07 Feb What’s the best way to remove someone from a mortgage?

Q. What is the easiest and fastest way to remove someone’s name from a mortgage loan? I make the mortgage payments and any communications with the mortgage company is done through me. However, there is another person’s name also on the loan because she made a small contribution to the down payment. The deed for the home is now in my name only.
— Homeowner

A. There are several things to consider here.

We’re going to assume that the other person at one time was on the deed, the mortgage and the loan.

A mortgage on real property contains two major components, the promissory note and the mortgage, said Shawn McClelland, a partner at Mandelbaum Barrett PC in Roseland.

The promissory note represents the Borrower’s promise to repay a loan at a specified interest rate over an agreed upon time period, while the mortgage is the security the lender takes in the real property to assure the loan is repaid, he said.

The borrower under the promissory Note can be anyone but is usually at least one of the homeowners, while the mortgage, at the time of the loan, matches the deeded ownership of the property, he said.

“Removal of someone from the deed does not automatically remove them from the mortgage – only with lender approval can that be done,” he said. “Such removal will likely require refinancing the current mortgage.”

That’s going to mean more costs for you, and also potentially losing a more favorable mortgage rate. Good luck making that decision.

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This story was originally published in February 2026. 

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