Joint Mortgage with ex partner. House in negative equity. Helpful advice needed pls

Toffee_Man

Hi

I joined today for some advice hopefully, also I'm new to all so apologies in advance.

I'll give you a bit of my story and hopefully someone can give me a bit of guidance of my next move

I took my first mortgage out (Northern Rock) with my ex girlfriend around 12 years ago and she put a deposit of 10% down. Around 2 - 3 years later as she was going on maternity leave and we changed the mortgage to an interest only with the view of after we had the children we would change it back to a repayment when she went back to work. We split up during the interest only payments and the account was put in a "marital dispute".

I have been paying the mortgage every month since I moved out and the way I've been looking at it is that was my child maintenance ( i have 2 kids with her ). I have paid this in full on my own for 4 years. This is still an interest only deal and at the minute she doesn't earn enough to even contribute or change the deal.

Problem I have now is I have a new mortgage with my new partner and a new baby and money can be tight each month. I have been on the CSA calculator and the money I pay is well over double I should be, I'd love to hear if anyone has been or is in a similar situation or knows of a solution. I am on very good terms with my ex so i'm not looking of diddling her I just want to know if we have any options... I would love to sell the house but it's in negative equity of around 10 - 12 k and neither of us would be able to settle that debt.

I'm sure i have left bits of key info out so if anyone thinks they can help please leave a response

Trying_to_be_good

There are a few facts to clarify:
Were you married, are you still married?
Was the mortgage (and title deeds of the house) with your ex-partner in both your names, or just hers?
Is the mortgage (and title deeds of the house) with your new partner in both your names, or just hers?

Clean break settlements (bar child support) are normally easier as everyone knows where they stand.

The CSA (or their new name) may or may not recognise the mortgage payments as in lieu of child support - you may end up with a bill for child support, too, so check out your info.

There'll then be some questions about the value of the house, mortgage amount, salary etc. Quite a lot of different factors!

foxy-stoat

What do you want to achieve, reduce your out goings as you say money is tight? As you are on the mortgage board I assume you want out of the mortgage somehow.

You cannot sell the house without clearing the negitive.
You will not be able to be removed from the mortgage while its in negitive equity and if the lender thinks that she cannot afford it on their own.

Your only option is to save as much money as possible and hope that local house prices go up so at very worst you can sell and cover the fees and walk away with nothing.

What you do for your child until they are 18 is another matter.

Toffee_Man

I was never married and thats still the case with my new partner,
The mortgages are both in my name as well as their name, is this the same as title deeds of the house ?
I know it might be daft to ask but what is Clean break settlements ?

As for the CSA when we separated they advised to sort payment privately and only go through them if there was any issues or if an arrangement couldn't bee agreed .

Toffee_Man

Another thing someone has mentioned is to continue the child payments to the amount the CSA advise and let her top up that amount to pay the mortgage and if she can't then it'll go to repossession. I don't really like the sound of that to be honest but is that an option ? also i'm not really sure how it affects me and my ex partner

Trying_to_be_good

Presumably you've passed the second mortgage lender's checks for affordability on that second mortgage, whilst also continuing the first mortgage, which is unusual.

On the first mortgage, you're both jointly liable. Is it an option to sell the house, pay off the negative equity, then your ex-partner buy (or if not able to get a mortgage, rent) a cheaper home? Otherwise you need to hang in there until she can.

Toffee_Man

Yeah I passed the lenders checks ( albeit just about ) . Can I just ask why would that be unusual? as i'm due to look for new deals in the next few months.

Selling the house and paying off the negative equity isn't really an option so looking at it i'd either have to look at changing to deal to a repayment ( if we could) or continuing until she is in a better financial position , would the repossession be a bad option then yeah ?

Toffee_Man

Yeah I passed the lenders checks ( albeit just about ) . Can I just ask why would that be unusual? as i'm due to look for new deals in the next few months.

Selling the house and paying off the negative equity isn't really an option so looking at it i'd either have to look at changing to deal to a repayment ( if we could) or continuing until she is in a better financial position , would the repossession be a bad option then yeah ?

foxy-stoat

Toffee_Man wrote: »

would the repossession be a bad option then yeah ?

Errrr yeah, it would trash your credit file and would affect your chances of remortgaging in the future.

Toffee_Man

foxy-stoat wrote: »

Errrr yeah, it would trash your credit file and would affect your chances of remortgaging in the future.

I thought it was a bad move but i'm pretty green when it comes to all this. Thanks for the reply

getmore4less

How long have you had this new place if got when lenders were less picky(because they have new rules) then that could explain it.

Any equity in the new place?
Are the mortgages with different lenders?

Getting repo is likely to make the debt bigger unless you manage the sale yourselves and they let you have the shortfall unsecured.

it may trash your credit but you have the fallback of retention deals with the current one.