Deed of Trust - Who does it protect?

melanierose

Hi all,

I'm buying a flat with my boyfriend as tenants-in-common. We're splitting all costs and ownership equally. However, we had to get the mortgage in my boyfriend's name only (FirstDirect allows us to put the title in both names) as I'm not a permanent UK resident.

My conveyancer told me we don't need a Deed of Trust, but having searched the internet extensively for information, I'm not sure I believe him.


I want to protect my boyfriend from being solely responsible for the mortgage. (For example, if I dump him and run away to the Bahamas, I don't want him stuck with the full mortgage!) How I can give him some legal protection that holds me accountable for half of the mortgage, with formally putting my name on the mortgage?

Any help (or better yet, legal references!) would be appreciated. Thanks!

BitterAndTwisted

You don't need any legal references. A Deed of Trust just puts in writing your intentions given every single outcome you can think of, most especially what happens to the deposit where the contributions are unequal, but nothing on God's earth can protect him if you do decide to run off to the Bahamas with a new toy-boy, not even having a joint-mortgage.

Even if you did have a joint-mortgage if one party fails to pay their "share" it has to be covered by the other party in order to not fall into arrears.

If you plan to share all costs and ownership equally why are you not going to be joint-tenants? Has someone explained to you the critical difference between tenants-in-common and joint-tenants? If not each other, who are you deciding will inherit their share if one of you should unfortunately die?

melanierose

Thanks for the response. I understand that, under joint tenancy, the share of the property passes to the other owner on their death. But for us, what would the advantages be?

At this point, we'd both be happy to leave each other with the property should one of us die.

(By the way, we do intend to re-mortgage in joint names in two years when I have indefinite leave to remain.)

Kynthia

A Deed of Trust is where you can legally identify the percentage of ownership if it's not 50:50 or if one of you wasn't on the deeds. I think it can also be used to agree what happens when you sell the property, such as if one of you was getting a deposit repaid before the remaining equity was split. I don't think it could be used to make you liable for the mortgage. However you may be able to get a legal agreement drawn up where you agree to pay half the mortgage and this would allow your partner to sue you if you don't.

melanierose

Kynthia wrote: »

However you may be able to get a legal agreement drawn up where you agree to pay half the mortgage and this would allow your partner to sue you if you don't.

Any idea what this would be called?

Thanks!