My lad and his partner have recently separated, which is sad, but fortunately no kids involved. He is in the process of buying her out of their house and had arranged with his mortgage lender to release some equity to do so. A sum has been agreed and so far everybody is reasonably sensible.
I understand that a solicitor needs to be engaged to take his ex-partner from the deeds before he can complete the process.
He has no idea exactly what this entails, how long it will take, what is a reasonable fee and if they can both use one solicitor to reduce costs.
It seems that are a few on here who have property portfolios and I would be grateful if anyone has had experience of property transfers, even if not in exactly these circumstances.
I did the same thing many years ago.
I used a solicitor to wrap up the formal deed and deal with Land Registry. My ex didn't use a solicitor, but could have done if she wanted to (but there really is no need if everything is already agreed and amicable).
Process is much the same as a house sale, but much faster as there is only one 'party' involved (ie no buyer/seller to/fro to contend with).
Surely a solicitor wont do this without advising her of her rights? when I got divorced it was all agreed, everything was hunky dory, we were both happy, then she went to a solicitor to sign the agreement.
I did this recently (adding to title deed, rather than other way round - but same form and process).
£499 I think it cost. Took about 6 weeks but it was coupled to a remortgage so May be quicker standalone.
Solicitor will sort it all. Just set up a call.
You can do it yourself I think, but it is an arse-ache. I gave up half way through researching that option.
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Both parties will require separate and independent legal advice, but it will be straightforward.
^ This 100%. I did exactly this when I was divorced. I was bought out of the house and solicitor was extremely clear that I had to get a completely separate solicitor to ensure that I was in no way disadvantaged or duped out of my share.Originally Posted by Berty234
Both solicitors were also very clear that I would have title and rights to stay in the house right up until the moment the money landed in my account. It was a reasonably straightforward and cheap operation to do.
On another note, hope your lad is OK and things remain sensible.
There was 100% no 'requirement' to use a solicitor when I did it. This may be different if it is a requirement of the mortgage company or similar involved party.
If you don't want to take legal advice, then that is your choice. If you ask a solicitor for their advice on the matter, then I am sure they will advise that it is in your best interests to involve them of course.
Not strictly true in my experience. It's a straightforward process, and both parties will be advised to have their own solicitor, but there was no requirement for both parties to instruct a solicitor when I did this in 2011 (I bought my ex out of our home when we split up). We agreed on the amount of equity by getting local agents in to value the house and took the average of them, and I instructed a solicitor. We split the legal costs 50/50.
Do you need to pay any stamp duty or other fees, or recalculate mortgage affordability, or is it simply working with your mortgage provider to update the deeds and mortgage "owner"? (asking for a friend!)
Thanks for all who have taken time to reply, I shall pass the info onto my lad.
The requirement to instruct a solicitor has come from his mortgage lender, and the valuation also came from them (I guess they have a "typical" house of that size in that area as they did it over the phone without actually attending; they are obviously happy that there is sufficient equity to keep them on side). In fairness, a legally qualified person is my preference as well.
Fingers crossed everything remains amicable.
Nick, very kind of you to ask, good days and bad days really, but I am becoming more reassured he's going to be Ok in the long run.
Same here, except my ex paid all the legal fees.
When you look long into an abyss, the abyss looks long into you.........
If he's remortgaging, then the conveyancer can process the transfer of equity at the same time - but depending on the scenario, Stamp Duty may be payable
See here;
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/sdlt-tra...nd-or-property
Straight forward transfer of equity but probably advisable to go through Solicitor’s to make sure it’s fair and both parties are happy.
Unlikely maybe but could be a stamp duty implication for your son so check that out as it happened to me. From memory we had a 400k mortgage so when transferred solely into my name I had to pay stamp duty on 200k of it. Was in 2007 so might be different now.
Rewind a minute. How has he already released equity on a jointly owned house if he wants to own it on his own? He hasn't taken additional lending in joint names has he? He needs to remortgage in his sole name for the original amount plus the buy out. And pass affordability for it
Read post one again. His mortgage lender...
I did, but surely the whole conveyancing and deeds thing is taken care off as part of the remortgage? It sounds from post one like they've just released equity via additional borrowing on the existing joint mortgage and he hasn't remortgaged in his sole name
That's quite likely isn't it. All it requires is total incompetence on the part of his solicitor and lender.
I am in the process of doing similar.
Some lenders and the conveyancers they appoint won’t help with the title deed. (Mine won’t anyway)
You can either appoint another solicitor or do it yourself.
I sent all the forms back to the land registry about 4 weeks ago and was told at the time it was a 6-8week process time.
From memory there were.
2 ID1 forms (one each)
An AP1 and a TR1
Fee was £40 (value vs mortgage vs people)
They are very helpful on the phone and website is good.
Some interesting points that hadn't occurred to me. My understanding is that he's done the affordability test and that it's tied in to the current mortgage as he mentioned that to look for an alternative lender would incur early redemption fees.
I guess it's not as simple as it initially appears and best left to the professionals.
Not relevant to this instance I suspect, but one complication I had when I bought out my ex partner was that we had a joint endowment mortgage. The endowment policy was also in joint names so could not be changed without massive penalties, so I had to keep paying the same joint policy, but with sole rights to any benefits - including the life insurance, so effectively I insured my ex-partners life against my own mortgage for many years thereafter. She had to sign away her rights to any benefit from the policy as part of the separation, but even though it was quite an uncomfortable situation. Very messy and something I was glad to be rid of when I finally binned the endowment!
I'm pretty certain it's a repayment mortgage, they had actually been overpaying up to this point, and it's his first house in rural Lincolnshire, so no stamp duty/CGT issues thankfully.
Don’t forget to consider the effects of a joint proprietor restriction if any.
I have never heard of this, what does it mean?
It's sounding more and more like a complete minefield to the layman.
It can be quite complicated. Land Registry Practice guide 24 will explain it but not in layman’s terms. If there is one on the register it will start
“No disposition by a sole proprietor of the registered estate (except a trust corporation) under which capital money arises is to be registered unless authorised by an order of the court”
If it isn’t there - there’s nothing to worry about on that front.
I'm not aware of anything like that so fingers crossed it's relatively simple.
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