How to Add Your Partner to Your Mortgage

When you first bought that property all those years back (or are looking to buy a property now), you may not have thought that you were going to be in the situation you are now where you want to potentially add a partner or someone to your mortgage so you can both co-own the home you’re living in.

Not only will this help you solidify your relationship by taking it seriously, but you can now split the burden how you wish in terms of repaying the mortgage in your own way.

However, there’s not much on how you can actually do this, so in this blog, we’re going to talk about exactly how you’d approach adding a name to your mortgage, the best ways to go about it, and maybe some considerations you need to look at before actually making the final decision. Let’s get into it!

Is Adding a Person to a Mortgage Possible?

In short, yes, it is possible to add someone else to your mortgage, whether that be adding your partner, a friend, spouse, or even a family member. This is done through a process called equity transfer, which essentially means you’re legally changing the ownership of a property without actually selling it.

However, it may not be as simple as you once thought to move someone onto your mortgage, and there are a couple of methods and steps you will need to take, along with considerations you’ll need to take into account before actually completing the process.

Considerations Before Adding Someone to Your Mortgage

Before we show you exactly how to add someone to your mortgage and the steps of how to do it, we thought it’d be extremely important to show you what you need to look out for before doing it. Whether or not this sways you from doing this or not is not our intention; we just want to show you the facts of what will happen when you start this equity transfer:

1) Background Credit Check and Affordability Tests

Both of you will receive a background credit check and affordability test, so if you haven’t discussed finances yet, it may be worth doing this before you jump into a mortgage together. This check will include seeing if you have any existing debt, a bad credit history, etc.

If one or both of you don’t have great credit or lots of debt, then this will impact the interest rates you’re offered, making your home a lot more expensive than if you were to both have great background checks.

2) The Early Repayment Charges

Any borrower is always subject to early repayment charges when they exit their current mortgage early. The charge will largely depend on the lender you’re with, but you can typically expect to pay anywhere between 1 and 5% of the mortgage you still need to pay off.

Therefore, as you can imagine, if you’ve not long gotten the mortgage yourself and are looking to do this soon after, the ERC repayments are going to be higher for you and vice versa.

3) The Legal Side

When transferring a mortgage to more than one person, it’s always best to consult with professionals (especially a conveyancing solicitor in this case). This is because in case of any inheritance or, unfortunately, you split up, a solicitor can be there to deal with the legal side of it.

Essentially, a solicitor will help you go over all the scenarios and what you’re going to do if any of them were to occur, tax-wise, and overall, equity-wise.

4) The Types of Ownership You Can Choose

With combined mortgages, there are two types of mortgage applications you can opt for:

• Joint tenants
• Tenants in common

You need to decide between one of these. Here’s what you need to know:

A Step-by-Step Guide on How to Add Someone to Your Mortgage

If you’ve got to this point and this is still something you’re going ahead with, we’re going to show you what methods you can use to add someone to your mortgage and the exact steps in doing so. Firstly, there are two methods you can use to take the following steps:

• Approaching your lender
• Remortgaging

Once you’ve decided on what the best option is for you (consult with a professional if needed), these are the next steps in adding somebody to your mortgage:

#1 Communicating With Your Partner/Friend/Family Member

This is not just a quick and easy process to go through, this is going to take a lot of communication and confirmation from both sides to make sure it’s what you both want to go through. Run through all possibilities and all the considerations, and if it’s something you both agree on and can deal with if something were to go wrong, you’re ready for the next step.

#2 Speak to Your Solicitor

We briefly mentioned this in the consideration section, but contacting your solicitor is essential in this process, as you and your partner can both have meetings together and separate to make sure you’re both aligned on your goals moving forward.

A solicitor will also help you determine whether the ‘joint tenants’ or ‘tenants in common’ route is better for you based on what you’ve both told them.

#3 Speak to Your Current Lender

Your current lender is going to be who makes this happen for you, so speaking to them about your plans of joining your mortgage with someone is paramount. Speak to them about the potential costs and implications because not all lenders are going to be the same, and then once they’ve hopefully given you both the all-clear, they’ll send you the relevant documents.

#4 In Contrast… Speak to a Mortgage Broker

If you’ve been through the numbers and potential ERC charges you’re going to face with your current lender and it just seems impossible to carry out, there’s always another option. Speaking to a mortgage broker will allow them to scour the market for another lender who will potentially give you a better deal on a joint mortgage. You should never settle if you’re not happy!

#5 The Final Push

Once you’ve been through this lengthy process, all you need to do is the final legal paperwork. Reaching an agreement with your solicitor and lender will only lead to one outcome, you having a new mortgage with the person you wanted it with in the first place!

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