Shared ownership when already part-owning a house

Annisele

JohnFenwick said:

So the property is valued around £700K roughly.  About £20K left on the mortgage.  My parents barely have any savings.  
So I assume that rules my father buying me out of the house to get my name off it?  Or could he still potentially do an equity release, etc on his share?

He's not going to be able to do an equity release just on his share. But if he ends up the sole owner of the property (or he owns it jointly with your mum, not you) then he/they might be able to do do equity release on the entire property.

How do you and your dad own the property? Joint tenants, tenants in common with 50/50 share, something else?

Just as an example, I'm going to assume tenants in common with a 50/50 share. In that case, you own something worth £340k (half of the equity in the property). You could buy a nice house outright in much of the country with that sort of money, but it doesn't sound as though you have any way to actually turn the property into cash (on the grounds your parents won't sell and can't borrow much).

Staying with my example but moving somewhat into cloud cuckoo land, let's assume you have £20k in cash. You could pay off the mortgage with your £20k if you wanted, then sell the property to your parents for £1. In effect, that would mean you'd given a gift of £360k to your parents. I suspect you've nowhere near the means for that to seem palatable, but I offer it as an illustration.