Mortgage advice - partners moving in together/ both have mortgages

goldenretreiverlove

hello 

After some advice as to what to do with my mortgage/ moving in with my partner. 

Myself and my partner both own homes - I bought mine around 3 years ago, on a 5 year fixed. He bought his 2 years ago and is due to renew in December this year. 

For the past 6 months I've been primarily living in his house as a little bit of a 'trial' and all has been going really well. I'm at the point now where I want to sell my house - it's an old house which I did a lot of work to when I moved in but needs much more investment/ love and it was never going to be my 'forever home' - just somewhere to put me on the property ladder. 

Ideally, we'd sell both of our homes and move into one together, porting my mortgage. However, with interest rates as they are and a lack of choice on the market - I think we're better off sticking with his for the time being - it's newer with a lot more room.

This leaves me wondering what to do about mine? As said above, I'm keen to sell and I know I will face a early repayment fee (which would be around 1.2k) however I'm worried that by doing that I: 
a) have no 'asset' or property to lean back on should something go wrong between me selling/ buying together 
b) takes me off the property ladder 

I should add that I don't believe that renting out my house as a whole is really an option - as I said above, it's starting to need work and I don't have a huge amount of funds to lean back on should anything go wrong. Also not sure I want the responsibility of tenants. 

advice appreciated :-) 

Hoenir

At some point in time you'll need to make that leap of faith. Only having the one property should result in a considerable drop in outgoings. 

Bookworm105

there is no safe solution when unmarried and moving into a property you have not been an owner of since the start 

yes you could sell yours and make new partner allow you to buy a part share of his current house based on the % your money represents (I wouldn't let you at start of a relationship) and then fight him tooth and nail to force a sale if the relationship fails 
yes you could end up in a relationship split with no property to fall back on 
yes you could retain the property and pay through the nose to keep it as a unused second home until you are both confident you can live together 
yes you could become a landlord (but as an unintended one you'd not fill me with confidence as a potential tenant of yours) 
yes it may all go swimmingly and you'll have a wodge of cash to put towards a jointly owned new home in due course (or you might have spent it by then, not be married, but still be reliant on him for your new housing)

goldenretreiverlove

Thanks both - 
Does anyone have any advice in terms of buying a % share of his?
Would I be liable to pay stamp duty for example as techincally we'd be re-buying together? Interested in how this would work. 

Brie

I believe you would be subject to stamp duty.  Not sure if he would.

For the percentage.....

say the house is valued at £500k, he put a deposit of £50k and has paid another £20k on the mortgage.  Wait until the remortgage is happening (assuming your sells quickly).  If the house is worth £500k and he's paid a total of £70k then that's 14% of the total value.  If you had £30k to add that's 6% of the total value.  If your house hasn't yet sold when you move in then have some agreement about how you will put X toward the mortgage when the money is available.  

You then need to decide if any future payments will be 50/50 value or if you were going to do something else based on relative salary.  Maybe he'll pay 60% of the monthly mortgage amount and you 40%.  Or you would agree that he would pay the mortgage but you would pay the utilities and broadband and that would be deemed to be 60/40. 

Easiest if everything is outlined in advance - and you may want to have separate solicitors so they are looking after the interests of one side only.