Query about stamp duty & my partner

Yessam90

Hi all,

I have a query and hoping you can help with my current situation and options moving forward.

Some background - i earn £85k per year & my partner earns £43k. We have a home that solely in my name as my partner didn’t have anywhere close to enough for a deposit (we’d only been together 18 months at the time, and I’d just been burned in a previous relationship). We’re now 3 years down the road & have a son. I have 50k in premium bonds & invest into a S&S ISA (90k balance).

We’re considering moving soon to a bigger home & my partner wants to be on the mortgage as she has never had that ‘security’ before in terms of an asset. She still doesn’t have a deposit large enough (around 5k in savings), but she has been paying half of the mortgage since we moved in (my suggestion was we were going to calculate how much she’d paid into the mortgage & use that as her ‘deposit’ for the new home). We bought the house for £215k and it’s worth around £290k now.

My Q - I want to purchase a second home to rent out, and my partner wants a mortgage. Would it be worthwhile having my partner use her first time buyer status to get a mortgage separately, and then when we move home I’ll have the sole mortgage on that? This way we avoid any stamp duty charges, and my partner gets some security? I would be providing her with the deposit (likely around 30k) for the second home. 

Hope all that makes sense.

Thanks