To ask for £500?

[AllsfairOrisit]

Just about to start living with DP.

It’s my flat which I have a mortgage on, currently paying £900 pm.

Bills come to roughly £400 pm. This includes utilities and tv, broadband and council tax. Obviously Split in half would be £200 each.

AIBU to also charge a small rent? I was thinking about £300 on top of the £200 for bills.

I would not be charging anyone I invited to live in my house.

How odd.

He is supposedly a partner. In partnerships/ unmarried couples, one person does not usually support the other financially when they can afford to contribute.

I don't understand the comments about him not gaining anything from contributing to the OP's mortgage.

The fact is, he's not gained anything in all the years he rented- he was paying the landlord's mortgage presumably.

Now, if he pays more than only a share of the bills, the OP can either increase her mortgage payments /overpay, or save any excess. This will benefit him if they stay together.

It would be unfair on the OP to not charge more than his share of the bills because that would enable him to save a lot of money (his current outgoings for rent are £1400pm) and he could use those savings for his own mortgage if they spilt up.

Ideally, she ought to gain something financially and so should he. So a figure somewhere between only paying half the bills, but less than his current outgoings seems fair.

I don't get it.
If he wasn't living with her, he would be paying rent somewhere else.
Why should he pay no real living expenses because she owns it?
"It's not fair because he is paying towards something but if they split walks away with nothing.." Well no shit same happens when you're in the rental market.
Why should he benefit?

Because otherwise he could argue if renting he could chose the property and area he lives in, to whatever budget he chooses rather than pay for half the house OP chose to buy

But they want to live together so something has to give. And if they stay together they’ll both benefit from reduced outgoings, particularly if he invests in a rental property

Well nobody will be forcing him against his will. If he chooses to move in he should contribute fairly.

Gotta laugh at the typical double standards on mumsnet.

If this were the other way around, and it was the OP who was living with her partner (who owns the property,) she would be told to DEMAND her name is on the deeds too, otherwise 'you are just paying his mortgage for him and have no claim on the property.'

As it is, she is being told to make sure she doesn't allow this MAN to have a share of her home.

Go figure!

Either get a proper tenancy agreement drawn up so that he has no claim to the property should you split, or forget about an official agreement and just split everything 50/50 on the assumption that you will be spending the rest of your lives together. In these kinds of situations there isn't really a safe middle ground. That's where stuff gets messy.

User same advice on most threads about paying fair amounts. But there is always someone on here who mentions an imaginary bias.

The only difference is on some threads where they now have children and that seems unfair for the non owner to walk away after 10 or 15 years of paying half. However the op in that case is usually told, that they are not entitled to anything but child maintenance and that they should have got married before having children.

However in this situation both male and females tend to be advised the same way.
Pay a fair share that covers the cost of the person moving him but also allows the person moving in to have savings and options should the relationship end.

There is no need to protect the house as long as bills and rent are paid and as long as the person moving in does not pay towards the mortgage or house repairs.

I don’t see the issue with him ‘contributing to the mortgage’ it’s no different to having a lodger - and you wouldn’t expect a lodger to make a claim on your mortgage. Just get something formally drafted so you’re protected.

Because otherwise he could argue if renting he could chose the property and area he lives in, to whatever budget he chooses rather than pay for half the house OP chose to buy

Well yes of course he could, in which case he'd stay where he was!

Presumably he wants to live with her because he cares for her and if not he will carry on living in his own flat. And who's to say the flat and location is not absolutely perfect for him?

@JinglingHellsBells
I can't understand the logic and ethics of that the owner of the house is supposed to get something financially when their partner is moving in.
If she had a lodger previously and the boyfriend moving in would have meant the loss of that income, fair enough. Otherwise I don't see any grounds for him to contribute.

My OH paid me £300 a month when he moved into my house. This was less than half of what it was costing me but I was benefiting from owning the house so don't think he should have paid as much as me. He would have paid more rent anywhere else so we both felt like we gained financially. After a year we sold mine and bought a house together. We've been married for 12 years now.

I’d ask him to pay £700

He’s halved his outgoing and so have you

That’s fair

Ask him to transfer the money as rent, put this in a savings account, as you won’t miss it.

silvercuckoo your thinking only goes in one direction. The person moving in is profiting massively - by £1400 per month, £16,800 per year, £84,000 over the next five years (i.e. the rent they currently pay) if they move in and only split bills.

Why does one partner profit by such a lot and the other see no reduction in their outgoings yet increased wear and tear on their flat, in your world?

So he benefits by having an extra £900 a month in his pocket?

What do you benefit from this?

You say you earn about the same but based on the new proposed financial set-up I’m assuming he will have a lot more spare money than you?

I don’t know....:it just seems very iffy to me that he’s going to be £900 a month better off which allows him to not only buy a property, but also one which he can then rent out - both of which will be of a financial benefit to him but nothing to do with you.

I don’t know what the answer is.

I get the whole “why should he have to pay more when it’s not legally his home and OP can kick him out any minute” argument, but at the same time it doesn’t sit right that by OP opening her home to him he is £900 better off enabling him to buy his own property and then make a profit on it by renting it out.

@silvercuckoo You are missing the point as @anotherotherone said so clearly.

This is not something you can compare with a lodger. A lodger pays the going rate for a start, not just a share of bills. They have rights and the landlord has rights. No one would complain about a landlord making a profit from their lodger.

This is about a partnership where they should both be invested equally ( and I mean financially and emotionally.)

Charging him so little rent will mean he has the option to save, buy another property and gain from that. If they split up, he will have profited from the OP's generosity (by not charging him the going rate for the accommodation.)

It would be very different if the house he hopes to buy (by reducing his current outgoings) was in both their names and she would profit too.

The citizens advice bureau has a living together agreement you can download to set out the legal side of things. It is free and easy to make the financial side of things clear.

I took joy in ripping ours up when we got married, but until then my (then) boyfriend was living in MY house and had anything gone wrong it was MINE.