Legal Question in Real Estate Law in New York

Based on what you are saying, you need only record a deed from your wife to your wife and you as tenants by the entirety. That's a special land tenure available only to married people, and it protects each spouse against the other's creditors. The fact that the mortgage is in the name of a person who does not own the property is weird, but as long as the bank is accepting your wife's payments, should not be a big problem. You might not be able to get the bank to refinance the mortgage with your name and your wife's names. There has probably been a violation of the anti-sale clause (known as a due on sale clause) so I would not push to have the mortgage re-titled. The only practical effect is that the credit reporting bureaus will not know about your presence in the house; and if your wife ever needed to talk to the bank about something (e.g., failure of bank to pay taxes or insurance from escrow, or if you needed to get a temporary reduction in payments due to a reduction in income) you could have a problem, because the bank likely will not speak to her.