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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to want a joint account after fronting all 15k deposit for our family home?

160 replies

Jemima1988 · 09/11/2014 22:26

I hadn't been with my new partner very long before we fell pregnant. Our son is now 5 weeks old and we are a happy little family. I have been saving alone for a while and due to certain circumstances I have 15k to put down as a deposit for our first family home, my partner has no savings at all.
I mentioned that we should get a joint bank account that both out wages should go into so we can pay for everything out if that. I am a firm believer in what's mine is yours I never ever refer to the 15k as being mine is OUR money for OUR house. due to me being on maternity, our plans for my return to work and my partners up and coming promotion he is on a lot more money than me. I think this is putting him off the joint account?!? also he talks about splitting bills 50/50 this would leave me with less than 1/4 of my wages and leave him over half of his. A IBM to ask for a family account when I am investing so much up front or is his way the only fair way? Xx

OP posts:
WooWooOwl · 10/11/2014 18:21

A great way to get round this (one way or another) is to put your savings into a deposit, for a house which is in YOUR name only. Instead, charge him £XXX rent a month (the whole of the mortgage, maybe more if you want to charge him for things like childcare or housekeeping) and then see how you go. Propose this to him. I'll just bet he won't like it.

Tell him that's fine. But obviously any time you are caring for his baby you will be charging him for his 50% of the going daily nursery rate.

If you were single, you could get benefits and CSA and might end up financially better than with him.
While he has you co-financing his lifestyle.

It's comments like the ones above that make me think that some women want it all. Yes, some men do take the piss out of women financially, but like most things, it works both ways. OP wants this man to start paying the majority of a mortgage on a house that she will most likely get to keep if they split up. I just don't think that's right, so I agree with others that renting for now would be better for them until they are both ready to marry and make a proper financial commitment to each other.

Quitelikely · 10/11/2014 18:22

Does he realise how much you would have left after paying your share of the bills? Is he planning to pay half of childcare and half of everything else for the baby?

Johnogroats · 10/11/2014 18:40

I put a substantial deposit (30k some 15 years ago) into a house with then bf. my dad who was a property lawyer insisted that we had a cohabitation agreement drawn up in case we split. Bf was going to be paying 2/3 of mortgage and that was covered.

We've now been married 13 years and the agreement is no longer relevant, but the agreement was worth having. OP I would recommend you do similar if the money goes into a house.

carlsonrichards · 10/11/2014 18:51

That's very lucky for you, LePetit, this board is full of those who find themselves with nothing, no recent work experience, the kids and no money due to doing just that and then they split up.

LePetitMarseillais · 10/11/2014 19:06

But there will be plenty where this hasn't happened.

Having some time off doesn't make you unemployable,women are well able to judge for themselves what is best as regards life choices(couples and circumstances vary hugely),marriage doesn't guarantee anything.....

Lweji · 10/11/2014 19:07

If you were single, you could get benefits and CSA and might end up financially better than with him. While he has you co-financing his lifestyle

I wrote that.
You know, one of the women who financed their OH.

What that sentence means is that some men (as the OP's partner) want it all. A partner at home, a child and to be better off financially.

It is not rare to find here women who end up in debt (!) due to paying 50-50 on all and 100% for the children. Who have to pay for child care from their wages on top, if they go to work.
Based on that, I'd say it's mostly men who seem to want it all just because they don't get pregnant.
But I don't, because I'm not sexist.

Lweji · 10/11/2014 19:08

Having some time off doesn't make you unemployable

Not completely, but it sets you back several years on a career ladder. With corresponding loss of earnings.

LePetitMarseillais · 10/11/2014 19:09

Which women are able to plan and account for.

WooWooOwl · 10/11/2014 19:11

We don't know that ops man wants her at home after her mat leave is over. He might be perfectly happy for his child to be in childcare full time so that OP can work and pay her own way.

Lweji · 10/11/2014 19:12

How?

Why not their partners too, if they are contributing to child rearing?

AnyFucker · 10/11/2014 19:13

LeP, it's great that things have worked out for you. But it would be supremely ignorant of how it really is for some women to say that just because you did it, it is ok for everyone

Lweji · 10/11/2014 19:13

I bet he will want her to take time off when the child is sick, though.

AnyFucker · 10/11/2014 19:14

Women forced to use their own savings to finance a maternity leave are in no position to "account" for anything.

mummytime · 10/11/2014 19:24

YABU - not to want the joint mortgage - BUT to put down the deposit for a house that he will then pay the mortgage for. You do realise you are effectively giving him £15000 of the money that could be used to support you and your DC? As you are not married you are putting yourself in a very weak financial situation.

