New House

Hi,

my wife is now talking about buying a house and is talking to mortgage advisors etc. At present she rents a house and I have stayed in the FMH and pay the joint mortgage on my own.

Should this give me any cause for concern or should I just let her get on with it? Neither of us has done anything about actually divorcing and I am unable to buy her out of the FMH for the forseeable future. I need the FMH in order to house our children. The house she currently rents has bedrooms for them and they stay there 2-3 nights per week so her housing needs appear to be met in my opinion.

I assume you are considered because she might need a deposit and that she will be wanting it to come from the FMH?

I think she already knows there is no chance of that happening any time soon. Deposit would be her savings (fairly substantial when we split) and/or gift from parents who are quite old and pretty well off.

She is more likely to want her name off the mortgage to increase her mortgage potential. Can she get her name taken off without my agreement?

She cannot have her name removed from the mortgage - that can only be done by the lender if you apply and they are satisfied that you can take over the mortgage on your own account. Have you inquired about this?

I guess part of the issue here may be how much of the FMH equity is likely to stay with you .. and whether you could meet the criteria for taking on the mortgage. He assets - including any new property, would still be part of the marital pot.

I would suggest that, if the marriage really is over, you sort out the divorce and legally binding financial settlement asap in order to prevent this getting messy later on.

Hadenoughnow

Thanks.

FMH is prob worth about £150k. Outstanding mortgage is around £15k and decreasing quite rapidly as nearly the entire monthly payment, which I solely pay, is off the capital. There is about 3.5 years left on it. Not sure how the capital would be divided up which is why I haven''t really done anything.

My thoughts were the longer I stay here paying the mortgage on my own, and therefore demonstrate that I can afford it, and the longer she is in her own rented house with her housing needs met the more likely it is that I would be allowed to stay here until the children are older if she does try to change things via a court order. Is this mis-guided thinking?

Another thought I had was to try to scrape together the outstanding amount on the mortgage and pay it off thus increasing her mortgage potential. Would this be a foolish thing to do?

To give some idea of figures she earns approx £26k and would be looking at a £60k mortgage on a £120k house with the other £60k coming from her savings/parents. Is she likely to get a mortgage that big with the £15k outstanding on the FMH?

Children are 6 and 8 so will need housing for some time yet!

Hmm. Scraping together the cash and being mortgage free is a possible option. It would certainly free her from the mortgage but she would still be on the deeds. Or could you take the 15k mortgage on in your own name? You need to check if there would be penalties for early redemption.

Are you PWC? It seems to me that, if she does not need equity from the FMH to rehouse herself now then this may be a case for a Mesher Order. Of course a lot will depend on the rest of the financial facts.

She does need to bear in mind that the gift from her parents may well end up as part of the marital pot if you have not yet started divorce proceedings.

Hadenoughnow