Adding spouse to a mortgage - are these costs reasonable?

daugapils

Hi everyone

I have an outstanding mortgage of 235000 out of 250000 for a house that was purchased two years ago. My wife was not working when we bought a house so we did not add her to the mortgage and she is not on the house deeds to.She works now and she did pass the required credit checks to be added to the mortgage. I have two children from previous marriage that live with their mum but we don't have any kids with my wife.
As current 2 years mortgage deal with Nationwide is approaching, I have asked a mortgage broker to check whether we can get a new 3 years deal with Nationwide or some other mortgage provider. It happened that renewing with Nationwide was the best choice.
Main reason we want to have my wife to the deeds/mortgage is to ensure that she gets to keep the house in the case of my death. I also have a pretty good life insurance package from my employer which is large enough to pay off the entire remaining mortgage in case I die while employed there.
Speaking to my mortgage advisor I have asked him to let me know if he can suggest a solicitor as the one we used for a house purchase was pretty slow ( online only solicitors where you get what you pay for but that was my own choice). He suggested a solicitor that would charge £800 excluding VAT, plus £100 disbursements . No stamp duty to pay and Nationwide will charge a £125 fee for a change of borrower application. So in total with VAT this change would cost us £1185 at minimum. This seems pretty steep to me.
Few questions popped into my mind following this conversation:

- Does charging £800 plus VAT sound like a reasonable quote for this kind of service? Quick online search shows prices way below that.

- If I do decide to skip adding wife to the mortgage this time , I guess we can have it done at any point during our mortgage as long as Nationwide is happy?

- Since the main point of adding my wife to the deeds is to ensure she keeps the house after my death, are there are other alternatives to do it at this point without forking out that much money, like writing a will?

Thank you!

missile

You should make 2 wills detailing what should happen to your assets on your / your wife's death.

Do you have a joint bank account?

csgohan4

why not get some quotes from your local solicitors in your city and compare the prices

buglawton

I did the same thing but within the terms of an existing mortgage.
Basically the lender will insist on your wifes name being put on the mortgage before they'll permit rhe deed naming change.
It was an administrative process to get my lender to put my wifes name on the mortgage, subject to credit checking of course. There may have been an admin fee paid to the lender, something like £250. No conveyancing was needed to put my wifes name on the deeds so we didn't pay a solicitor for that. I can't remember if we had our solicitor do the application to the land registry for the addition of a name to the deeds but if she did it wasn't more than £100. It's worth checking whether you can apply directly to the land registry and only have to pay their admin fee. An £800 'conveyancing' fee sounds completely over the top.

Nebulous2

I'd put her on. I think you could do better than that costwise. If it is a new application don't Nationwide provide £500 towards legal costs?

buglawton

Check this, it almost looks like a DIY procedure:
https://www.gov.uk/registering-land-or-property-with-land-registry/transfer-ownership-of-your-property
The lender will have a charge on the property so the lender will need to supply the permission for the deed alteration. Again, is a solicitor even needed and if so, why would their fee be more than £150?

ACG

£800 + vat seems high.
You are only paying for a transfer of equity, so it should be about half that I would have thought. Admittedly it has been a whilst since I have done one.

Edit:
I have just done a quote with the guys we use and £800+ vat is high, I am getting £461.00 which includes all legal fees, disbursements & VAT.

Although just as a get out of jail free card, this is based on limited information and assumes straight forward situation, no money changing hands, freehold property and so on. Your broker has a lot more information to go off.

daugapils

missile wrote: »

You should make 2 wills detailing what should happen to your assets on your / your wife's death.

Do you have a joint bank account?

We don't have a joint bank account but it should be no issue whatsoever to get it

daugapils

csgohan4 wrote: »

why not get some quotes from your local solicitors in your city and compare the prices

I made few online quotes and they are all below 600 mark (including VAT) hence I was a bit perplexed to get a quote for over a grand

daugapils

buglawton wrote: »

I did the same thing but within the terms of an existing mortgage.
Basically the lender will insist on your wifes name being put on the mortgage before they'll permit rhe deed naming change.
It was an administrative process to get my lender to put my wifes name on the mortgage, subject to credit checking of course. There may have been an admin fee paid to the lender, something like £250. No conveyancing was needed to put my wifes name on the deeds so we didn't pay a solicitor for that. I can't remember if we had our solicitor do the application to the land registry for the addition of a name to the deeds but if she did it wasn't more than £100. It's worth checking whether you can apply directly to the land registry and only have to pay their admin fee. An £800 'conveyancing' fee sounds completely over the top.

Thank you!

daugapils

Nebulous2 wrote: »

I'd put her on. I think you could do better than that costwise. If it is a new application don't Nationwide provide £500 towards legal costs?

Thank you , I am going to visit Nationwide branch to figure out what is the exact process to see if costs can be covered.