Transferring half of house to wife

dazz25

Hi,

I got married in September and the fixed rate is up at the end of the month on my current mortgage.

While I can remortgage without any redemption fees etc we've been contemplating applying for a joint mortgage and transferring half of the house into her name.

First of all I wanted to check if this is possible?

The house is worth £180000 so I don't think any stamp duty should be payable.

Secondly, my wife has a help to buy ISA. Would she lose out on the 25% government bonus if we were to do this?

Many thanks

KnowledgeIsLife

If you already own the property and are just adding her to this you would not have any stamp duty to pay anyway in terms of the H2B ISA since she is not actually buying a property I believe she would lose out on the bonus unfortunately unless you are to sell and buy a new house of course and when you remortgage you could indeed look into adding her to the mortgage and on the land registry

Neutrinno

Yes it's possible and yes she would, as the HTB ISA is exclusive for first time buyers. She would no longer be classed as a first time buyer if she becomes joint owner of your property.

dazz25

Thank you both. I thought that might be the case but thanks for the clarification.

KnowledgeIsLife

I have spoken to someone regards a lifetime ISA from Skipton building society and they said even though you would be adding her to an existing mortgage and property you own as it will be the first property owned by her she would be eligible for the bonus not sure if the same works for H2B ISA I would imagine it does or you could convert the H2B ISA to a lifetime one

foxy-stoat

If you only want to transfer 50% of the property then when you do the legals you will want Tenants in Common.

KnowledgeIsLife

Depends what you want if you get tenants in common means if she dies you would not automatically inherit her 50% so would leave you open to people claiming an interest in the property joint tenants would mean that I one of you died the other would inherit the whole property