Questions about buying a house...

[ladypirate]

So K and I are looking at buying a house (there''s a thread in LIW with pictures if you''re interested). This will be the first house either of us has owned. We are not officially engaged yet, but we are currently planning on getting married in the Fall of 2010. When we were discussing buying a house, one thing that came up was whether we should get married earlier (probably just do a courthouse wedding with maybe our immediate families in attendance).

Would getting married make the house buying process easier? What about as far as taxes go? If we stuck to our original marriage timeline, we would draw up a contract now protecting both of us anyhow. Does being married make a legal difference on how the loan works?

Thanks in advance for your answers!

 

[Octavia]

Depending on what state you're in, your marital status may affect the way you and K can take title to the land. There's a special way of owning land that gives spouses particular rights when they own it together, but it doesn't exist everywhere. I'm not going go into lots of detail unless you're really interested, because it's kind of mundane and potentially doesn't even apply, but the short answer is that being married can have benefits that way.

As far as the loan itself, you should probably check with your bank(s) to see whether they have any lending preferences. Since loans are somewhat harder to get now than they were a couple years ago, they might...but I'm not at all sure about that, or the tax situation.

Since you're thinking of drawing up a contract if you don't get married beforehand, it couldn't hurt to talk to a local real estate lawyer if you have concerns rather than just a general curiosity.

 

[BlueSki231]

This can be tricky...

my BF purchased his second house last July. (I have never owned) We wanted to buy together but I couldn''t be on the loan otherwise we''d only be able to borrow a very small amount. Seriously - if I were included they would only give us HALF of what they would just give him by himself. Which makes no sense cause I have extremely good credit - better than his credit score even.
He makes a significant amount of money more than I do.. so they were assuming he''d be taking on all my debts (which was not the case but you can''t explain that to a bank..). So it turned out he had to just buy it himself and not include me in the paperwork.
Now, if we were married we probably would not have been able to even purchase the home. Sure that makes me feel kinda crappy - like I''m more of a detriment to the relationship rather than an equal but what can ya do.. He''s in a better place financially/careerwise than I am. I will catch up by the time it''s time to get a new home.

I dunno if you''d fall into the same situation but I would talk to the bank about this. See how much you can get approved for - if one of you makes significantly more money than the other - or one of you has significantly more debt this could be a problem if you were married. I dunno.. Talk to a lawyer or the bank.

 

[ladypirate]

He makes more than I do, but he also has more debt (he has student loans & I don''t). We have similar credit scores (755 and 780), so that shouldn''t be an issue. If we''re not married, will they still allow us to qualify using both of our incomes? We''ll be talking to the bank on Wednesday, so I''ll know more then.

 

[BlueSki231]

yes they will consider both your incomes.. if your name is going to be on the mortgage your income is considered.
it sounds like you should be in good shape either way.
but the bank will be able to tell you if anything would change good or bad if you were to get married.

 

[fleur-de-lis]

TOTALLY cute house, LadyPirate! Wow! (That porch makes a woman dream of starry evenings with her fingers interlaced with her love''s...)

Yes, being married makes the whole process easier (especially title issues, legal costs for supplemental documents, and tax filings). Was there a reason why you were waiting until Fall 2010 to get married?

 

[ladypirate]

Date: 3/19/2009 6:41:07 PM
Author: fleur-de-lis
TOTALLY cute house, LadyPirate! Wow! (That porch makes a woman dream of starry evenings with her fingers interlaced with her love''s...)

Yes, being married makes the whole process easier (especially title issues, legal costs for supplemental documents, and tax filings). Was there a reason why you were waiting until Fall 2010 to get married?

Mostly to have enough time to plan a wedding--if we waited, we''d actually have a wedding wedding where we invited our friends and had a party. If we did it now, it would be going to the courthouse and just doing a legal wedding.

 

[Haven]

We bought our house a few months before we were married, and it was never an issue at all. We live in Illinois, if that makes a difference.