Separation and your home

It may not be your first thought when you split up, but what to do with the property, will at some stage have to be dealt with.

If you are fortunate enough to own your property outright, then the matter can be dealt with quite simply by a formal deed of Transfer, signed by both parties and lodged with the Land Registry.

If your property is in a mortgage, however, this could complicate matters. If the remaining owner is insistent of keeping the mortgage in its current form (either with or without further borrowing to deal with any buy-out) then the Lender must be approached for their formal consent. Dependant upon individual circumstances, a financial review may be undertaken to ascertain ability to maintain repayments and limit of available credit. Once the Lender is satisfied that the remaining owner can satisfy its lending criteria, formal consent to the transfer will be given. In addition to both the remaining owner and outgoing owner, the Lender will execute the Transfer deed formally releasing the outgoing owner from their liabilities and obligations under the mortgage.

Should an alternative mortgage product be preferred by the remaining owner, the existing Lender need not be approached for consent. On completion of the new mortgage, repayment of the existing mortgage will automatically cancel out any interest they would have had in the transaction. The re-mortgage element would be dealt with simultaneously, the remaining owner taking on a fresh mortgage product in their own right (as if they were an original sole owner).

We have an extremely experienced conveyancing team that are used to dealing with all manner of property issues, including those that arise during a separation.