months!

I'm not necessarily disagreeing you there. I'm just working through hypothetical at the moment. By the time I'm thinking about doing this we would have known one another for about a year and it's only a possible issue due to my tenancy agreement expiring. I'm just working through some scenarios in my head

Thanks for the advice!

S

Thrugelmir

sh856531 wrote: »

I'm not necessarily disagreeing you there. I'm just working through hypothetical at the moment. By the time I'm thinking about doing this we would have known one another for about a year and it's only a possible issue due to my tenancy agreement expiring. I'm just working through some scenarios in my head

Have you run any of these ideas past your partner?

kingstreet

On her sale;-

- estate agency fees
- early repayment penalties on mortgage
- high enough selling price to repay mortgage and loan?

On the purchase;-

- big enough deposit
- enough income to justify level of borrowing required
- valuation, survey and mortgage arrangement fees
- stamp duty
- solicitor's costs?

All these issues remain issues for the near future. The early repayment penalty probably for the three years of the fix. Negative equity concerns remain during the current economic conditions, possibly beyond. The remainder apply when you sell and buy at any time...

hazyjo

Can't you just go onto a rolling contract once your tenance agreement expires, or do you mean you know you're going to be booted out at the end of it? That'll take some of the pressure/rush off.

As someone who was engaged after 2 months, I know sometimes these things can move quickly! But the majority of times, 9/10 relationships (okay, I'm making up statistics here!) won't make it past 6 months. If I thought I'd buy something with everyone I dated for 3 months I'd probably own a whole town by now

Jx