In-Laws buying us a home

[ziphash]

What is the name of your state? Ohio

Because of past credit problems, my wife and I are unable to purchase a home. Her parents want to buy a home for us. The loan & house will be in her parents' names; however, my wife and I will be making the house payments.

We all want to have something drawn up to prevent any problems in the future. Obviously, my in-laws want to make sure that we will be making the payments and not stick them. On the other hand, we want to make sure that every penny we pay is actually going towards us owning the house and not just renting it off her parents. We will be making the full payments plus be doing the renovations on the house.

What is the best way to take care of this? Do we need to get an attorney to draw up a contract, or can we just write something up and have it notorized?

I appreciate any help.

[JETX]

Your post really isn't clear on what you are trying to do.

"Obviously, my in-laws want to make sure that we will be making the payments and not stick them."
**That is fairly easy to do. Simply have all parties sign a promissory note.

"On the other hand, we want to make sure that every penny we pay is actually going towards us owning the house and not just renting it off her parents."
**This is much harder to do. You say that you want the payments to go towards your OWNING the home. Are you doing a 'contract for deed' to eventually obtain ownership?? Or is the intent for the parents to retain ownership??

Considering the importance of getting the issues correct for all, I would certainly suggest you have an attorney review your documents.

[ziphash]

Sorry that I didn't make my post clear. This is the first time any of us is doing something like this so we're not sure what to do.

The point of the in-laws buying the home is for us to eventually own it. When we pay the loan off, the house is to be transferred from my in-laws to us. We just want to make sure that the house really is transferred to us when the loan is paid off. The main concern is that if we are paying the loan for say the next 10 yrs. or so and there is some sort of family feud we don't want the in-laws to decide it's their house and we were just paying rent the entire time. I hope this makes sense.

What is a 'contract for deed' and is that what we need to have drawn up?

[HomeGuru]

The best way is to have all parties on title and on the mortgage loan. Parents could be mortgage accomodators.
If you cannot find a lender to do this then the next you can do a contract for deed which is an installment contract for the purchase of real property.