Buying 2nd property

[Catarinah]

Hi, me and my boyfriend own our current property (with mortgage of course) but will want to buy a bigger house next year hopefully. We are looking into our options to see if we could afford to keep our current property to rent out. If we were to take one of us off the mortgage of this house, and the other to take the mortgage out on the next house (so essentially one of us have a property each), would we avoid the 25% deposit required on the 2nd house and the higher rate stamp duty? Is this possible? Or is it legal even? TIA

It's not about who has the mortgage, it's about who is registered as the property owner with the land registry.
You would both be in a sticky situation if either were to relinquish ownership of the first property and one own the second solely were you to separate, particularly as you're unmarried.
Even more so if there is a big difference in the value of these two properties.

It’s perfectly legal for you each to own a property and avoid paying higher SDLT that way but the financial and legal pitfalls far outweigh the benefits. As previous poster said, it’s very risky to not be a legal co-owner of the home you live in; plus you’d be applying for a mortgage based on one income only which would restrict what you could afford to buy. You’d still need to be able to provide a deposit for the new purchase so would have to remortgage your current property in one person’s name, which isn’t guaranteed to be accepted by lenders.