Shared Mortgage

What2Do

My friend and i have a mortgage on a house together. He is now looking to move abroad as he has a new job and wants to pass his 'share' of the house onto me. I have a couple of questions...

1. Is this possible?

2. If yes, along with being able to prove i can take the extra payments on will i have to stump up any cash for another deposit (of sorts) as well?

3. I assume we will need to get solicitors involved and we cant just do this through the mortgage company?

Thanks for your help!

Foxy-Stoat_3

Its called a Transfer of Equity.

You will need to speak to your lender and if your income is sufficient for you to take over the mortgage on your own and their lending criteria is ok then its straightforward.

Factor in mortgage fees and legal costs.

tBagpuss_2

I assume you'd be paying your friend for his share in the equity?

What you're planning to do is a transfer of equity - in effect, you would be buying the house from you-and-your-friend.

You would normally need to be able to get a mortgage for the amount of the existing mortgage + 50% of the equity, so you can pay off the current, joint mortgage and pay your fiends for his share of the equity.

If you stay with the same lender they will probably treat this as a re-mortgage, which may mean slightly lower costs than if you were starting from scratch with a new lender. You would need to check with your lender whether they would be willing to waive any eal redemption penalties (if there are any).

You will need a solicitor.
Also be aware that may really cheap conveyancing factories find transfers of equity very confusing and that they are sometimes excluded from 'free legal fees' offers form mortgage lenders (possibly because they are common when couples are divorcing, given that they are not really particularly complicated!)