Deeds Vs mortgage when unmarried

[User3735]

I bought a house with my partner, we are unmarried. Currently I am on the deeds and on the mortgage. But we are due to remortgage, and I am now self employed and have not yet been for 2 years, so my income can not be counted for the remortgage. Calculators suggest we would be better off if I am not on the mortgage application, is this ok for me not to be on them since I am already on the deeds? I just want to make sure I am not putting myself at further risk by not being married. Planning on getting a civil partnership asap but it is just finding the time to do it.

If you are not on the mortgage, the mortgage lender will get you to sign a disclaimer that states you have no rights to live there if it all goes tits up (e.g. your partner dies, or if the house gets repossessed). We looked into it ourselves, the nature of the disclaimer was so harsh that my other half didn't want us to get a mortgage without me on it.

Fwiw, we recently (the end of last week) looked into civil partnership/marriage for exactly this purpose. The cost was about £151 (in total) if you do it in your local, non ceremonial venue (ours is a local library) on a Monday morning, and they could offer me slots as early as the first week in January.

It costs at least four times as much to get two wills written, so it's a bit of a non-brainer that we just get married (or Civil Partnership in your case, which will be the same costs) rather than getting a bunch of paperwork set up.

and I am now self employed and have not yet been for 2 years, so my income can not be counted for the remortgage

Have you spoken to a broker? That might've been the case previously, but mortgage lenders are stabbing each other in the backs to get customers at the moment, so what you previously thought may not be possible may now be possible because they're having to change the goalposts to get people through the door.

is this ok for me not to be on them since I am already on the deeds?

I don't know.

Speak to a brokerage, you may still go on the mortgage without an income sometimes. You need somewhere whole of market like L&C or John Charcol.

Can you get a part time job (2 days a week) to fit around your self employed job &. Use that income for the mortgage application. I would stay on both the deeds and mortgage but find a way around the problem.

Oops, I forgot I posted this!

I already work full time self employed, so can't get another job. It was our broker that said it is 6 months for employment, 2 years for self employment. I was hoping my boss would make me an employee in time, but that fell through. My work is basically like I am an employee but not on pay roll. I believe there are mortgages where I can be on with no income, but it will reduce them.

@User3735 how many mortgage providers is your broker looking at? I am struggling to believe he can't find you one that accepts self employed for under two years (but more than one, I assume?).

Yes, you can be on the mortgage with 0 income and yes it will reduce the amount you can borrow, but depending on how much your partner earns, the amount can be quite a small %. For us, I think it lowers the amount we can borrow by about 10%, but my OH earn quite a lot.

If he really can't find anything, consider switching broker, or going on a tracker mortgage with no fixed term and no exit penalty (which is far more expensive pm) until you reach the two year mark, when you can then apply for a fixed term mortgage.

You can (generally) be on any mainstream mortgage without an income. You can't just come off a mortgage that easily, you will have to come off the deeds too. And it would be a silly decision to essentially hand over all your equity to your partner.

OP, I pulled out our old offer from May, which was going to just be the other half on the mortgage. On the offer paperwork it says:

KievLoverTwo and anyone else aged 17 or over (other than you - they mean my partner) who will occupy the property at completion, must sign our consent to mortgage deed before completion. The consent must be witnessed by a solicitor/licensed conveyancer in all cases where the conveyancer acting for you considers this appropriate.

Then I found the form online, which says:

Occupier(s) Consent to Mortgage I/We will be in occupation of the Property at the time the mortgage is made. I/We agree with Nationwide that any right of occupation or share or interest in the Property which I/we may have now or later are postponed and subject to the rights of Nationwide as first mortgagee

Ergo: Nationwide's rights to the house come before your own. I see it as similar to being a 'permitted occupier' on a lease instead of on a joint lease; if they want to throw you out, they can.

https://www.nationwide.co.uk/-/assets/nationwidecouk/documents/about/information-for-lawyers/forms-and-downloads/m55-mortgage-deed-for-england-and-wales.pdf?rev=7f25cb12702349989df5b4fc8011ca42

I'm not a lawyer and the cynic in me wonders if your other half could get you removed from the property if things go wrong; after all, you won't be on the deeds or the mortgage.

Whatever happens, please protect yourself. I'm not even sure being married or in a civil partnership overrides the lender's ability to take the house off you if you sign such a mortgage declaration.

You could perhaps ask in Legal on MN.

If you to find out one way or another, I'd really like to know too, so will you come back to this thread, please?

If you jointly own the house you are selling to fund part of your onward purchase you will have to be on the new mortgage. At least that's what we found (also self employed, but married so I was happy to not be on the mortgage/deeds when we moved and we originally applied in DH name only but were declined at the final stage for this reason). We were able to get a mortgage in both names even though we had to say my income was 0 (it isn't really).