Wife on mortgage?

[BragBeller1]

I'm a little taken aback by some information I've just received from a mortgage broker I'm trying to arrange a mortgage through, so I'm wondering if anyone can tell me if this is correct. My situation is as follows. I'm an Irish citizen, living here in Dublin. I own outright and mortgage free my house. My wife is a UK citizen who owns outright and mortgage free her own house in the UK, which she is currently renting out. We live together here in my house in Dublin. We both have jobs here, and on top of her Irish income, my wife receives the rent from her house in the UK plus a pension from the UK civil service where she formerly worked. We wish to move to a bigger house here in Dublin, but I want to finance this new house entirely out of the proceeds of the sale of my current house, plus a mortgage which I intended to take out for the difference between the old and new houses. We desire to keep our finances separate at this time, and the plan was for me to buy the new house outright and in my own name and pay the mortgage entirely out of my own income. The idea was to maximize the separate assets until such time as we were ready to mingle them by selling both my house and hers and buying another, bigger house. (Hope you're all following this so far)

My broker, however, informs me that this will not be possible. As we are married, she MUST be included in the mortgage and all her income, including her UK income, must be taken into account. I'm wondering if this is actually the case. Is it possible in these circumstances for me to raise a mortgage in my own name, on my own sole income and without reference to my wife? For clarity, I was the owner of the house long before we met and her name does not appear on any documents pertaining to it. It was originally my birth family's home.

 

[skrooge]

What do they say about marriage, what's hers is hers and what's yours is hers also.

Being married to each other gives each of you greater access to the others assets. For many things a married couple are treated as a single legal entity. As your wife she would have a claim on any new family home. The lender is just covering all the bases.

It's not that she would have to fund half of the mortgage but the lender will want to see your collective financial position. Who funds what is not a concern of the bank once your combined finances are in good shape .

 

[Monbretia]

Very normal with underwriters, in general when married mortgage for family home must be in joint names. Cleaner and more clear cut for the lender if anything goes belly up! As mentioned it all relates to the Family Home Protection Act.

There are some rare circumstances where a lender will go with one name but it seems to be mainly where there was a credit record issue for the other person.

You could do it as a BTL in sole name but if you're caught for higher rate on that then it's not very effective, years ago when rates for BTL and PDH were the same it was often a solution to this sort of issue.