I cosigned on a house for my brother
This is why we tell people not to co-sign unless they are able and willing to risk that money becoming a gift... or are able and willing to treat it as business rather than family. Unfortunately that advice is a bit late now to help you. When you cosigned, you promised the bank that you would make any payments he didn't. The bank doesn't care why he didn't, they just want their money on time. Getting him to repay you for covering this is strictly between the two of you, and unless you signed paperwork at the time establishing a contract other than the promise to cover his loan this becomes Extremely Messy. First step is to make the payments so the loan doesn't continue acquiring fees and hurting your credit rating, and keep it from falling behind again. Then you have to convince him to repay the money you have effectively given him. Depending on your relationship, and financial situations, you may decide to carry him for a while and trust that he'll pay you back when he can, or sic a lawyer on him. You need to make that decision, recognizing that it may be a matter of how much family drama you are willing to tolerate. He wasn't wrong that a mortgage would help your credit score, assuming that this was a perfect world and everyone held up their end of the bargain. However, now that he hasn't, you are still legally obligated to pay the loan amount (including his portion of it). As for a lawsuit, it would be hard to prove what he said verbally, however, it doesn't hurt to call a lawyer for a free consultation.
"I am not sure how anyone is answering this unless they know what the loan was for.  For instance if it is for a house you can put a lien on the house.  If it is for the car in most states you can take over ownership of it.   Point being is that you need to go after the asset.   If there is no asset you need to go after you ""friend"".  Again we need more specifics to determine the best course of action which could range from you suing and garnishing wages from your friend to going to small claims court.  Part of this process is also getting a hold of the lending institution.  By letting them know what is going on they may be able to help you - they are good at tracking people down for free. Also the lender may be able to give you options.  For example if it is for a car a bank may help you clear this out if you get the car back plus penalty.  If a car is not in the red on the loan and it is in good condition the bank turns a profit on the default.  If they can recover it for free they will be willing to work with you.  I worked in repo when younger and on more than a few occasions we had the cosigner helping.  It went down like this... Co-signer gets pissed like you and calls bank, bank works out a plan and tells cosigner to default, cosigner defaults, banks gives cosigner rights to repo vehicle, cosigner helps or actually repos vehicle, bank gets car back, bank inspects car, bank asks cosigner for X amount (sometimes nothing but not usually), cosigner pays X, bank does not hit cosigners credit, bank releases loan and sells car.  I am writing this like it is easy but it really requires that asset is still in good condition, that cosigner can get to the asset, and that the ""friend"" still is around and trusts cosigner.  I have seen more than a few cosigners promise to deliver and come up short and couple conspiring with the ""friend"".   I basically think most of the advice you have gotten so far is crap and you haven't provided enough info to give perfect advice.  Seeking a lawyer is a joke.  Going after a fleeing party could eat up 40-50 billable hours.  It isn't like you are suing a business or something.  The lawyer could cost as much as repaying the loan - and most lawyers will act like it is a snap of their fingers until they have bled you dry - just really unsound advice. For the most part I would suggest talking to the bank and defaulting but again need 100% of the details.   The other part is cosigning the loan.  Why the hell would you cosign a loan for a friend?  Most parents won't cosign a loan for their own kids.  And if you are cosigning a loan, you write up a simple contract and make the non-payment penalties extremely costly for your friend.  I have seen simple contracts that include 30% interests rates that were upheld by courts." Yes, you can trade your properties. Go to the county recorder's office to find out the exact procedure. Deeds generally have specific language to use and you must describe the property accurately in the deed. If you want to do the transfer yourself, you will need to make sure you have the language correct. Also, you might want to do a title search to make sure that there are no claims against the property your brother is trading you, such as by a lender who might have loaned money to him with the property as collateral. (3) Yes, the normal way in the US is quitclaim deeds. (4) A quitclaim deed only lists the money (or other consideration) that changes hands. (5) Since it is a trade for equal value, there are no taxes. (6) No. Normally a lawyer is only needed if you are dealing with a stranger and the transaction is complex. As long as you follow the procedures of the clerk's office correctly there should be no need for a lawyer. In fact, a lawyer might be undesirable because they could slow things down. Also, since this is a non-standard trade, a lawyer actually has a higher chance of screwing something up because they will not give it long thought, the way you would. Also, they will use messengers and mail instead of actually going to the recorders office, another source of error which you can avoid by doing the process correctly--ie visiting the recorders office. Lawyers don't like getting out of their chairs and this causes them to make a lot of mistakes. 