Divorce & property

MadAboutMoney

My wife and I are going to get divorced. Whilst the getting divorced bit seems straight forward (as it is amicable so we can agree on the splitting of assets etc.) we are concerned about the properties we own.

We own two houses.
1) Owe £1 on a nominal balance mortgage
2) Owe £30,000 on standard repayment mortgage

Both mortgages are in joint names.

Our plans are for my wife to own property 1 and for property 2 to be sold and the proceeds to be shared equally.

Now, I think the easiest regarding property 1 is to pay off the balance and state in the divorce proceeding that she is to have that. (If possible in the divorce system)

Property 2 is more complicated as we can't pay off the balance first.

Can anyone offer any advice on any of the above?

Thanks in advance

DS4215

That split does leave you at a disadvantage - she gets one property and half of the other property while you get half of one property.. Where are you going to live afterwards (you might be better keeping 2 and buying her out) - and how much are the houses worth relatively?

NAR

What is wrong with selling property 2, paying the £30k mortgage, and then splitting the balance left - seems obvious to me.

MadAboutMoney

Thanks for the quick replies

Property 1 is worth 60K and my wife is getting my half of that as she had a lump of equity in her house when I moved in with her 25 years ago. My half of Property 1 is me giving her that back. I'm happy with this.

We do plan to sell property 2 (approx. value 230k), pay of the mortgage and split the balance, my concern is how do we do that and get divorced at the same time?

I suspect I may be getting unduly concerned.

After further thought I now think what should happen is this:

Get divorced (straight forward and I don't think we need to mention assets if we are in agreement over how they should be split - am I wrong?)

Do a transfer of equity of property 1 to my wife (or pay off the £1 owing and transfer it then. Don't know which is best)

Sell property 2 and once balance is in joint bank account, spilt the money.

Would the building society need to be informed and would they have a problem with that?

What's the best way (cheapest) of transferring property 1 into just wife's name?

Or am I wrong again?

Thanks

FatVonD

Could you not remortgage property 2 in your own name to pay her the £100k she is due from that? I know £130k is quite a large mortgage but you'd save yourself a fortune on the fees/stamp duty etc entailed in selling that property and buying somewhere else.

MadAboutMoney

FatVonD wrote: »

Could you not remortgage property 2 in your own name to pay her the £100k she is due from that? I know £130k is quite a large mortgage but you'd save yourself a fortune on the fees/stamp duty etc entailed in selling that property and buying somewhere else.

Sorry, did mean to cover that bit...

Can't re-mortgage, unemployed at the moment and although I am going back to work it won't pay enough for a 130k mortgage.

When the money is split I will be looking at buying a small house/flat and they can be had around here for 90-120k So will only have a small mortgage

NAR

Sounds like the best thing to do is go ahead with divorce and get Financial Consent Order (with clean break settlement mentioned) at the same time. It will set out your agreed financial split, change of ownership and sale of houses etc, which should be fairly straightforward if things are as amicable as you state in post #1.