Joint ownership to single ownership

My wife and I jointly own our home, worth £160K swith £183K outstanding on mortgage.

My wife moved out of the home 3 months ago and is refusing to allow me to take in a lodger to make up the income I need to repay our marital debts, since she is refusing to contribute.
She is paying half of the mortage.

She is now trying to force the sale of the house such that we will both have to raise the difference between sale price and mortgage balance. This seems crazy to me. I would be happy to have the house signed over to me, perhaps with her paying me a negotiated figure to walk away from the negative equity burden and mortgage interest payments. If that happened then I could take in a lodger and cover the mortgage on my own.

My question is: How likely is it the mortgage lender would allow her to just sign the house over to me? My salary is £30K so I know I would not normally be able to raise a mortgage of £183K, but as I am already the joint-owner and the mortgage is already in place, with negative equity of around £23K, does that change anything?

I can afford the repayment, IF I can bring in a lodger, which I can''t do as long as she jointly owns the property and will not consent to it.

The mortgage lender would have no choice if she were to sign the house over to you. If she is happy to do that then she can just go ahead and do it. However you should get a Consent Order to formalize it all first.

Whether the lender would release her name from the mortgage or not, is another matter entirely. With your income they would certainly say no. But that would not prevent the above.

Wrong, the lender can restrict the title transfer.

Hmm really? Then how can a court order a property to be transferred, but the remaining spouse to make "best efforts" to remove the other from the mortgage? If the transfer is at the mercy of the lender then surely both would have a best efforts clause?

Hi

First: if you need a lodger to be able to pay your mortgage, your lodger has an interest in the property and can claim a percentage... which is probably why your wife will not agree to it.

Second : I have seen many cases and, one of my family members is in this situation now, where the bank will not agree for the deeds nor the mortgage to revert to one person if that person can''t afford the mortgage on their own income. Why? Because at the moment they can sue you and/or your wife to get all of their money if you don''t repay. Why would they weaken their legal position? Ask you bank, they will confirm.

Lastly, I am pretty sure your wife is aware of the above and would rather pay half of the negative equity and be free of the debt.

Sorry.

Stress3 wrote:

Hi


Second : I have seen many cases and, one of my family members is in this situation now, where the bank will not agree for the deeds nor the mortgage to revert to one person if that person can''t afford the mortgage on their own income. Why? Because at the moment they can sue you and/or your wife to get all of their money if you don''t repay. Why would they weaken their legal position? Ask you bank, they will confirm.
Sorry.

But they can chase both debtors for the debt anyway. It doesn''t matter who on paper owns the property. They just reposess it, sell it for what they can then chase BOTH the parties to the loan for the difference.

I think that the public in general, the banks and the courts are going to have to take a much more realistic view of mortgage debt and costs of sale and the balance sheet.

This is a repeated theme in divorce and has been a cruel myth these past 40 years that a house will always bring a positive return.

I remember a phase that my Dad used to have which is

Houses are for nesting not investing.

There is a lot of financial trouble ahead and most of us are able to see it just by opening the newspapers and looking at the international debt crisis.

Not sure what to say to the OP - when I contacted the bank which I did on a monthly basis for years regarding my inability to pay capital and interest whilst the divorce got sorted, and then when I contacted the bank to get them involved in my husbands attempts to repossess the house by way of final charge and then his attempts to repossess the repayment vehicle (which was an investment in commodities not an endowment or other assurance) the bank bluntly told me that they were not getting involved in my divorce (hello not my divorce that has happened it is financial remedy).

They are also refusing to chase my ex for any payment to the joint mortgage debt stating that they do not know his address and that they cannot take it from me (they are now attempting to repossess the house as I can not pay the mortgage).

I have told them they don''t need to take it from me they can do a £4 search on the land registry as his address is on there when he severed the joint tennency.

Banks have had it their own way far too long. They know full well that my ex is a man of straw (they can see that from their files) so they believe the best option is to throw me out of the house and put me, the kids on the street for their negligence in failing to attend court 6 times.