Asalum Alaykom,
I watched your live stream on Saturday and would greatly value your expertise.
I am a University student, last year I got married with three years still remaining on my course. However, because I was studying full time the option of rent was a very difficult one for more than one reason. My income currently is on a zero hours contract and so although some months my income is sufficient, many others it is not (the last few months have been the greatest example of this). Also I study in a different city to both mine and my wives families and so staying in one of our family homes temporarily is unfeasible. The option I therefore went for is for my father to buy a house using a conventional mortgage and for me to pay the mortgage as and when I can and he will complete the rest. This has worked really well for me as it has allowed me to focus on my studies and the other expenses of a newly married man (Alhamdulilah I also have a baby on the way along with other costs), however, I am now under the impression that this potentially could be haram. My questions to you are therefore the following;
- I know the mufti on Saturday said that there are certain rare instances where Allah has made interest permissible, would my situation be under this? The reason I say this is because when purchasing the property last summer I used the Islamic councils fatwa and made sure to go through all the conditions to ensure that I was eligible for it, however, from my understanding this fatwa has been manipulated (from why I heard on the livestream on Saturday). Currently I know it would be very difficult for me to rent, I am already trying to work very hard balancing working three or four jobs along with my degree, whilst still trying to be present in my marriage and like I say rent would be very difficult to add to this. In terms of an Islamic mortgage at the time I was ignorant to the permissibility of this, however, I know that my father managed to get this current mortgage due to remortgaging his current home which he outright owns not by getting a new mortgage as he is close to retirement age, would this option still be available for Islamic mortgages?
- My second question would be any advice on moving forward, I know that currently we are in a fixed rate for our mortgage until November 2021, would it be permissible to wait until then and then remortgage with an Islamic mortgage once the fixed rate is over? If we were unable to obtain an Islamic mortgage then what option do you think is best?
Jazakullah and thank you for all your help, your expertise is greatly appreciated.
Finally I would like to thank you for setting up this much needed platform educating Muslims on their finances, you and your team are certainly in my sincerest of duaa’s.
Asalam Alaykom