'If i co-sign that makes me 100% liable if for any reason you can't or won't pay.  Also this shows up on a credit report just like it's my debt.  This limits the amount i can borrow for any reason.  I don't want to take on your debt, that's your business and i don't want to make it mine'. Depending on jurisdiction, the fact that you made some payments might give you an ownership share in the house in your own right. What share would be a complex question because you might need to consider both the mortgage payments made and maintenance. Your sister might also be able to argue that she was entitled to some recompense for the risk she describes of co-signing, and that's something that would be very hard to quantify, but clearly you would also be entitled to similar recompense in respect of that, as you also co-signed. For the share your mother owned, the normal rules of inheritance apply and by default that would be a 50-50 split as JoeTaxpayer said. You imply that the loan is still outstanding, so all of this only applies to the equity previously built up in the house prior to your mother's death. If you are the only one making the ongoing payments, I would expect any further equity built up to belong solely to you, but again the jurisdiction and the fact that your sister's name is on the deeds could affect this. If you can't resolve this amicably, you might need to get a court involved and it's possible that the cost of doing so would outweigh the eventual benefit to you. "That ain't nothing.  It's really easy to get ""whipped up"" into a sense of entitlement, and forget to be grateful for what you do have.  If this house doesn't exist, what would his costs of housing be elsewhere?  Realistically.  Would landlords rent to him? Would other bankers lend him money to buy a house? Would those costs really be any better?  What about the intangible benefits like not having any landlord hassles or having a good relationship with the neighbors?  It's entirely possible he has a sweet deal here, and just doesn't make enough money.  If your credit rating is poor, your housing options really suck.  Banks won't lend you money for a house unless you have a huge ton of upfront cash.  Most landlords won't rent to you at all, because they are going to automated scoring systems to avoid accusations of racism.  In this day and age, there are lots of ways to make money with a property you own.  In fact, I believe very firmly in Robert Allen's doctrine: Never sell.  That way you avoid the tens of thousands of dollars of overhead costs you bear with every sale. That's pure profit gone up in smoke.  Keep the property forever, keep it working for you.  If he doesn't know how, learn.  To ""get bootstrapped"" he can put it up on AirBnB or other services. Or do ""housemate shares"".  When your house is not show-condition, just be very honest and relatable about the condition.  Don't oversell it, tell them exactly what they're going to get.  People like honesty in the social sharing economy.  And here's the important part: Don't booze away the new income, invest it back into the property to make it a better money-maker - better at AirBnB, better at housemate shares, better as a month-to-month renter. So it's too big - Is there a way to subdivide the unit to make it a better renter or AirBnB?  Can he carve out an ""in-law unit"" that would be a good size for him alone? If he can keep turning the money back into the property like that, he could do alright.  This is what the new sharing economy is all about.  Of course, sister might show up with her hand out, wanting half the revenue since it's half her house.  Tell her hell no, this pays the mortgage and you don't!  She deserves nothing, yet is getting half the equity from those mortgage payments, and that's enough, doggone it!  And if she wants to go to court, get a judge to tell her that.  Not that he's going to sell it, but it's a huge deal. He needs to know how much of his payments on the house are turning into real equity that belongs to him.   ""Owning it on paper"" doesn't mean you own it.  There's a mortgage on it, which means you don't own all of it.  The amount you own is the value of the house minus the mortgage owed.   This is called your equity.   Of course a sale also MINUS the costs of bringing the house up to mandatory code requirements,  MINUS the cost of cosmetically making the house presentable.   But when you actually sell, there's also the 6% Realtors' commission and other closing costs.  This is where the mortgage is more than the house is worth.  This is a dangerous situation.  If you keep the house and keep paying the mortgage all right, that is stable, and can be cheaper than the intense disruption and credit-rating shock of a foreclosure or short sale.  If sister is half owner, she'll get a credit burn also. That may be why she doesn't want to sell.  And that is leverage he has over her.  I imagine a ""Winter's bone"" (great movie) situation where the family is hanging on by a thread and hasn't told the bank the parents died.  