For lenders, transferring a home loan means to move your loan to a different property - also known as ‘porting a home loan’. But you may also be thinking about transferring your mortgage to another person instead.

Why transfer your home loan to another person?

Transferring home loans between individuals can be complicated, and is not something you see often. However, if you’re considering adding or removing individuals on your loan, this is something that can be looked at.

There are many reasons for doing this. For example, you may want to:

  • Change from a single to joint home loan
  • Move from a joint to single home loan
  • Remove a borrower

These things should not increase the borrowed amount, but be aware that you may have to pay a fee for the transfer.

How transferring your equity to others works

When looking to transfer your home loan, whether adding or removing someone, it is best to speak to your lender as the process may vary.

The process is often called ‘Transfer of Equity’, but may have various names, and will keep your house ownership the same, but will change the details of the borrowers on the property ownership. The Transfer of Equity process will be different depending on the individuals and their circumstances.

Transferring a home loan to family or relatives

If you’re looking to move your entire loan to someone else, this is a different process from transferring equity and will take you off the ownership of the property.

Transferring your home loan and property to a family member or relative while removing yourself from the loan, would typically take place as a sale or purchase. For example, if you and your partner wanted to transfer your home loan and house to your children while removing yourself from the mortgage, this a separate process that would be completed with the support of your lender and solicitor.

Transferring your loan to your children, transferring your loan to a relative and transferring your loan to a parent all fall under this category. There are other exceptions, however.

Transferring solely your share of the home loan

If you decide to transfer your share of the home loan and property to a family member or relative while keeping the existing names on the loan, this will be a transfer of equity.

For example:

  1. Mum and Dad are both on the loan for their property but want to include their children.
  2. Dad moves his share of the loan to his children and removes himself from it.

This is considered a Transfer of Equity. Things such as, adding your children to your home loan, transferring your home loan from single to joint, or transferring to sole name would also all fall under this category.

The next step for a Transfer of Equity is to speak to one of our mortgage brokers to get a better understanding of what your needs are and how we can meet them.