Many years ago, my mother needed to buy a permanent house for the family but she got blacklisted due to an earlier car's joint loan with my father, they divorced, and soon after my father disappeared and left us with tons of debts to pay back. There was a point where my mother could not afford to pay back the car's loan. Hence, the blacklisted issue.
So, my mother borrowed her younger sister and brother's names to apply for a loan and bought a low-cost 3-room apartment under a joint loan agreement between her sister and brother (my aunt and uncle), but my mother has always been the one who pay back the loan because my aunt used to earn fewer than my mother, just that my mother doesn't have the ownership over the house.

Here's the problem: recently my aunt stopped working and it has been almost a year. Before that, her working life has already been very unstable due to her mental problem and her bad attitude. She consulted a doctor back then and she got better, but it's becoming worse again recently and she lost her job and almost never intend to try to find a job. All these years we have tolerated and tried our best to help her but now she's totally relying on my mother and rotting in her room everyday while being unappreciative of everything. I am the eldest child and I still need another 2 years to complete my studies before I can have a full time job to support the family, and my mom's financial and emotional burdens have become worse. And with the increasing disputes between my aunt and the rest of us, I thought of changing the apartment's ownership to my mother's name (her blacklisted record just got cleared off recently) to prevent any potential future problems. I tried to search for information on the web and one of the info I got is we can't change the ownership without paying off the loan, so I tried to search for ways to change the names in joint loan agreement but I still haven't got a clear idea of the possible ways to do so without spending too much lawyer fee. I would appreciate a lot if someone can provide me with solutions on this situation.

P.S. I apologize for the extremely long post, I just wanted to describe my situation as clear as possible to get more accurate answer for this particular situation.

This post has been edited by swong626: Sep 3 2015, 12:30 PM

Yes, as when your property still under loan, its considered charged to bank or assigned to bank. So you need to get the consent of bank before can simply changing the ownership names. Give the bank a call or walkin and clarify with their officer.

no one care about your family affair.

unless your uncle and aunt sign over the house, there is nothing you can do actually.

don't bother with the my mother has been paying story, no judge care about who has been paying.
Bank only know that the house is under your aunt and uncle name. legally its theirs.

ohhh you better hope they don't die too soon or the ownership transfer to their children automatically, which means even more people need to sign ...

bottom line, get their signature.

i empathise and sympathise your situation.
however, it's gonna be messy.

1st thing before even going to lawyers or bankers would be to initiate a discussion with your aunt or uncle or whoever's name is stated in the SPA.
ask them whether they are willing to undertake the transfer or not.
if yes, then only consult the lawyer.
irrespective, you are going to be burden with transfer fees including legal and stamp duties.
but try not to think of these as additional cost because back then, you guys needed them as much. think of it as 'repaying' cost for using their names. after all, there are no guarantees that your family might not have been able to service the loans and they will in turn get into trouble for loaning you their names.
good luck.

Add-on: both my aunt and uncle do not have any children nor spouse. I thought of applying the fact that my aunt is actually having a mental problem as part of the process to get the house's ownership transferred cause she can barely feed herself right now, and my uncle has agreed on this matter as well. So now I will try to approach a psychiatrist and see what can be done, while working on the suggestions you guys provided. Thank you guys so much!

This post has been edited by swong626: Sep 3 2015, 12:43 PM

In my opinion, to avoid all the hassle and cost for transferring of the property ownership (since the property is also charged to the bank), it is best just to have both your aunt and uncle to give you (or whoever) a Power of Attorney over the house and/or ask them to sign escrow the Memorandum of Transfer form with love and affection transfer.

You can practically do anything with the PA. It can safeguard your interest and deal with any problem arise from the property in the future.

Only when the property is fully paid off (discharge from bank), you can transfer the property by using the PA and/or the MOT.

However, the issue now is the mental situation of your aunty. As far as I know any form of contract signed by any individual with unsound mind is not valid. Best if your psychiatrist can prove your aunty is of sound mind when she signed anything, otherwise it would be difficult. But then, if there is no one to challenge the transfer in the future, life goes on. However, lawyer might have a way to work around this issue. You have to consult a lawyer about this issue.

Anyway, the above is only my opinion.

make sure your mother retain all the payment receipts, it will be required to be use in court letter. most likely court will rule out your aunty to pay back the amount your mom paid, but house will still belong to ur aunt.

get back the money and life move on.

TS, just to share my story.

My brother bought a house. The house title is under his name alone. But, loan agreement was under his name and me. And recently we agreed that he own the house and continue paying the loan alone. After few months, he told me he already refinance the house under his name alone. The whole process i was not involved.

So, i think if the house title is under your mother's name, it is an easier process. Just need to talk to the bank you want to refinance the house with your mothers name only.

Hope it helps