Buying ex out of joint properties

Hello everyone, I hope someone can advise or help here.

I am separated and will likely divorce in 2013. My ex lives with her new partner and our child lives with them. We have a house (ex family home) and an investment property. The house has a mortgage left on it of approx 600k and current value is around 500k. The investment property is worth approx 300k and has no mortgage against it. The mortgage has a low tracker rate.

Ideally, I would like to buy her out of the two properties and take on the remaining mortgage commitments. I would like to pay her 100k and keep the existing tracker, rent out both places and the rent would cover the mortgage. She would be debt free and pocket 100k.

Would the bank allow this? Would they allow her name to come off the deeds and the mortgage to be in my sole name? I assume not.

If we put a separate legal agreement in place and said nothing to the banks. would that hold up in court if: a) I defaulted on the mortgage, the banks came after her and she wanted to use this agreements to defend herself or b) I wanted to sell the property later and she said she had a claim on it as she is still on the deeds?

If this will not work we will likely have to sell both places and carve up the proceeds. Seems a real pity to lose the tracker in that case.

Can anyone help here? thanks in advance

From what I understand if you can prove your capable of paying the mortgage yourself the bank may allow you to take over the mortgage - certainly worth asking your solicitor about that option. Sorry to hear about your situation hope it works out well for you both

I don't think that the bank will let her take her name off the tracker unless you surrender the tracker. You can ask. You can offer to pay off the negative equity which might tempt them.

You should consider selling the investment property. You will have proceeds of €300k. She gets €100k and you keep the other property, its negative equity of €100k and the €200k cash.

You do a separate deal where you both agree that she has no liability for the other mortgage.

would that hold up in court if: a) I defaulted on the mortgage, the banks came after her and she wanted to use this agreements to defend herself or b) I wanted to sell the property later and she said she had a claim on it as she is still on the deeds?

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She could not use the agreement to defend herself against the banks. She can't opt out of the mortgage without the bank's agreement.

If properly written, the agreement should protect you against her claiming ownership of it.

I suspect that if you offer to pay €200k off the mortgage, they will let her off the mortgage. Then everyone is happy.

The alternative is that you both keep your interest in both investment properties. But I suspect the loss of a €200k tracker would be worth being independent of each other.

Why do you want to keep both properties?