Mortgages/Legal ownership

You would have to give a joint mortgage. A mortgage is an undertaking given by the mortgagor (that's the owner (if more than one owner, all of them)) which permits the mortgagee (the lender) to take over proxy ownership of (repossess) the property if payments fail to be made.

Obviously unless all owners consent, the charge cannot be registered.

Therefore if you are going to be joint owners, both of you must consent to the mortgage, and be jointly and severally liable for the payments. Of course that doesn't prevent, for example, your Dad to buy 50% outright and you to be 100% responsible for repaying a 50% loan. That, however, would be a private arrangement between yourselves. As far as the lender is concerned, though, it would be two of you acting jointly. So if you were to abscond to Brazil, leaving Dad to fend for himself, the lender could kick him out if he did not make good your promise.

Thanks Ronald, I thought that would probably be the case. I am just concerned that if we have to take a joint mortgage, the mortgage term will be limited by the fact that my Dad is 50, so presumably lenders would only allow a 15 year term?

Not necessarily. He's not going to lose all his income when he retires, is he? On the other hand, it would be in your interest to go for as short a term as you can possibly afford. The longer you stretch it out, the more it will cost you in total.

There was a story going round a few years ago about a 90 year old woman in Australia being sold a 25-year mortgage.

In message , Ronald Raygun writes

Whilst what you say is compulsory for building societies and standard practice for mortgage banks, it is possible to have just one owner as the debtor but the house owned by two parties. The other party has to sign the mortgage deed of course and is a party to that deed but is not a party to the loan. When security is offered by parties in a different right to the debtors then is the true meaning of 'Collateral' Security. When it is offered by the debtors in the same right then it is 'direct' Security.

(The word 'Collateral' is often misused)

My first mortgage (with my then wife) was arranged on this basis because the Bank for whom I then worked offered cheap loans to staff and this meant they werent offering cheap loans to non staff (i.e. my wife).

In message , Snuggles writes

No, if the lender is satisfied that the payments will still be affordable after his retirement then it will be OK.