overpaying my share of a mortgage

Borisfind

Hi all

I've recently bought a house with my boyfriend and I'd like to take advantage of the cheaper interest rates by overpaying the mortgage. My boyfriend and I are financially independent and split all the household bills (including the mortgage) in half and I wondered how I could start overpaying my half of the mortgage now to clear it faster. I'm not sure how to work this out though. Has anyone come across this before who could offer advise re the best way to work this out.

Many thanks everyone

Deb

Alter_ego

You don't have half of the mortgage. You are jointly and severally liable.
You cannot be financially independent from someone you share a mortgage with

amnblog

Give the money you intend to overpay to a family member you can trust to look after it for you.


That way the cash is there when you need it - without argument with your boyfriend over who owns what.


if you overpay - yes you reduce the interest - but he gets half that interest reduction benefit without contributing anything.

*~Zephyr~*

You are not financially independent from each other while you have a mortgage together.

Because of this, the best way to overpay would be if you both overpaid the same amount each month. I can't see how else you can work it because ultimately, the half and half split is a private arrangement between you and the boyfriend and is irrelevant to the lender. If one of you did a runner and stopped paying "their half" the other would be liable for the entire amount, not just their perceived half.

Frogletina

It comes down to trust in the end.

When I bought with my partner, I paid a deposit of 20%, and we split the mortgage in shares of 3/5

Later I paid off my remaining half of the mortgage, based on the outstanding mortgage balance at the time. My partner then was responsible for all the remaining mortgage payments, which meant no increase in payments for him.

Later we split up and it was then that it could have been a problem - after all this was an informal agreement between us.

However, once valued, I knew what 'my half' was worth and he agreed that his equity was half the value of the house less the outstanding mortgage payments.

I think it would have been more difficult to work out the 'assumed' percentage owned with overpayments.

He was trustworthy (in financial matters, at least) and I took over responsibility for the outstanding mortgage and he took his equity which by then was about 25% of the valuation.

frogletina

martinsurrey

Borisfind wrote: »

Hi all

I've recently bought a house with my boyfriend and I'd like to take advantage of the cheaper interest rates by overpaying the mortgage. My boyfriend and I are financially independent and split all the household bills (including the mortgage) in half and I wondered how I could start overpaying my half of the mortgage now to clear it faster. I'm not sure how to work this out though. Has anyone come across this before who could offer advise re the best way to work this out.

Many thanks everyone

Deb

How was the purchase structured legally (joint tenants, tenants in common?), was a deed of trust drawn up? what does that have to say on the matter?

getmore4less

ONe way to tructure this with independant(except for the mortgage debt) finances is with an offset that allows individual accounts to be offset against the joint debt.

That way you keep your overpayment cash seperate.

Adjusting the monthly payment share to account for this is relatively easy once you know how to do it.