If husband and wife have a joint loan on a house and one of the spouses passes away, what happens to the house?

Q. If husband and wife have a joint loan on a house and one of the spouses passes away, what happens to the house?

A. In terms of Shariah, if husband and wife had taken a joint loan on a house and either of them pass away, then if the deceased spouse did not pay off his/her portion of loan on the house, it will be payed out from the deceased spouses estate.

If the deceased spouse payed off his/her portion of loan on the house, that portion of the house will form part of the deceased spouse’s estate.

In either case, once the loan of the house is payed off, the loaned portion of the house which is payed off will form part of the deceased spouses estate and will be distributed amongst his/her surviving heirs according to the Islamic Law of Succession and Inheritance.

Note: The surviving spouse and the surviving heirs may mutually agree upon the method of distributing the portion of the deceased spouses share in the house.

Allah Ta’ala Knows Best

Mufti Ismaeel Bassa

themufti.com