Mortgage Pay Off DH half only

[Malariahilaria]

Hello. Tried to google this but its not clear so hoping someone can make sense of it for me. DH and I have a joint mortgage. We pay equal amounts currently. DH has way more in savings than I and would like to pay off 'his' half of the mortgage asap. I am not great with finance but would this leave me paying more in interest than I would if we both kept paying at the same rate? He thinks not but I don't want to be penalised for this. There isn't a huge amount left on it but given the low interest rates I'm more interested in splitting my disposal income between pensions, savings, DC isas and to be frank fun stuff like clothes and shoes.

Any thoughts?

But paying this lump sum won't result in 'his' mortgage being done and dusted - do you both understand that?

Absolutely he is liable for the remaining amount regardless if he thinks he has paid his "half" off.

I can't imagine anyone with an ounce of respect for their partner going "oh, that's me done with the mortgage, now it's all your responsibility".

It's willfully exploiting the other person and placing any risk of future interest rate rises (as is likely) solely on them.

So, if I get this straight.
It's a joint mortgage of which he doesn't want the monthly payments anymore and want to clear his half (yes, we all know legally he is responsible) but his "moral" half (as the current situation lies).

So he pays 50k off of the remaining 100k, is he then expecting your monthly payments to half, just leaving you half to pay ?

I mean, if you both keep your finances separate, and your mortgage would in fact work like that, I don't see a problem for you. if you remain only paying your fair half and it can remain as so until paid off.

I'm assuming the remortgage will be in joint names for the ease of the remortgage and to keep his name on it etc., but still just remain for you to pay, any difference in rate though may need adjusting so he contributes, but I'm not sure how I would work that out if I'm honest.

You have already said he steps up and covers everything when/if needed, surely this is more of a risk to him than you as if it were to go Pete Tong, he is still liable for half of the remaining mortgage ?

You're all making me think quite hard, thank you. I tend to just give up arguing with him on some financial things out of sheer boredom, but maybe on this, I need to do a bit of work.

If you have a low interest rate on mortgage at the moment, he’s probably better off getting a savings account with a better interest rate.

OP is your mortgage fixed? How long do you left on it? If you pay a lump off it you need to specifically instruct the bank you want to pay it off to reduce the term or reduce the repayments. So if you want to reduce the term, your repayments could be the same or even higher than they are currently. If you want to reduce your repayments you need to tell them this. The remaining balance will be calculated over the remaining months.

You would need to do some research if your planning on doing anything as it's not as simple as just accepting what your husband says. We have done this twice in the last couple of years so if you have any questions feel free to ask. There also could be a break fee if you are in a fixed term contract so this is another thing you would need to look in to.

This! OP are you then expected to pay double what you normally do when he's done & dusted making payments? Maybe I'm missing something here...

Mn is weird over money

where a woman aver is with a male spender he’s reckless, a risk, needs to grow up, and if she wanted to pay half the mortgage and leave the other half to him she’d be applauded

where a woman spender lives with a male saver he’s mean, tight, dull, needs to live a bit. Him paying half the mortgage off is clearly some form of control.

To answer the actual question

he can pay off half, you can keep the term the same so the payments halve but are all your responsibility. No additional interest as a result of this.

as others have said, legally he’s probably paying off half of the total and is still liable for half the remaining total. Morally, up to you how you agree finances

Surely it’s dependent on the type of mortgage you have, how much of his overpayment would go to capital/interest, how long you have a fixed rate for, or it’s variable etc?

Doesn’t sound like a good idea to me, tbh

If you're on a fix you may be limited on overpayments in any one year.

@Malariahilaria I'm smiling at some of these responses as this is exactly what ExH and I did - I was the saver and him the spender. Our money was separate other than joint account for joint spending - bills, food, house, holidays etc. we ended up with 3 mortgages due to porting a previous fix and an endowment and topping up with a variable rate.

We both sold our house/flat and had the same equity and notionally assigned 50% of the overall mortgage (we weren't married at the time and this seemed sensible). After we married we just carried on! I repaid mine from bonuses and DH spent it on boys toys.

When we separated DH agreed that he would 'repay' the o/s mortgage. Clearly in law for our financial separation but was 50% mine but he was a decent bloke so was all fine.

Different strokes for different folks.....

@Malariahilaria
I did this to my DH. I used a spreadsheet to regularly overpay the mortgage for both of us so that we could pay it off before the fixed term of our mortgage ended. Whilst doing that I also saved up most of my pay so I could put a lumpsump to completely pay off my share/bit. Once I did that, I told DH he could do the same or keep paying his share until the fixed term mortgage ended. He chose the latter.
If anything, he "enjoyed" the benefit of paying less interest because I paid off my share earlier.
FYI, we both earn more or less equal. I am a saver, he is a spender. Our mortgage is paid off, just in time before the effect caused by the economy opening up after pandemic and Ukraine war hit. He thanked me for pushing paying off the mortgage.

If you’re fixed it would be counterproductive to pay any ERC. Hypothetically though you’d get something similar to scenario below if you waited until end of fix

eg illustrative debt now is £150k with 20 years remaining at 2.5% for another 2 years. Would be something like £400 a month each. At the end of the 2 years could be at £138k. Husband then pays of 50% leaving £69k.

At this point both responsible for mortgage but you pay it. However, best you can get is 4.5% (now over 18 years). Your payments would go up to around £467 per month but without your husband paying the lump sum they would have been around the same to cover your half. It’s him that would benefit from the overpayment in terms of interest saved but he has only paid off his mortgage in theory only.

if he made an overpayment that benefited you both (which would be more common I’d have thought) your joint debt would be £69k. If you then both maintained your payments of £400 each (effectively generating a mortgage overpayment of £333 a month) you’d both then clear the mortgage in 9 years instead of 18 and actually be properly mortgage free. It depends really on how convinced you are by both maintaining separate finances.

Is he planning on paying half the remaining capital and also the remaining interest?

Eg, say there is £100k left on the mortgage. That doesn't include all the interest that will need to be paid too.

So he can't pay off just £50k, and say he has paid his "half".

You're getting some strange responses. It's obvious that you both earn equally & he comprehends that he is still liable. People are making him sound like he is trying to pull a fast one. He sounds sensible to me & it makes sense that if he paid off his half then he wouldn't have to contribute monthly.

I'm pretty sure if he pays a chunk off then interest would go down. You need to check about early repayment charges though.