Do I have to say about my secret savings?

[Pissoff2020]

Five years ago I was in a really bad relationship and I ended up in an awful situation once it was over. I was struggling financially and had nothing to fall back on. Since then I have maintained a separate savings account for myself for an emergency, a relative passed away four years ago and I inherited some money which also went into this account.

I’ve been with new DP for almost three years and he’s lovely, we are hoping to buy somewhere next year. However, I haven’t told him about the additional account, I don’t know why, I should tell him but I also like knowing that I could survive if the worst happened and we split up.

We have a joint account but it’s only for bills, we keep our income separate and each pay into a savings account for a house deposit.

If we apply for a mortgage, will I need to declare the additional savings account? The deposit will not be from this account.

For now, keep it quiet.
It'd be different if you were struggling and desperately needed money for something and you stayed quiet rather than help, but if that unlikely scenario occurs, you can think again.
As it is, I think it's always sensible to have money put to one side so that you can look after yourself no matter what happens.

Do you have a will? If so, you can mention it in that so at least it's not lost if you pass away.

I understand why you kept it a secret before, because you were in an abusive situation with your previous partner. I'd let your current partner know about it in the sense of, "After my experience with X I always keep a small "running away" fund of savings in my name, I'm sure you understand why".

It makes perfect sense to disclose this now as you're planning a major financial step together. If he has a problem with you having savings in your own name, given your previous experience, I'd say you need to know about that right now before buying together.

If you leave it, it will get more and more difficult to mention it and then if it comes out years later it could look like you've been hiding something from him for nefarious purposes.

I'm assuming that you're pulling your weight in the relationship financially, and not squirreling away the majority of your income and expecting him to bankroll you!

Going against the majority here, but I think it's really important to be honest about money when you are committing to share a life with someone. I understand that previous experience would lead you to be wary of being left without funds, but I think perhaps, this should also be a lesson in being upfront before setting up, for example, a home with someone. Your account is in your name, which is fine and sensible, but you should tell you partner about it, secrets are terrible things. I would be really upset if my partner had secret money stashed away, but then I am also someone who only has joint assets, so in MN world, would not be considered as a sensible person.

If I remember rightly, when we applied for our mortgage they were mostly concerned with any reason we wouldn't be able to pay, so income and expenditure to make sure we were living within our means and and debts, CC's and loans etc. And that we had our deposit. I wouldn't have thought a mortgage advisor would be to concerned with any savings accounts as it doesn't Impact on you not being able to pay the mortgage each month.

It's understandable that you're cautious and only you know your relationship well enough to decide whether or not to keep this a secret, I'm sure your partner will fully understand why you have if he ever finds out and you're doing nothing wrong by not telling him, my worry with him knowing you have a savings account is that it's more likely to get dipped into if your car breaks down or your boiler packs in it'll be easier for him to say 'lets just take some from the savings' as he hasn't been in the financial position you have before

If this is a good relationship then you should be honest about the money. He's not going to demand half so why not?

I find it odd that women who have had affairs of some type are told to confess all, but women with secret savings are told to lie by omission

I'd tell him, explain why you have it, be vague about amounts. It really depends how much we are talking though. I'd be pretty pissed off if DH had 50K hidden away.

I have about £1500 tucked away that DH vaguely knows about. It's for "retirement"/"replacing my iPhone"/"my next laptop" etc but is probably enough to rent somewhere tiny if I needed to urgently. With my salary on top of that I could survive if I needed to get out.

I'd not declare it either (to either your DP or the mortage advisor). As for how he might feel one day, well if he's as lovely as you think he is, he'll understand. You're not living off him or paying a lesser share of bills while building up a nest egg so he's not worse off by not knowing. Honesty and transparency is great when you have decent people around you but sometimes it takes a while to ensure people are who you think they are.

I could keep it secret from the mortgage advisor, but not from DP.
If the roles were reversed and he had a secret account and I found out, I would be incredibly hurt.

As someone married for ever and joint everything, I would say keep your Emergency Fund. Even if you never run away, you may still need that bit of financial autonomy (or at least the knowledge that you have it).

As long as you aren't stashing massive amounts that are preventing the family functioning properly it is not a problem.

You don't have to tell a mortgage adviser. It's not relevant.
Whether or not you should tell your do is another matter.
If you think he will try to get you to put the money towards the house then that's a different problem.
What I would say is in a world where women usually come off worse financially in everything I would keep quiet.

dp

It wouldn't 'come up' unless you declare it.

This house purchase is only one aspect of your finances. If you are putting in equal deposits and paying the mortgage equally then that's it, without marriage, anything separate to that is only your business. Same for him.

