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Buying a house with a Belgian husband
I need some advice. We are currently living and paying rent in my MIL's house. We are considering buying it before we ( my husband) inherits it. We need to get a mortgage to pay off part of the house but the other part is being given as a gift. The problem for me is that we will both have our names on the mortgage but as it's his mum gifting it ( part of it) the house will only have his name on the title. We have an appointment with a notary but was wondering if anyone had experience with this.
The bank has said that the notary will make a marriage contract that will insure that half goes to me if anything causes a divorce etc. My husband says it's just saving money from changing the names on the deeds when in fact the marriage contract will have the same outcome.
Thought please .
Thanks in advance
This is absolutely not something which you should be asking of a bunch of strangers. What do you do if you find out in xx years time that the advice you have been given here is inaccurate?
You have an appointment with a notaris and that is where you will get professional advice from an independent source who has a responsibility to both of you equally.
Good luck
My suspicions/assumptions based on my own experience.
My late wife and I bought our home using our personal savings plus a joint mortgage.
On her death, her share of the house was divided equally between her 3 sons. The house is now officially registered (I guess that's what you mean by 'title') as being jointly owned by the 4 of us - me having half and the boys one sixth each. One of them has specifically mentioned that his 'ownership' of a share of my home was noted in the documentation when he bought his own family home.
If you and your husband will be buying one half of your house jointly and he will be gifted the other half then it follows that you will be registered as owning 25% and he as owning 75%. I am confident that you will NOT be excluded from being registered as part owner if you take out a joint mortgage.
It depends if you have children under the Napoleonic law here as stated above your children automatically get a share of your home. Is your husband an only child? You don't want to discover someone else has a claim on it if your your in laws die. Likewise if he dies and you have children your children get a part of his share and there is no way it can be done differently as far as I'm aware. Take advice from the notaire get it in writing so that if the worst happens you have proof what was discussed all the best
You can chose who inherits your 1/2 of the house if you die if the law of the country you or your husband originally come from allows it.
This means that any decision like this is inherantly fraught with pitfalls.
You MUST get legal advice, you MUST draw up a will, and you MUST make sure that the names on the deeds are correct and conform to what you want to happen should it come to death or divorce.
Besides - you need to involve a notary to change the ownership of the house anyway.
I know someone who died recently with his name only on the deeds, and dealing with the consequences of that has been a nightmare.
Pay once and pay now.
ANYONE WHO SUGGESTS YOU DO DIFFERENTLY IS WORKING AGAINST YOUR INTERESTS AND YOU WILL REGRET IT.