That could get very complex especially if the brother/sister are not creditworthy, because that means the bank would simply call the loan and force a sale.   The upside is this won't result in a credit-rating burn or bankruptcy for the children, because they are not owners of the house and children do not inherit parents' debt." "I want to first state that I'm not an attorney and this is not a response that would be considered legal advice.  I'm going to assume this was a loan was made in the USA.  The OP didnt specify.   A typical auto loan has a borrower and a co-borrower or ""cosigner"".  The first signer on the contract is considered the ""primary"".  As to your question about a primary being a co-borrower my answer would be no.  Primary simply means first signer and you can't be a first signer and a co-borrower.  Both borrower and co-borrower, unless the contract specifies different, are equally responsible for the auto loan regardless if you're a borrower or a co-borrower (primary or not primary).     I'm not sure if there was a situation not specified that prompted the question.  Just remember that when you add a co-borrower their positive and negative financials are handled equally as the borrower.  So in some cases a co-borrower can make the loan not qualify.   (I worked for an auto finance company for 16 years)" "Is there any way through this? Yes, but you're not going to like it. If your friend has guaranteed the loans, then it's your friend's obligation to pay them when the brother-in-law is not cooperating. That's what it means to guarantee a loan.  (Obligatory: ""Before lending your friends or family money, ask yourself which you need more."")" In the end you, your dad, and your brother should come to an agreement so there's no surprises or unfulfilled expectations, but here's my opinion: If you can afford to make the additions now: I would offer to pay fully for the addition, with the understanding that the additional value that it generates is yours.  That keeps everything in your name, and should be fair since you pay for the expense and someday reap the benefit. If you can't afford to make the additions now: I see two options: have your brother buy your father's house, giving you half of the proceeds, and use those proceeds to make the addition as above, or split the cost of the addition and have some sort of contract drawn up promising to reimburse him (with the amount of the reimbursement very clear, like XXX dollars plus accrued interest at Y% annually) as a condition to selling the house.   One other part you didn't mention is any compensation you get for keeping your father at your house.  What compensation (if any) you get is not as important as making sure that the three of you all agree on what is fair.   In any case, clear, honest communication and full agreement is key. There is a very real risk that when your father's estate is settled that there will be disputes over what the agreement was and who it entitled to what.  Having everything in writing may sound cold, but it keeps everyone on the same page. "The risk is that you will owe the bank the principal amount of the mortgage. Based on your question it would be foolish for you to sign. Anyone who describes a mortgage as ""something"" obviously has no idea what they are doing and should never sign a mortgage which is a promise to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars. You would be doubly foolish to sign the mortgage because if you are guaranteeing the loan, you own nothing. So, for example, if your friend sold the house, pocketed the money, then left the country you would owe the full amount of the mortgage. Since you are not on the deed there is no way you can prevent this from happening. He does not need your approval to sell the house. So, essentially what your ""friend"" is doing is asking you to assume all the risk of the mortgage with none of the benefits, since he gets the house, not you. If a ""girlfriend"" is involved, that just increases the risk you will have a problem. Also, although it is not clear, it appears this is a second house for him. If so, that disqualifies him from any mortgage assistance or relief, so the risk is even higher. Basically, it would foolish in the extreme to co-sign the loan." "First off, your commitment to paying down debt and apparent strong relationship with your brother is admirable. However, I think you are overcomplicating your situation and potentially endangering your relationship by attempting to combine debts in this way. You could consider a simple example where you have interest bearing at 5% and your brother has interest bearing debt at 10%. If you both pay down his higher interest debt first, and then both pay down your debt after, then clearly you will have paid less interest combined. But, by waiting to pay off your debt until later, you have accrued more interest yourself. So who has saved money by doing this? Your brother. You will have paid (let's say, without getting into balances) $50 extra interest to save your brother $70 in interest. So why would you want to give your brother $50? Total interest savings between both of you in this simplified example are $20. So, in theory your brother could pay you $60 after the fact, effectively meaning you end up $10 ahead, and your brother ends up $10 ahead. Here, you end up in a position where you could still say, in theory 'we both came out ahead'. But what if your brother loses his job