Buying out your partner in case of divorce: “You soon end up with a total cost of around 10,000 euros” | My guide

“The situation is usually like this: spouses take out a mortgage loan together, where each owns 50 percent of the house, but each is jointly and individually responsible for 100 percent of the loan,” explains Romain Ott. But what if the couple breaks up and nothing is recorded about how the former partners settled things?

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Selling a house
“The first option is for the couple to sell the house. Let’s say the sales value of the house is 300,000 euros. One partner invests 30,000 euros, the other 20,000 euros, without investing in the house later. Then this partner must first recover the additional 10,000 euros that “Invest it. That leaves 290,000 euros.”

“We deduct the credit amount remaining to be repaid, say €50,000. What’s left, €240,000, is split fifty-fifty by the former partners. They also owe registration tax and notary costs. More on that below. By the way, just like Reinvestment fees, because they pay off the loan early.

Partner purchase
Another possibility is for one partner to buy out the other. “But you don’t just do that,” Roman notes. “First of all, the lender must agree that a former partner will henceforth repay the entire loan himself, with one income: the existing loan, plus – perhaps – new credit for the acquisition. The other former partner will not want to be bought out if he remains Responsible jointly and individually.

Back to the example. Let’s assume that one of the former partners has €3,500 of net disposable wages each month, and the two former partners together repay €800 per month towards the existing loan, with a balance of €50,000. If one of the former partners wanted to keep the loan intact, in addition to borrowing an additional purchase amount of €110,000 (€100,000 plus €10,000 in costs), over twenty years at a fixed interest rate of 3.22 percent with as few liabilities as possible, then it would cost Currently €619 per month. This is in addition to the amount of 800 euros that the former partner has already paid. The monthly total is €1,419.

“If the lender allows you to spend up to 50 percent of your disposable salary on expenses – in our example €1,750 – and you have no other expenses, for example, other credits or maintenance funds, it will likely accept your total loan, without your partner being responsible.” Jointly and severally. He remains liable. If the salary is not enough to cover all the costs, you can reschedule the loan and pay it off in the long term, but you will likely do so at much higher interest rates today.

What about your insurance in the event of a divorce? These are the interesting points.

First, you must pay distribution tax: the registration tax you owe if you divide property that belongs to different owners. “If you want to buy out your ex, you generally pay a distribution fee of only 1 percent on the sales value of your family home. In our example, this is €3,000 (or 1 percent of €300,000). Unless you physically live together in Flanders or you You cohabit legally for less than one year, you pay 2.5 percent.

“There are also costs at the notary. The notary’s fees are calculated at half the value of the house. So at 150,000 euros, that equates to 1,645.56 euros in fees. On top of that there are other expenses, making the total costs at the notary 6,681.49 euros. Suppose you You borrowed €110,000 to buy out your ex, in our example an additional €3,133.62 will be added for the new mortgage loan.This means you quickly end up with a total cost of around €10,000.

“Then your lender will want to hold your ex jointly and severally liable, and he or she may not want to be bought out. You can then agree to sell the house after all. Or one of them will continue to live there and pay the rent to the other. Or you rent the house out.” : This is also possible.

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