Advice on Mortgage whether to sell or not

Dave_Barry

Man and a Woman going through a divorce. The woman is currently living in the house with child paying the mortgage but interest only. The mortgage on the house is still joint. The house is in negative equity by roughly £15000.

As part of the divorce agreement the woman could ask the man to get his name taken off the mortgage. Is this possible? The follow on to this question, would it be wise for the woman to do get his name taken off? The woman would like to move out the house in the next few years anyway. At the moment she is a bit trapped.

There are a few options she could do;

1. Start paying the mortgage off which would leave no money left at the end of the month. The worry with this option is that if interest rates go up she would not be able to afford this.

2. Carry on as she is and just pay interest only until the NRAM tell her she cant do it no more

3. Move out and rent the house out. She could not rent the house out and cover all cost inc Mortgage, insurance, management fees etc.

4. Sell the house. This would mean biting the bullet and taking on the £15000 worth of debt herself. Also she would then have rent another place.

The problem with the man is that he will not help with paying back the debt. He will not even have a civil conversation about it. We do not know what he is legally bound to pay, in my research I can only tell that the mortgage company will just take the money from where they can get it?

Also can he still take loans etc against the house even though he does not live in it? Is there any way to stop this?

From a legal stand point we do not know where we are and are finding it hard to get any decent information. Can anybody offer any advice from the above?

Thank You

Floxxie

You say that you are going through a divorce - whatever happens needs to form part of a Consent Order, which is the financial settlement aspect of a divorce.

You can ask for the other party to be taken off the mortgage but whether that would happen, depends on whether your borrowing satisfies the mortgage lenders requirements. In addition, while the other party remain as a named party, the mortgage lender can pursue them for mortgage payments as you are both jointly liable.

In essence, you need good legal advice. As a starting point, I recommend that you take a look at the wikivorce site and post your question.

Oops sorry just noticed that I have responded as if you are the person going through this...apologies

Talc1234

Bank is not going to remove his name from the mortgage. The woman mentioned could reapply for a mortgage in her name but due to the negative equity and issues about affordability this is unlikely to happen.

Remember in addition to the £15k negative equity there will be other costs in selling (Estate agents commission, legal costs, moving costs and deposit + fees for renting a new place)

I would continue to pay interest only for as long as allowed as this is likely to be cheaper than moving and renting. Wait for property prices to recover before selling.