while you're both paying off your debt, and he can't help any more? Does he accrue some type of calculated interest until he pays you back? What if he's off work for 2 years and still owes you 30k? What if he just never makes his payments to you on time? At what point do you resent your brother for failing to uphold his end of the deal? Money and friends don't mix. Money and family mixes even worse. In rare circumstances where you absolutely must mix family and money, get everything in writing. Get it signed, make it legal. Outline all details of the transaction, including interest rates, and examples of how the balances calculate. In 5 years when things go haywire, following the letter of the law is what will keep you from becoming enemies. But with family, often people have an expectation that ""while we agreed I would pay x, he's my brother, so he should take pity on me and allow me to pay only y, if I need to"". Finally, to your question about how to calculate amounts to pay: it will be very complicated. You will need to track minimum balance payments, interest rates, and even potentially the lost income which one of you gives up to pay down the other's debt. You could do these things in a simplified way close to what I've set out above, but then ultimately one of you will lose out. If you pay down your debts first, how can you calculate the lost living potential for your brother, who might want to buy a house but can't save for a down payment for an extra year? What if he has to move, and without sufficient down payment, he needs to pay extra Mortgage Insurance on his loan from the bank? Will you compensate him for that? My recommendation, if you haven't caught it yet, is Do not do this. Your potential savings are not going to be worth the potential heartache of breaking your relationship with your brother.  Instead, look at joining your minds, not your money. Set goals for yourselves individually, and hold each other accountable. Make this an open conversation between yourselves, as it can be difficult to talk about finances with other people. Your support will help the other person, and hopefully help keep you on track as well. To provide numerical context for potential savings, which you appear to still want, consider the numbers you've provided [you have 40k debt at 10%, your brother has 20k of debt at 5%]. Let's assume you each can pay up to 20k against the principal of your loans each year. Finally assume for simplicity that you also have enough to pay off interest as it gets charged [so no compounding], and you pay in even instalments each year. Mathematically that means your interest each year is equal to your interest rate * your average annual balance. If you each go alone, then you will accrue 10% on an average balance of [(40k+20k)/2] = 30k per year, which equals 3,000 in interest in year 1, then [(20k+0)/2] = 10k * .10 = 1,000 interest in year 2. Total interest for you = 4,000. Your brother will accrue [(20k+0k)/2] = 10k * .05 = 500 in interest in total. Total interest for both of you combined would be 4,500. If you pool your debt snowball, then you will clear your debt first. So the interest on your debt would be [(40k+0k)/2] = 20k * .1 = 2,000. Your brother's debt would fully accrue 5% of interest on the full balance in year 1, so interest in year 1 would be 20k * .05 = 1,000. In year 2, your brother's debt would be cleared half way through the year; interest charged would be [(20k+0k)/2] = 10k * .05 * 50% = 250. You would then owe your brother 10k, which you would pay him over the remainder of year 2. His total interest paid to the bank would be 1,000 + 250 = 1,250. Total interest for both of you combined would be 3,250.  In a simplified payment example using your numbers, maximum interest savings would be about $1,250 combined. How you allocate those savings would be pretty subjective; assuming a 50:50 split, this yields $625 in savings to each of you. If you aren't able to each save 20k per year, then savings would be greater for snowballing, because otherwise it will take you even longer to pay off your high interest debt. This is similar to your brother loaning you 20k today that you can use to pay off your debts, after which you pay him back so he can pay off his. Because you will owe him 20k for 2 years, but an average of ~10k at any one time [because he slowly advances it to you today, and you slowly pay him back until the end of year 2], at $650 in benefit passed to your brother, this is roughly equivalent to him loaning you money at 6.5% interest." "fire your brother's friend and get another accounting major who'll listen to orders and won't try anything dodgy. You might have to pay well for that. Make sure your whole family is on the same page with future plans   EDIT: I just read that you think your brother is going to do a takeover. It's your family's business. He's your brother. It's not really a ""hostile takeover"". If you don't trust your own brother you have to work on the relationship not the business.  