Buying property with other family members
There are many benefits to owning your own home, but if you are approaching retirement and still have a lot of your mortgage to pay off, you may find it a struggle to meet the required payments.
One way to negotiate this tricky situation is to put your money together with that of a trusted family member and agree to buy a home together.
Pooling your resources can be an excellent way to stay on the property ladder without putting yourself under too much financial strain, so find out more about buying with a family member.
Sharing a home and property investment
It could be that you plan to move in together and share the property or you might want to find out if any family members would like to make a financial investment in your new home on the proviso that they could make some money back in the long run. Either way, you could significantly cut your monthly bills and enjoy the security of knowing you a living in a permanent home rather than relying on rented accommodation. By choosing a joint mortgage with a friend or family member, you are agreeing to share responsibility for mortgage repayments. Get a better idea of how a joint mortgage might work with some useful information from Money.co.uk.
When you choose a joint mortgage, you can decide whether you will be joint tenants – which means you’ll split ownership equally down the middle – or tenants of common – meaning one person may have a higher stake in the property than the other. There are advantages and disadvantages about both options but whichever you choose you need to make sure you have sufficient life insurance in place before you sign, as if either of your dies, the remaining debt will be automatically transferred to the surviving tenant.
Things to think about
As with any big financial commitment, there are some things you will need to give serious consideration. Buying a home with another person can be an excellent way to improve your financial situation, but you need to be aware that difficulties and disagreements can often take place between the two tenants. This is true even when you’re buying a property with a family member you care about. To protect yourself, you will want to come to a series of agreements before you buy and have them formalised by a solicitor.
Additionally, there may be some added legal costs to consider although these can be very small when compared with the money you may save by buying with someone else, from the cost of monthly repayments to the price of on going maintenance and up keep. You should also what would happen if you or your family member unexpectedly decided they wanted to move or sell their share in the property. You may find yourself responsible for finding another tenant or looking for someone else to buy a share in the property with you. Prime Location offers a nice guide to the pros and cons of buying with a friend of family member, which could help you work out whether it’s a good option for you or not.
Disclaimer
The contents of this article are for reference purposes only and do not constitute financial or legal advice. Independent financial or legal advice should be sought in relation to any specific matter. Articles are published by us without any knowledge or notice of the circumstances in which you or anyone else may use or rely on articles or any copy of the information, guidance or documents obtained from articles. We operate and publish articles without undertaking or accepting any duty of care or responsibility for articles or their contents, services or facilities. You undertake to rely on them entirely at your own risk, and without recourse to us. No assurance of the quality of articles is given or undertaken (whether as to accuracy, completeness, fitness for any purpose, conformance to any description or sample, or otherwise), or as to the timeliness of the publication.
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