Why do people say they own their own home before they have fully paid off their mortgage?

Surely until that happens you are really just renting from the bank/mortgage lender given that if you do not pay on time they will repossess??Why do people say they own their own home before they have fully paid off their mortgage?
It's the same as if you got a loan from the bank and purchased a car with the money - the car would be yours wouldn't it!!Why do people say they own their own home before they have fully paid off their mortgage?
The bank does not own it. The bank cannot paint your house a different color, come inside without your permission or even kick you out unless you don't default. Even then it takes a lot of paperwork to foreclose. When you purchase clothes on a credit card, the credit card company does not own the clothes, you do.
No, you are not renting, it is ownership.





You take title as a ';freehold estate'; that means complete ownership. The bank cannot tell you when to sell it, what to do with the property (as long as you don't destroy it), when to remodel it, or make improvements.





If you want to paint the outside purple and decrease the value, no bank will stop you.





If you want to leave trash in the yard and let the house go to hell, no bank will stop you.





The bank doesn't get the tax writeoff, you do on the interest you pay.





The bank has the right of reposession b/c when YOU didn't have the hundreds of thousands to put down on it...they did, and loaned you the money with the PROMISE to pay it back.





Why shouldn't they have it back if you don't pay off the loan?
Your name is on the title deeds....
Because it gives us a sense of stability.....
The person on the deed owns the house. No ifs ands or buts.





They owe money to a lender for the cash to buy it.
we like to delude ourselves hun


let us have our dreams eh?
You would come accross as being slightly anal if you said each time that you were 36% through paying off the mortgage on my house etc.





In any case could you not also argue that you are borrowing the money to pay for the house so in essence the bank own the money that you borrowed, they never actually purchased the house itself and thus it is not theirs in any form. They may have the right to seize it should you not make the payments but even that would imply that they have not had ownership of it up until that point.
Because we all need a degree of optimism in our lives.