Protecting myself with MIL house offer.

[FaithLehaneFiveByFive]

Have NC'd for this as it will out me.

MIL has recently come into a lot of money. She bought a house outright and SIL and her DP have moved into it and pay a low rent amount. Now MIL has offered to do similar for us. Similar in that she will put down a large deposit on a house and get a mortgage on it, and we could move in, treat it as our own, pay the mortgage plus some extra until the "extra" amounts add up to around £10,000. Once we have paid this amount she will sign the house over to us.

This means a lot to us as we would never be able to scrape together a deposit on our own and we have just had our DD so having a real permanent secure home for her would be wonderful.

I am quite a cautious person and have been left in the shit by partners before, so I always secretly ensure I would be ok on my own in case anything were to happen. My question is, is there any form of legal agreement I can come to that would protect me with regards to the house if DP and I were to split up? I am scared that if that were to happen before we had finished paying back the £10,000 then MiL and DP could kick me out. DP says he would never do that but you never know!

We will be getting married in April next year if that makes any difference.

TIA

[vulgarwretch]

This is nice of your MIL but there's potential for it all to go horribly wrong - what if you get halfway through paying her £10,000 and then she decides she wants the money for something else? So you will need some legal agreements in place anyway, as well as a tenancy agreement. I'm sure you can extend the legal documents to cover a situation where you and your DP separate as well, so that you get back any money that you have put in to the property.

What is the reason for the £10,000? Will that be the amount of the mortgage? If not and there is still an outstanding mortgage when you've paid the £10,000, how would your MIL sign the property over to you?