Can a Home Owner Assign a Mortgage to Another Person?
- Refinancing your home jointly with another person added to the mortgage involves significant paperwork, going through the qualification process again and getting a new interest rate. The added borrower's name will then appear on all loan documents. To assign the mortgage to another person through a refinance, you will stay on the loan but the added person will be equally responsible for the payments until the mortgage is paid off.
- The person whose name you are adding to the mortgage through refinancing will have to go through the same approval process you do. Income verifications, decent credit and the willingness to be held responsible for the mortgage are all required of that person.
- Non-qualifying assumable loans for mortgages that closed prior to Dec. 31, 1989, still exist. Loans that closed after that date are not allowed to be non-qualifying assumables, however, qualifying assumable loans still exist for some of those later loans. An assumable loan is set up to allow the seller to assign the mortgage to a buyer. The buyer then takes over paying the mortgage from where the seller left off. The loan interest rate also remains the same. Today's assumable mortgages require the buyer to have qualifying income and credit. Once the application process is complete, the mortgage is assigned to the buyer and recorded in the county property records office.
- A land contract is an agreement between the current mortgage holder and an interested buyer in which the buyer pays the mortgage payment directly to the current mortgage holder. The buyer also typically pays all taxes and insurance payments and when the mortgage is paid off, the deed is put in the buyer's name and he owns the house. Land contracts do not assign mortgages to buyers. The mortgage and title remains in the seller's name until it is paid off in full.
