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Hi! I have a query over the process of buying half of our property from my partner, and would welcome any insights or perspectives.
My partner currently owns the house we live in with a mortgage. My old house is on the market and should sell in the next few months, and with the proceeds I will be buying 50% of the house we live in from my partner (probably as joint tenants if that makes a difference).
At the point of the sale my partner will use the cash I give him to pay off his mortgage (that is in his name), so we will then own the property jointly with no mortgage. All our finances are 50:50 so there's little complexity there.
As a cash buyer, I don't feel the need for conveyancing or searches etc, we'd like to keep it as simple as possible. Technically I think we could just do this between ourselves, he once sold a property to his neighbour for cash and they went down to the land registry together and signed it over!
My only hesitation is the chain of events at the point of the transaction due to his mortgage, as I think he would need to use my cash to pay off his mortgage, and have them remove their charge before signing over half the property at the land registry. So, I think there could be a delay between me sending him the cash and the property being signed over. It's a lot of money, and I'd be worried in case something bizarre happened like the mortgage company didn't remove their charge, or the land registry did something unexpected, or even if he became ill or had an accident, and couldn't complete the transaction.
I think our options are:
1. Take the risk and do it ourselves with no solicitors, writing our own private agreement about what we're doing
2. Both use solicitors
3. Perhaps just I use a solicitor to cover the cash risk (and to pay the stamp duty for me), but my partner wouldn't bother as there isn't a risk on his side. Our usual conveyancing solicitor is selling my house for me, so we could make it a chain at that point and they could send the cash from my sale straight to my partner and his mortgage company (and verify the source of funds).
I would welcome any perspectives or things I've missed. Many thanks!
My partner currently owns the house we live in with a mortgage. My old house is on the market and should sell in the next few months, and with the proceeds I will be buying 50% of the house we live in from my partner (probably as joint tenants if that makes a difference).
At the point of the sale my partner will use the cash I give him to pay off his mortgage (that is in his name), so we will then own the property jointly with no mortgage. All our finances are 50:50 so there's little complexity there.
As a cash buyer, I don't feel the need for conveyancing or searches etc, we'd like to keep it as simple as possible. Technically I think we could just do this between ourselves, he once sold a property to his neighbour for cash and they went down to the land registry together and signed it over!
My only hesitation is the chain of events at the point of the transaction due to his mortgage, as I think he would need to use my cash to pay off his mortgage, and have them remove their charge before signing over half the property at the land registry. So, I think there could be a delay between me sending him the cash and the property being signed over. It's a lot of money, and I'd be worried in case something bizarre happened like the mortgage company didn't remove their charge, or the land registry did something unexpected, or even if he became ill or had an accident, and couldn't complete the transaction.
I think our options are:
1. Take the risk and do it ourselves with no solicitors, writing our own private agreement about what we're doing
2. Both use solicitors
3. Perhaps just I use a solicitor to cover the cash risk (and to pay the stamp duty for me), but my partner wouldn't bother as there isn't a risk on his side. Our usual conveyancing solicitor is selling my house for me, so we could make it a chain at that point and they could send the cash from my sale straight to my partner and his mortgage company (and verify the source of funds).
I would welcome any perspectives or things I've missed. Many thanks!
