No refinance required. Twelve months of documented payments from your own account can free the co-signer up. If you can show the most recent twelve months of on-time mortgage payments made from an account the co-signer is not on, using bank statements or canceled checks to prove you are the one actually paying, that mortgage generally does not have to count against them when they apply. This contingent-liability exclusion is common across Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, FHA, and VA. With that documentation, the co-signer can buy their own home with FHA financing even while still named on your loan. Our guidance: do not run a refinance that does not otherwise help you just to remove them, because a refinance carries its own costs. If a refinance already makes sense on its own merits, taking the co-signer off at the same time is a natural bonus. When they are ready to buy, have them bring that twelve-month payment history to their lender so the existing mortgage can be excluded from their debt-to-income ratios instead of dragging down their own approval.