Joint mortgage problem.

[AdamD]

Hi all, I'm in need of some advice, if someone would be so kind.

I'll try and keep it short and to the point, so as not to bore you.

I co own a house, with my uncle and father.

We're all on the house deeds and on the mortgage.

The house cost 180k, my dad put down a 40k deposit, so the mortgage was 140k, split between myself and the uncle.

Everything has been fine, until October of last year, when the uncle started missing his mortgage payments.

I only noticed a problem when I had a credit report alert, and it showed missing or late payments in October and November.

He claimed it was a mixup with the bank, but it was all lies

He was intercepting the letters from the mortgage company and hiding them from us.

Fast forward to may of this year, he's moved out and left us with £5200 in arrears on the mortgage and we almost went to court for reposession of our property, because of him.

We've rented out one of our rooms, to cover his share of the mortgage

He's refusing to pay anything towards it and ignores every phone call or letter we send him.

What can we do in this regard? Can we have him removed from the deeds/mortgage?

any advice is welcome.

[Richard Webster]

He would have to sign if you wanted his name of the "deeds" and the mortgage. Would he do that?

Similarly if you wanted the house sold he would have to sign for that as well and might want his "share" even though not entitled to it.

You would have to go to court to get a sale ordered and that would cost a lot so you may have to do a deal with him to get him to sign.

Presumably this was a change of character and you had no previous reason to suppose he was unreliable? My website warns potential joint buyers to consider carefully whether they really want to buy a property together because of the possible future entanglements: People Buying Houses and Flats Together - Richard Webster & Co Solicitors

[AdamD]

Hi Richard, thanks for that

I believe he would sign a document to release him from both, would we have to go through the mortgage company for that?

And yes, there was no hint that this would happen when he moved in, he had over £100,000 in savings, so we assumed he'd not have a problem, but it turns out he's spent all of that in the last 4 years and now has about £40,000 in credit card and loan debt.

[New Homes Expert]

Always a problem with "mates mortgages".

Always agree and exit strategy" in advance to say what happens if someone wants out.

Your only option now is to get your uncle to pay up the arrears or sign over his "share" to you as you are paying all the mortgage.

[AdamD]

Yea, he won't pay anything towards the arrears, he's refused to do so.

How would we go about transfering the share over? I Assume that'd be done via the mortgage company through a process of change of borrower? or transfer of equity?

[New Homes Expert]

You need a solicitor as presumably he is on the deeds.

[AdamD]

Yes he is, sadly heh.

Thanks for that, I assume we'd need one who specializes in housing?

[Dan_Manchester]

Good morning,

You need to conduct a "transfer of equity", relatively simply process assuming your uncle agrees to the paperwork. Assuming you're mortgage company are happy to lend you the full balance then it should only cost between £500-750 to get the legal work done.

The 2 points you need to clear up before you pay a solicitor:

- That you're uncle would infact sign the house over to you without you paying him anything
- That you're mortgage company will give you all the cash

Hope this helps and good luck

[AdamD]

Thanks Dan, much appreciated.

[Trades MASTER]

Take him to a small claims court to get your money.