EDIT 2: I checked your profile. Stop doing drugs" "First of all you do not ""co-sign a car"". I assume what you mean by this is that you co-signed a loan, and the money was used to buy a car. Once you signed that loan YOU OWED THE MONEY. Once a loan exists, it exists, and you will owe the money until the loan is paid. If you do not want to owe the money, then you need to pay back the money you borrowed. You may not think ""you"" borrowed the money because the car went to someone else. THE BANK AND THE COURTS DO NOT CARE. All they care about is that YOU signed the loan, so as far as they are concerned YOU owe the money and you owe ALL of the money to the bank, and the only way to change that is to pay the money back." There are a number of ways you could do this. The first step is to work out what a fair price is. Either make an estimate that you both accept, possibly getting a real estate agent to give you a free evaluation, or get a professional evaluation from some you both accept. Once you have a valuation, the simplest of course is to pay your brother that value (in return for his transferring his ownership to you). Hopefully you have that much money in savings. If you don't have that money (but do have income) you may need to take a mortgage, which would put your home at risk. If the pollution you speak of hasn't been fixed a mortgage may be out of the question. An alternative, if you have income, and your brother doesn't need the money right now, is to make the money you owe him for the house a loan from him to you. He transfers his ownership of the house to you, you pay him its value, but he simultaneously loans you that exact same amount. No actual money needs to change hands. You would make him a regular payment, essentially the interest on that loan, and also make an agreement to pay off the principal of the loan (i.e. the value of the house) when the house is sold, or when you pass away. While you could do this informally if everyone agrees, it would be much better to make a legal agreement, so that everybody is exactly sure what they are expecting. Get a lawyer to put this in contract form, with everything spelled out explicitly. What is fair is what the two of you agree upon. My own suggestion: Divide the property into things which are yours, his, and shared, then have each of you be responsible for all your costs plus half the shared costs, but get all the benefits of your half. That would mean that if he rents out his half, all the rental income is his; if you decide to live in your half, all the savings of not paying rent are yours.  Each of you pays your half of mortgage, insurance, and other shared costs. Repairs to shared infrastructure should be done by someone both of you trust. If you agree the work is needed and he does it rather than your hiring someone, you owe him the appropriate percentage of the costs; the two of you will need to agree on whether you owe him for that percentage of his time as well. Make sure you agree on some mechanism for one person offering to buy the other out, or to sell their half to the other party... or potentially to someone else entirely. (Personally, I would try to do that at soonest opportunity, to avoid some of the ways this can go wrong -- see past comments about the hazards of guaranteeing a loan; this works or doesn't work similarly.) Does that address your question? "One alternative strategy you may want to consider is writing covered calls on the stock you have ""just sitting there"".  This will allow you to earn a return (the premium from the calls) without necessarily having to give up your holding. As a brief overview, ""options"" are derivatives that give the holder the right (or option) to buy or sell shares at a specified price.  Holders of call options with a strike prike $x on a particular security have the right to purchase that security at the strike price $x.  Conversely, holders of put options with a strike price of $x have the right to sell that security at the strike price $x.  Always on the other side of a call or put option is a person that has sold the option, which is called ""writing"" the option.  If this person writes a call option, then he will be obligated to sell a certain amount of stock (100 shares per contract) at the strike price if that option is exercised.  A writer of a put option will be obligated to by 100 shares per contract at the strike price if that option is exercised. Covered calls involve writing call contracts on stock that you own.  For example, say you own 100 shares of AAPL, and that AAPL is currently trading for $330.  You decide to write a Jan 21, 2012 call on these shares at a strike price of $340, earning you a premium of say $300. Two things can now happen: if the price of AAPL is not at least $340 on January 21, then the options are ""out of the money"" and will expire unexercised (why exercise an option to buy at $340 when you can buy at the currently cheaper market price?).  You keep your AAPL stock plus the $300 premium you earn.  If, however, the price of AAPL is greater than $340, the option will be exercised and you will now be required to sell the shares you own at $340.  You will earn a return of $10/share ($340-$330), plus the $300 premium from the call option.  You still make out in the end, but have unfortunately incurred an opportunity cost, as had you not written the call option you would have been able to sell at the market price, which is higher than the $340 strike price. Covered calls are considered relatively safe and conservative, however the strategy is most effective for stocks that are expected to stay within a relatively narrow price range for the duration of the contract.  They do provide one option of earning additional money on stocks you are currently holding, albeit at the risk of giving up some returns if the stock price rises above the strike price."