Single or Joint Mortgage

decker27

I am newly married and my wife has a mortgage in her name where as I do not own any property. The ideal scenario for us (in the next year) would be for us to buy a property together whilst keeping my wife's current property and rent it out with a mortgage that allows consent to let. Can anybody advise whether it would be better for the current mortgage to stay in just my wife's name or for myself to be added to the mortgage in order to get a mortgage for the 2nd property that we wish to buy together to live in, assuming we both have good credit ratings or would it not matter who the mortgages are under just as long as who ever it is has a good credit rating?
Many thanks in advance

bigadaj

It would be best to leave the current mortgage alone probably, assuming you have the necessary deposits. In practice, as has been shown in many threads before, the consent to let is a short term arrangement normally made to allow someone to move for work etc. If you envisage letting for more than three years you need to get a buy to let mortgage and base letting the property on the cost of this, ie higher than a standard homeowner mortgage.

property.advert

Better for you to buy in your name only. Better for her to buy in joint names !

The best advice I ever ignored was to place a property in joint names when only I was required to be assessed to purchase it. It seemed the right and honourable thing to do but when things went wrong, it gave the other party unnecessary leverage over me which should not have existed.

I suggest you alone put down the deposit, you obtain the mortgage solely in your name, all bills are in your name only and you have lawyers draw up an agreement which means that you have no claim over her property and she has no claim over yours. She can rightly pay a proportion of the bills which are attributable to occupation.

If your marriage continues, you can revisit this in the future. If it all goes sour, you will not have too much trouble to go your separate ways.

Terribly pragmatic I know but like flipping a head in a coin toss, you only have a 50% chance of getting the result you want.