To not want to give away half my money?

[givemeareason]

Me and my DP are about to buy a house together, the first time for both of us.

We are getting a mortgage, but I also have a hefty deposit to put down of 200k. This was not an inheritance, but money I earned and saved over the years - I'm mid thirties so have had a long time to save.

We have a DD together, and we are both committed to our relationship and family.

I am just not so keen to put the deposit down and then effectively have given away half of it if the worst happens and we do split.

DP thinks if I keep the deposit as 'mine' then we would be unequal partners in the relationship and he would be disadvantaged due to owning less of the house, if the house prices rose he would have less equity overall.

AIBU to want to keep my deposit as my own? I probably am.

BTW, he's not 'disadvantaged'! Would love it if my DP had £200k squirrelled away to enable us to buy a house - having him secure his investment with some legally binding agreement would still be better than our current situation of scrabbling around trying to find a deposit!

Yanbu
I think you were spot on when you described him as entitled op.

You are not married, you do the majority of the care for your dc, you gave up your social life and free time to earn enough for a fantastic deposit for a house. I really don't see why he should be entitled to equal share of your money when he isn't acting as an equal partner / parent.

Tbh I'd buy the house in your name only and give him the option to move in / contribute towards the house with a view to adding him to the mortgage at a later date.

Though I wouldn't think highly of someone who ruled a potential dp out because s/he didn't have enough money

Maybe it's different second time round, but I wouldn't want to date someone who had a vastly different amount of disposable income. I want to go away for weekends, eat out, go to the theatre etc and I'd not expect to have to subsidise the other person every time or miss out because they couldn't afford it.

Nothing to do with the amount of money they have per se, just being able to enjoy a similar lifestyle with a partner otherwise what's the point?

Don't ever be guilted into leaving your child's inheritance to someone else, just vaguely hoping everything will be ok.

I'm glad you've not listened to the bizarrer posts on here.

However you ring fenced the money I'd suspect there'll always be doubt on your side and feeling unfairly treated on his. Is there an amount you'd be comfortable using as a joint deposit, no strings attached, eg £10k, that you could use as a minimal shared deposit, then either keep the rest in savings or buy a completely separate house to rent out and use the profits jointly but the core would always remain yours/for your daughter. Then you could both own the house in near enough the same equity and pay it off together.

I tried to have another conversation with him and he's pretending to be unwell now.

I am seriously considering buying on my own, a lovely 2 bed cottage for me and my daughter would be perfect.

I'm never able to talk to him about anything, he always storms off, sulks or pretends he's ill.

Something struck me in your original post, OP:

we are both committed to our relationship and family

It seemed odd that you felt the need to mention this, almost as if you're justifying it to yourself.

Do you think you would still be together if you'd not got pregnant?

OP, my DP and I both put unequal amounts into our house purchase (him more than me). We had an agreement drawn up with a solicitor that in the event of a breakup we would take our original deposits and then split the rest of the equity evenly after the house was sold. I believe this is fair. An alternative would also have been to allocate a percentage of equity based on the proportion of the deposits. I felt my DP was being gracious in not insisting on this and I was grateful to him.

If you are putting 200k into a house that is a HUGE sum and it is yours no ifs or buts. If you break up you should get that back intact. He is off his rocker if he thinks he is entitled to that money in the event of a breakup. You could insist on not only taking the 200k back but also the entirety of any price increase as he has no equity stake.

He will benefit 1. from a house bought entirely without effort by him and 2. from any increase in equity - again without any investment from him. He is lucky to walk away with anything.

Does he literally have no money at all? If not, why not? Are you sure you are matched? A woman with 200k and a man in his 30s with nothing at all to show for himself and resentful of your savings? I'd be very wary if I were you.

You don't sound well-matched, and I don't think you will make it long-term. On that basis I wouldn't advise buying a house with him at all, much much harder to disentangle.

It does sound like the problems run a lot deeper than just the deposit on a house.

The way you describe him, he sounds like an immature entitled arse who think the world in general, and you in particular, owe him a comfortable life.

Allowing for the fact that you are currently a bit pissed off at him, it still doesn't sound like this is a good time to make the kind of financial committment that buying a house together would be, no matter how you arrange the finances.

I'm with Cheeky: "Buy a house outright with your cash and let it out. Use the rental income to pay for a shared house with him."

Babybarrister - would that still have to be sold/shared in the event of a divorce if it was clearly her house and not the marital home?

Well quite, I think sodding off and buying a lovely place outright and leaving him to feign sickness alone is the preferable option. What really worries me is that he's not trying to sort this out reasonably, he's trying to bully and sulk you into it - does that make him sound like the kind of man you want to share your life (let alone cash) with>?

considering what this man has to gain by being with the OP he ought to be trying to butter her up, not sulking.

If this is how he behaves now what would he be like in the future, with his feet under the table and his name on the mortgage deeds

Dh was more than happy for me to ring fence my deposit and this was even though he had a bit to contribute (he ring fenced his bit too). I didn't even have a child to consider.

It's different if you've been together for years and are married.

Btw the solicitor said that the contract didn't change on marriage if we did it that way so it's worth bearing that in mind.

i don't think you're ready to get married or buy a house together.

buying a 2 bed actually sounds like a good idea.

Sounds like you need a bit of time to think about what you want and need to do, if you do still want to buy with him though there doesn't seem to be any point in discussing it with him until you have seen a solicitor (with or without him).

YANBU.

Do not put this money into your house. I did this and bitterly regret doing it. I wish you a great future together and don't want to sound like a misery but relationships do go wrong and as a mother, life is likely to be economically far harder for you if you did split later.

Is this how he behaves if anything financial pops up? How is he for chipping in for his share of the shopping or paying for days out or if the car needs filling up?

He's showing you his true colours now I think, he think's its not fair you have all this cash and he wants some basically.

I'm sure your child and yourself could do just fine on your own.

When dh and I bought our house he had 80k as a deposit. There was a legal document which stated that if the house was to be sold then he gets that back before anything else is split equally. Now we are married and have two children it's a different story but at the time he wasn't wiling to risk his money so it was legally agreed. I'm sure you can do something like that?

Regarding 'double standards' there was a very similar post I read earlier today. The partner was female. The advice was the same.

Haven't read the thread, but my instinct is to say cover your own arse.

I was in a similar situation (though DP had the large deposit). We were 'tenants in common' of the property (rather than joint tenants) which laid out a percentage of the equity in each of our names pro rata to the amount of deposit we put up. I didn't have a problem with it at all.