Please get independent financial advice.

Greengrow · 10/11/2014 19:53

Another solution is be back at work when the baby is 6 weeks all and then everyone wins all round.

Also many many of us do not have sexist men. My children's father 30 yars ago recruited and interviewed our nanny. We shared the cost. If the child was sick he would take off time where possible, not me. Not every woman in the UK tolerates a sexist man who puts his career first. Many many women earn a lot more than their husbands.

PedantMarina · 10/11/2014 19:54

Awww, WooWooOwl is using my ad absurdum suggestion as gospel? Bwesss...

WWO, I'm going to say this, despite the clear evidence that you're just going to pick & choose what you want to believe. I'm going to say it anyway because there are others who need to hear this.

There are WAY too many freds here posted by desperate women who had "invested in their families", trusted a man to do the right thing and are now up shit creek. There are too many people - men and women - who don't get that SAHP is a job that has value to the partner who works full time. There are too many who need to know NOW what might happen in a few years if they're not careful.

Posters at whom you've sneered have told you their non-golddiggery situations. What's your situation, seeing as you're so Right On about everything?

LePetitMarseillais · 10/11/2014 19:57

Err no thanks,a baby in childcare at 6 weeks would be my last case scenario.

carlsonrichards · 10/11/2014 20:05

'marriage doesn't guarantee anything.....'

It confers an amount of legal protection in times of illness, death and divorce that being unmarried does not without seeing a solicitor.

PedantMarina · 10/11/2014 20:07

Greengrow, we are thrilled to bits for you. Seriously, does your DP have a brother? Grin

But that's not the situation of a lot of people here. The reason most people are here isn't because life is brilliant and problem-free.

Including (from what we've been able to read) the OP, whose DP is both happy to receive her money AND (knowing his earnings are way more than hers) is expecting a 50/50 split of bills AND she's taking care of their child.

WooWooOwl · 10/11/2014 20:13

I'm not picking and choosing at all, I'm just putting a different side to the conversation.

I'm well aware that women have trusted men to do the right thing and been let down, and vice versa. I'm well aware that the role of a SAHP has value to a working parent, but it also has value to the person that gets to stay at home looking after their children, and the children who both parents have responsibility for. It's not some kind of hardship that a WOHP should be endlessly grateful for, it's something that both parents have to agree to that they both get equal benefit from.

I am not sneering at anyone, and my situation is irrelevant. But if you really want to know, I live in a house that I owned outright before I met my DH, and before he died, he lived here happily, we split all joint household bills equally. He had a higher income than me, and paid for the vast majority of the furniture and for most of the fun, non essential things we did. My children's costs are split between me and their father.

WooWooOwl · 10/11/2014 20:23

Including (from what we've been able to read) the OP, whose DP is both happy to receive her money AND (knowing his earnings are way more than hers) is expecting a 50/50 split of bills AND she's taking care of their child.

We don't know this from what we've been able to read. We know that OP wants to buy a house using her own money as a deposit. That's not him 'receiving' her money. We know that neither of the people in this couple would be able to get a mortgage in the near future without the other, so I don't think it makes sense for either of them to invest in the other so early on in the relationship and while they aren't married. All I've been trying to point out (maybe badly) is that OP isn't the only one with the potential to lose out financially here.

AuntieStella · 10/11/2014 20:34

"marriage doesn't guarantee anything....."

It doesn't guarantee anything in terms of quality or durability of the relationship. But it does bring a number of legal protections, which could be considered a form of guarantee.

Lweji · 10/11/2014 20:35

Particularly when there are children in the middle.

Lweji · 10/11/2014 20:37

I expect the OP would be able to get a mortgage, if she has a deposit and a salary. Although it might not be for the size of house she would want.

The partner would find it very hard to get any mortgage without a deposit these days. If at all.

Bearbehind · 10/11/2014 20:47

llwej the OP has said she earns quite a lot less than her DP (and assuming neither are rolling in it or none of this would be an issue), she's on maternity leave with a dependant and only a £15k deposit - it is very unlikely she'll get a mortgage on anything.

As many others have said- she needs to rent for a while and just get to know her DP better.

The one thing that comes across to me in this is how little they know about each other and their long term aspirations. Renting would give them time to see how things work out.