to think you're not a 'home owner' if you are still paying a mortgage on it

[pipsqueak25]

prepared to be flamed but over heard a conversation of a loud guy the other day and it really irritated me. the jest being ' got my mortgage last year, £260,000, in my name so she can't get the house [knob], now i can do what i fucking well like with it, gonna knock out the interior and do open up stuff, blah,blah' eh?? so he's splitting with his dp/dh and possibly going to knock half the house down that he does nor own because he's paying a mortgage and the bank owns most of the house ? er, knob, you aren't a home owner until you've paid in full for it !
mainly i felt sorry for the ex, but glad she was going to be rid of him!

[amispartacus]

They don't though

If you don't pay building insurance and your house gets destroyed and you stop paying the mortgage, what can the bank do?

Your asset has been destroyed. But I suppose the land itself is valuable.

[NarkyMcDinkyChops]

In theory they can sue you, as it was probably a condition of the mortgage that you had buildings insurance.

[TinselTwins]

I suppose you can compare it to if you use your credit card to buy a designer handbag, you then own the handbag and you own the debt.

[ishallconquerthat]

You're not a home owner. If you don't pay the mortgage the bank gets it back.

[EnormousTiger]

It would be a kind of fake news and a lie to say someone who owns a house but has a loan on it does not own a house.

It is important people understand English law praticularly on a website where many women are not married and their partners own the property. They often think they have some kind of non existent common law right too. Loads of misconceptions over law on here.

Buying a house with a mortgage is NOT a form of hire purchase. Under hier purchase the lender owns the goods ntil you make your last payment. Buying a house is not like that. Instead you won the property right from the start and separately owe money to a lender which is secured on it by way of a registered mortgage.

So do remember it is nothing like the law on hire purchase.

[Topseyt]

His name is on the deeds, so he is the legal owner of the property. The bank is not.

It is pointless saying that someone isn't the owner when they are.

The mortgage lender does not own the property at all. They have a legal charge registered against it to protect their interest in it when they lend the money to buy. If they ever do need to repossess then they have to go to court for a repossession order.

[ProfessionalPirate]

You're not a home owner. If you don't pay the mortgage the bank gets it back
No it doesn't. The bank never owned it, and doesn't 'get it back'. The bank can apply for a court order that would force the sale of the house in order to recover the debt. Read the previous posts that explain this.

[Olswitcharoo]

You are classed as a homeowner even if you have a mortgage.

[ExConstance]

If you buy a house with a mortgage you are the owner, it is registered in our name and belongs to you. A mortgage is the sum of money you have borrowed to pay for the house and to ensure that you repay it is registered as a legal charge against the house to ensure the lender gets the outstanding sum back if you sell or if you die.

[gillybeanz]

I thought if your house burned down and you had no insurance you still had to pay mortgage, as you still owe the amount outstanding.

[FireInTheHead]

Realistically, amispartacus absent a property crash in which case all property prices go down, the value is only going to go down if you neglect to maintain the property so it's not competitive in the local market.

OP, YABU and not a little judgmental re this man based on an overheard out of context conversation. We had a mortgage on our previous home, each year of payments saw us build equity, the title was in our names not the bank's plus we had autonomy in home improvements, changing layouts etc which in a rented property we wouldn't, so yes, that's the legal definition of being a homeowner right there.

When we sold we held enough equity to be able to buy outright in another area (granted there had been a massive upsurge in house prices where we sold and no comparable rise in the area we bought at that time) which we wouldn't have been able to do had we rented during those years. We're now having to return to our previous location, we will rent this house out, and will definitely buy another there (with a much larger mortgage) rather than pay rent which would accrue us nothing for when we eventually return to this house.

[Willyoujustbequiet]

You are the legal owner. Its a fact. As others have said there is no other interpretation.

[EnormousTiger]

Also it is very important we are accurate in words we use. Vital.

Another example is someone saying someone is their brother when they are a cousin or father when it isn't their father. Words really do matter and using correct legal definitions is important.

If your house burns down you still own the land. Where I live the land values are absolutely massive, much bigger than the cost of rebuilding the house. If you have no mortgage and no insurance and it burns down you would have to try to rebuild the house on the land you still own out of your own funds or sell the land to a buildre. If you had a mortage you are obliged to have insurance. If you don't have insurance and should have done and whether you have insurance or not you are still liable to pay the mortgage.

Freehold land as most people know in England is the outright ownership. Most people in flats will just have leashold ownership for usually something like 100 years but have rights to extend that. That is usually regarded as ownership - I own a flat would be accurate - you own the leasehold interest in the flat for 100 years even more accurate.

Whereas if you are a shorthold tenant with a 1 year tenancy it would not be accurate to say you own the flat as you don't.

Even freehold technically you hold from the Crown. There are some rights which can interfere with your ownership but that does not stop your being the owner. Eg compulsory purchase laws when a new motorway is being built through your land might mean you have to give it up (hopefully with compensation)

[amispartacus]

I suppose you only ever really own things IF you don't owe anyone any money at all.

If you do owe money, then the objects you own are merely assets that you can be forced to sell to pay the money you owe.

[Kennington]

I agree words have meaning
I wasn't aware 'homeowner' was a legal term. I thought it referred to a state of being mortgage free.

It is a really interesting discussion as it wasn't ever something that occurred to me before.

[FireInTheHead]

It is a legal term and indicates legal liability for the property, Ken. See, if a roof tile blows off and hits someone on the head, no matter how much you owe on the mortgage, the injured person isn't taking the bank to court for compensation - he's taking you so homeowners should make sure they have public liability cover as well as property cover.

[Birdsgottaf1y]

My DD is buying a house, she's going to 'try again' with her former DP who cheated. She's making it water tight that he has no claim on her house, he also owns a house.

It could be her having that conversation, in a year (we don't even think it'll be that long).

The conversation doesn't make him a knob.

Because we had a repossession in the early 90's, because we were missold lots of policies and my DH became terminally ill. We were in minus equity. I don't consider owing a Mortgage as any different to having a semi-secure tenancy.

But you'd tick the box 'Homeowner'.

[EnormousTiger]

1. Homeowner does not mean own property mortgage free.
   

1. In law you DO own things even if you have debts.
   

Those are the facts, the law. The thread shows s why people pay people like I am a fortune to advise them on legal rights as there seems to be such lack of knowledge out therel; so in a sense long may ignorance continue as it will keep me in work.

I owe no debts to anyone. I have no over draft. I have (now) no mortgage. I am no more a homeowner though than those of my children with mortgage.

A separate issue is how to calculate someone's net assets for tax or other purposes and then you do indeed add up the value of all their gold, cars owned outright, furniture, shares, savings accounts and house value and then deduct all their pay day loans, credit card and mortgage debts and work out their net worth. That calculation has nothing to do with what they legally own however.

[The80sweregreat]

When we purchased our place, the solicitor did point out a clause in the paperwork that if we wanted to extend it or doing any kind of major works you had to tell the building society. It made sense to me as they own most of it really - I hate the term 'home owner' as we are not - until the day the last penny is paid back for the loan , the mortgage company are our 'landlord'. thats how i look at it.

[KoalaDownUnder]

Wizard - give up

[Kennington]

I think you are being harsh. I don't bang my head on a desk every time someone misuses a scienctific term, e.g. Organic or detox; mutant etc.
Most chit chat doesn't presume the legal context.

[TinfoilHattie]

But there a lots of people on this thread that really, really don't understand. Despite having it explained over and over again.

It's called financial illiteracy. Lots of it about.