Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Maryland

Re: property purchases - primary residence & contracts

Since you are getting financing to purchase your boyfriend's townhouse, that debt will be on your credit record and will probably disqualify you from obtaining any additional financing in your name to purchase the estate property, unless your income is quite high and sufficient in terms of income to debt ratio to allow you to qualify for 2 loans. Also, from a strictly legal standpoint, when you apply for the loan on the townhouse, you are asserting to the lender that you intend to occupy it as your personal residence so that you qualify for the lowest interest rate, when you know that you are only doing so on an interim basis. Practically speaking, as long as you make your mortgage payments on time and you do actually live there initially as planned, this probably won't be a problem.

There is no such thing as a verbal contract to buy real estate. All such contracts, even between "related" parties, must be in writing to be enforceable. As a real estate attorney, I have written many such contracts for buyers or sellers working without realtors. This turns out to be a lot less expensive than trying to do it yourself if a problem comes up later and one of the parties is either trying to break the contract or refuses to go to settlement.

If your boyfriend can qualify on his own credit for the estate property loan, you can both be contract purchasers and can both be owners on the deed, but he would be the only borrower. Then the two of you need an agreement between yourselves as to your relative responsibilities for expenses and upkeep on the property, and buy out provisions in case of a falling out.