I have applied for a mortgage in the last few weeks and I did have to declare my savings. I think you should mention that you have a small emergency fund. Nothing more needs to be said really.

Similar situation, I'm planning on building some savings although I've been with him for 22 years and have children. I have nothing else and transfer anything I earn to him because I feel guilty about not contributing anymore to the bills etc since I haven't worked as an employee.

Keep it safe, don't say anything, and then when you need it, it's there. Wish I could take my own advice :)

Good luck

Why not tell him, but say you want to keep this money as a backup to yourself? He should not demand you use it towards mortgage. This way you don't need to worry about whether or not it may come up later by accident.

I frankly don't know exactly how much my DH has personal savings and neither does he know how much I have. But we have a general idea I suppose. I think this depends also on how much you have. If it's a large sum that would be much more than what your partner could realistically expect you to have, then I feel it's more relevant to share the information. Say, I honestly dont care much to know whether my DH has 30k or 40k in savings, but if he had 300k and I didn't know about that, I may find a bit weird to find out by accident. Nevertheless, I would still need to accept that this money is for his personal use only, if that was his wish.

I think you should probably talk to him about this.
Once you get to the stage of buying a property with a partner you should be completely open about finances - you should both know how much (approx.) the other has in savings.
You have separate finances and are both saving together for a house deposit. This is sensible.
If you both have a lot of savings it might be worth discussing using some of your savings for the house deposit - both putting in equal amounts.
But you should both have savings of your own which you can use for whatever you think fit. I think you just need to be open and honest with him. He should also have savings of his own for his own use. You don't have to phrase it as "Emergency fund in case I need to escape the relationship" but money for a rainy day in general.

I don't subscribe to the joint finances thing even if you are married. I don't have any secret accounts from DH, but we have a joint account for bills and everything else is one name or the other.

However I cant really see an issue with keeping a secret stash, and think it's a bit over the top to say that if you found out about such an account later in the relationship you'd question the whole relationship. To be honest if you did find out about it, it would probably because you were divorcing anyway. My father kept all his savings secret but that was because he wanted to make sure my mum didn't get her half if they split up (which they eventually did, and she did get her half).

I MIGht tell him I had an account with some security money you need for emotional reasons. Frankly, I think all women should have this and you are 100% entitled to keep it separate. My exhusband left after 16 years and 2 children and if I had not had family support I would have been sunk.

I agree with the pp above that it depends how much the secret stash is. £5K for a rainy day, fine.

If I found out DH had say £80K he'd not told me about I might be a bit

We’ve been married for more than 20 years. I have some money inherited from my parents that the bloke knows about. We refer to it as “the care home fund”. He has no idea how much it is, though, and he’s never going to know because he’d want to go out and spend it.

Well he is already benefiting as he earns more yet you contribute 50/50 so he can't complain that you have your own "extra" money.

I wouldn't want there to be any lies told though. Has he ever asked you if you save any of your additional money? Where does the secret fund end? Do you declare it on marrying him? Do you plan on marrying him?

I think for a lot of people if this was reversed and a man said he had savings in an account hidden from his partner and was keeping them secret there would be a lot of people raising concerns.

For what it's worth, I have personal savings in my own name too but DH does know about their existence. I suppose technically it could be a "running away fund" although I would find that incredibly hurtful if that's how he labelled his personal savings. I just say they are my own long term savings for retirement and that's the end of it.

I do think some personal savings are a good idea. I just don't like the secrecy element.

You don’t need to say anything; however, if you have regular payments from your bank account then your broker will ask where the money is going to and what for.

You can say it’s savings without saying how much the total is you have in the pot.

The only way it would come up with the mortgage advisor is if the account is with the same bank you are getting the mortgage from. Then they would see it as part of looking at your customer profile. If it's with a different bank, it won't come up and you are doing nothing wrong if you don't mention it. All they need to know is your deposit, where that has come from, and your income and outgoings etc. They don't care if you have other accounts as it's not relevant to the application. I personally would say nothing to your DP, but it's easy to do that when you are childless and not committed financially. I would be annoyed to have a child with someone and discover they had secret money I didn't know about as it would feel they had savings outside the family unit. You could mention you have some savings mainly built from an inheritance but you want to keep that for a rainy day - he can't object to that if you are both contributing equally to deposit and mortgage. The other thing is if he pays more in general for stuff - it could look unfair. Would he really mind if you told him you had some personal savings you wanted to keep separate?

@cologne4711

I agree with the pp above that it depends how much the secret stash is. £5K for a rainy day, fine.

If I found out DH had say £80K he'd not told me about I might be a bit

Yeah, agree with above.

Also, do you still save money into this account?
Is there any chance he might be "love, where does that £100 standing order go to every month?" and then find out that way?