AIBU - house purchase with partner

If your partner is happy, you should ring fence your deposit in percentage terms and own the property in percentage terms relevant to the deposit by way of a deed of trust. It's irrelevant who is paying what toward the mortgage, when you have children together you're a unit.

You have more to lose by this deal because you are giving up your own property to buy with someone who so far doesn't appear to have accumulated much in the way of capital or property. All the risk is yours.

I would ring fence deposit and then have the remainder as tenants in common so in relation to the mortgage payments

it should be easy enough with proper legal advice to protect your deposit and then reflect the mortgage payments

this also allows for separate wills to be had in terms of inheritance

Whose are the two other children?

Then don't make the biggest purchase of your life with someone who could leave you tomorrow.

If you don't want (and its not for everyone) the financial security that comes with marriage, then you keep it all separate and go 50/50 on all costs. Deposits ringfenced of course.

It is challenging and most people get into a mess if they separate ....

You put down £280K - that is a significant amount of money which would appreciate if you kept it in your own property, but may appreciate more in this larger property (that doesn't always hold). Your 40% of the property will be fully paid by your deposit, while eventually, his X% of the property will cost much more as he will have to pay interest. You could work towards 50/50 ownership by you paying 16% of the mortgage, which would, over the term of the mortgage, buy you 10% an additional of the house, while your partner buys 50%.

He benefits from your large deposit - without which he would not be able to buy. You benefit from his ability to get and pay for, a larger mortgage, without which, you would not be able to have a larger house.

What if you renovate - who pays for that? Is that assumed to add value to the house and therefore should be repaid out of the profits / equity before the share associated with the capital? Who decides what is maintenance and what is improvement?

The salary differences are going to be a question / issue in every area of spending, whether it is bills, food, holidays etc. Do you have children? Are they shared or were they born before you got together?

The seesaw between 'I fund your lifestyle' and 'You are spending money while watching me count my pennies' can be tricky when there is a disparity in income - it is a tricky ride, one that requires openness, honesty, respect and understanding.

My son put in 100k Deposit & ringfenced it by deed of trust

no SD as both FTB
they are on the deeds as 50-50
and both pay 50 -50 bills / mortgage

You also need to think agree what happens if you split up and end up selling for less than what you paid. Do you get the full £300k back then he suffers 70% of the mortgage shortfall. Or is the mortgage shortfall 50/50? Or does your £300k get reduced by the percentage reduction in sale price?

Personally if you don't want to marry I would ask if that's in general, or just with this man?
Can you wait and buy a house on your own in a few years?

The costs involved in obtaining your deposit are your expenses alone.
Any costs involved in buying the new one are joint. (These costs should be 50/50 out of your savings/equity).
Whatever % value of the new house you have left to put in as a deposit should be ring fenced as a %share (if you have 20% as a deposit, you ring fence 20% of the house value, which may go down if you sell soon after buying) Same for your partner if he has any deposit left after paying half the stamp duty & other bills.

Ongoing, you split everything 70/30 (if partner is agreeable) & partner gets 70% value of what’s left. (Still a good deal for you as only the mortgage part of those bills will result in any profit).
Iron out these details from the start to avoid arguments of “it’s not fair” down the line. If you can’t agree now, don’t buy together.

Speak to a solicitor who will be used with drawing up these kind of agreements.

So I put in all of the deposit on my house and my partner pays 60% of the mortgage.

Essentially we are tenants in common with a deed of trust drawn up that varies ownership over time. We added all costs to the purchase price and worked out the percentage ownership which st that point was 13.5% him and the rest me. Overtime as his contributions have increased his share or we have done work to the house which we have contributed to 50:50 we have adjusted the percentage of the house we own.

Ultimately this means I will walk away with my deposit plus the amount I have paid into the mortgage and any additional equity we have built up over time and he will be in a similar position. Not sure why you would do it any other way.

You have a child together already - I'm guessing you took the lion's share of parental leave and are the default parent and default childcare solution if your child is ill/you have held back on your career somewhat more than your partner?

Yes to escape fund, so smart. Wish I'd had one.

My ex-husband did all of that anyway! It's never clean, married or not.

I'd say you have more protection with marriage. You are tying up all of your money in a property, when it comes to sell he will have equal say and can turn down offers, drag his heels with paperwork or put off buyers and you can't get your money back to move on.

This in no way offers a safer or more protected route than marriage

They see a lawyer. Every big law firm will have someone in-house who can deal with this; usually they are "family" lawyers who deal with marriage, divorce, kids and financial assets like cohabitation, etc. You've been married before? If you liked your divorce lawyer, ask them to recommend someone in-house to help you.

Firstly, it's lovely that you found a home you want to share with your partner and child, and sorry it's got a bit "financial" from the outset, but that is what you are dealing with; it's business which is very unromantic! Leveraging his earnings and other contributions against your deposit is messy business. You need to see a lawyer on your own, and he needs to see one too, then you see one together and sign an agreed contract; it's like drawing up a pre-nup for marriage: first each individuals needs are protected, then you come together in an office and you sign the contract that both your solicitors have agreed on (and this is nothing to do with the conveyancing of your property, that is a separate lawyer).

Sensible to ring fence your deposit but if you’re splitting mortgage payments 70/30 you only get that proportion of the equity.

If not committed enough to get married/civil partnership, I wouldn't do this.

The worst case scenario even all of this aside is that you split, and it can take a long time (years in the worst cases) to force a sale. You will be unable to afford the house alone, but also unable to realise your equity to move on elsewhere. So you could quite realistically end up faced with a choice of live with an ex, in a potentially toxic household, or be at the rental market’s mercy based solely on your salary.

If I was going to do this, and the deposit had been ring fenced as a % to allow you to benefit from increased value over time (I agree the rest needs to be 70/30), I would also want to keep aside 2 years rental of something that would be realistically comparable in terms of if I had to move out.

On a 400k mortgage, say your repayments are £2k a month. If you can’t comfortably afford 50% of that, how would you afford rental costs, which have risen hugely recently? You could end up genuinely trapped.

If you go ahead, keep at least £20k as an escape fund, that would be my advice.