Shared ownership with parents?

user_21

OK so my wife and I are currently renting but have been thinking about buying our first home. We don't have any deposit at the moment though, so it won't be happening just yet.

Then my wife had a chat with her mum and they came up with an idea:

The in-laws own their house outright, worth about 400k.The idea was that they sell their house, and put their 400k down as a deposit on a much larger house, say 600k, where the 4 of us would be joint owners but my wife and I just pay the 200k mortgage.
The house would need specific requirements, like ideally being split in 2 to some extent so that we get a bit of privacy.

Can such a setup exist with all 4 of us jointly owning the house?

Cakeguts

You have to get on really really well with your mother in law and father in law to do this. It would probably be a lot better for the family as a whole if you just did some serious saving. There is no guarantee that you would be able to get planning permission to divide the house. It sounds very complicated all you have to do is to do some saving.

eddddy

I guess you'd need to speak with a mortgage advisor, to see if a lender would agree to that arrangement. If all four people own the property, the mortgage will probably have to be in four names as well.

This may also be a problem for a mortgage lender:

user_21 wrote: »

...like ideally being split in 2 to some extent so that we get a bit of privacy.

To get the mortgage initially, the property might have to be configured as a single family home. (But once you've bought it, the mortgage lender won't know if you reconfigure it a bit.)

user_21

Ok so just to clear a couple things up; I don't necessarily want to split the house in to 2 different houses. Just something big enough to have a mental split.

We are very close with the in laws, there's no danger of any sort of future fall outs.

And whilst they are comfortable, they don't have the money to just lend us the deposit. Their cash is all tied up in their house.

Just to add some context, the father in law is showing early signs of dementia, nothing too serious but they function better when we're around. Also we have a toddler who is often with my in laws so it would be mutually beneficial if we all lived in a big house together. (We live very close together right now)

Red-Squirrel_2

Do you really want to live with your in-laws, possibly forever? They'll know all your business, you'll know all theirs, no matter how big the place is you'll never have the kind of privacy most adults want.

If your in-laws own a £400k house outright and want to help you, would they consider releasing a bit of that equity and giving you some money for a deposit on a little place where you could live as a couple and not be completely dependent on them and in each others' pockets?

Windofchange

Who am I to say what people should do, but surely they should be looking to downsize not upsize? Going down these lines, why not sell the house for 400k, they spend 200k on a retirement type flat and give you 200k as a deposit on your forever home? They still live mortgage free, and depending on the area of the country could get a decent sized property, you get your 200k and your mortgage to get a family home.

Even if I could buy buckingham palace I would last about 5 minutes living with my parents before wanting to strangle one of them. Lovely people mind, but just no.

Marvel1

What would happen if in laws need full time care in future?