Hi Sk1601.

Being on a mortgage, and being the owner of a home, are two different things.

A transfer of ownership can proceed without any change to the mortgage.

Has the legal advice you've had stated that a change to the mortgage is essential?

Hi. Thank you for your response.

Can you clarify what you mean with regard to changing ownership without changing the mortgage? He was advised to complete a change of parties form by his mortgage company when he explained the situation and has since been told that due to the existing IVA (we are assuming they mean her trust deed) that they cannot proceed with the application. His own trust deed has been discharged and we are aware that this would hinder him in getting the mortgage on his own, so his mortgage company (and also separately his solicitor) advised him to try adding a family member.

Ultimately he wants to get divorced, but he cannot get divorced until the financial situation with the house is resolved. The ex partner is willing to be removed but the mortgage company is not willing to remove her. A remortgage is not possible so surely the only solution is to sell the house?

He has been seeking legal advice on this for nearly two years now. Has he been misinformed? You can appreciate we are becoming increasingly frustrated with this and we just feel like we are trapped in this situation.

Can he sell the house if his ex partner is in a trust deed? If he can and there is negative equity, is this split 50/50 or as with joint debts could he be responsible for it all? We're unsure on this as if there was equity we assumed it would be equally split.

Sorry for the long resposnse. I'd appreciate any advice you could give.

Hi Sk1601.

Has there been any discussion with your partners ex (and her trustee) about her relinquishing her share of the ownership of the home to your partner?

In this respect I'm talking about ownership rather than the mortgage.

Hi,

The ex partner has agreed to the transfer and her trustee has also agreed provided my partner (or a third party) pays the trustee a nominal fee of £500 to stop them being interested in equity. My partner agreed to this and filled out a change of parties form but was told the application could not be processed by NRAM. Do you mean that we should look to have her removed from the deeds rather than the name removed from the mortgage? Our understanding was that this was a difficult and more expensive process.

We're unsure what to do now. Can we sell the property as a last resort? If there's a shortfall we should be able to cover it but we don't know if it is possible to sell the property given his ex partner's trust deed. We do know that she will agree to the sale but are concerned whether or not her trustee will.

Thanks again, I'd be grateful of any further advice.

Hi sk1601

You should be able to do a disposition transferring her interest in the property in full. This would need to be signed by the Trustee and is fairly straightforward. This would then be recorded against the title of the property and would not affect the mortgage position.

You would then be free to sell the property. If there was a shortfall then NRAM could look to both parties, but the trust deed would take care of hers, so you would be liable in full for any shortfall.

Mark

I think your partner should insist that his ex's trustee deals with this - if he is paying £500 to buy out the trustee's interest then I think it is fair to expect the trustee to arrange the necessary legal work.

It should be possible to sell, but it will require the consent of the trustee (and the mortgage lender if there is a likely shortfall). Technically neither your partner nor his ex should be liable for any shortfall though, because they have both been through/are in protected trust deeds.

Thank you. We already have a minute of agreement signed relinquishing her interest in the property. However we were not aware she was in a trust deed so had to seek further advice and were told to pay £500 to her trustee to agree to this. We haven't paid it yet, to be honest we don't see why £500 should be spent given there is likely to be negative equity. If it speeds up the process then we will pay it as it would likely cost us more in legal fees and time to query this.

With regard to negative equity, should there be any, we will be able to cover the shortfall. We assumed it would be the case that we would be liable in full (and we know we are unlikely to get a penny out of her regardless of her trust deed). I guess we just wanted to know that we could sell the propery even if one party is in a trust deed.

Thanks.

Hi Kevin, thanks for responding. My partner paid his trust deed 14 months early and has just been discharged so we assumed that if he sold the property within the next few months he would be eligible for any shortfall as the shortfall has occurred after his trust deed? We are prepared to pay any shortfall (within reason) to enable us to move on with our lives.

Good point on insisting her trustee does the legal work- he is seeking advice from his solicitor so may speak to him regarding this.

Thanks.