Home mortgage loan and ssi/ssa
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Home mortgage loan and ssi/ssa
Can I co-sign on a home mortgage loan if Im
on ssi/ssa? My name would not be on the title
or deed.
Asked on August 24, 2018 under Real Estate Law, New Jersey
Answers:
SJZ, Member, New York Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney
Answered 6 years ago | Contributor
Legally, you could, since there is no law stating that you can't.
But that doesn't mean that the bank will accept you as a co-signor. It is voluntary for banks to lend--they can decide when, to whom, under what circumstances, and what they require to issue a loan. The purpose of a co-signor is to make the loan safer for the bank when the primary borrow has bad credit or doesn't make enough money or have a consistent enough earnings history, etc., by giving the bank another person who has to pay--and whom they can sue if the loan is not paid. But if you are on SSI/SSA, your income is "safe" from the bank--if they sued you and you did not pay, they could not garnish or otherwise take your income. SSI/SSA is protected from collections. You therefore are not really someone whom they could collect from, which means that you are not a good co-signor, since you don't necessarily increase the odds of them being paid if the borrower defaults. Therefore, they could decide to not accept you as a co-signor, since it does not really help them, even though the law would let you co-sign.
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