How to Keep Hold of Tracker Mortgage if Separating?

D

Doobie

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Hi,

Me and my wife have agreed to go our separate ways. We have a tracker mortgage balance of 162k on a property which is worth approx. 230k. I owned the house originally and took out the tracker before we got married in 2007 and her name never went on the mortgage or the deeds.

She is now interested in taking over the mortgage and I am going to move out. Is it possible to get her to take over the tracker (and keep the good rate i.e. 0.56% over ECB) and if so how? She earns considerably less than me circa 30k.

What's the best approach to take (if any) so that we can keep the tracker as I would really like it if she could avail of the tracker rate? Is it best to talk to NIB (now dealt with by Pepper Asset Management in Ireland).

Your help is very much appreciated.

Thanks,
Doobie
 
I seriously doubt there is any hope of doing what you want. Banks are refusing to remove one name from a joint tracker to enable the remaining person keep it on. In your case you want to just transfer the mortgage from your name to hers, you can ask the bank but I don't think there is any chance. It's a brand new mortgage from their point of view.
 
There's no chance that Danske/Pepper would agree to that in my view.

If it was me, I'd be looking at constructing an arrangement that's legally robust and that protects you both, but that preserves the tracker.

e.g. some kind of option agreement, nominee arrangement, or clever use of the tax treatment of maintenance payments.

You should seek professional legal advice.
 
Not a chance.

You want to sell the house to someone who is not on the deeds or the mortgage and transfer your mortgage. They won't do that.

You want a bank to lend 5 times their salary to a person on a salary of €30k. The Central Bank guidelines and good sense would not allow that.

You will need to keep the tracker in your name. While your wife will have low repayments, you will still be liable for the mortgage and so you will probably find it difficult to get a mortgage elsewhere, while you still have this mortgage.

If you ever want to buy a house for yourself, you will have to find 20% of the purchase price.

You are giving her a huge amount of equity. A house worth €230k with a mortgage which has an effective balance of around €130k as it's a tracker. That is fine as long a it's part of a bigger agreement.
 
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