An unmarried couple can share a mortgage, a house, and years of payments without automatically owning the property in equal shares. The wording on the deed can determine each person’s ownership interest, which can become very consequential when the relationship ends.
That creates a peculiar situation. Two people may have made similar mortgage payments for years, yet the deed may give them different ownership interests. Or the deed may establish equal ownership even though one person supplied most of the down payment. The mortgage tells the lender who owes the money. The deed tells the world who owns the house. Those are related documents, but they do different jobs.
