Honest Advice please

[emz771]

I have read MN for years - but never joined. I think sometimes it's good to get some third party advice so please help ladies.

Ok so just over 3 years ago my sister split with her husband. He wasn't very good with money and as such she didn't come out with anything. My husband is in property and said she could live in a property we have. We said (and the wording is important) it's yours rent free for as long as you need it.

Anyway about 18 months ago my sister met a man who is a really nice guy. He is great with her kids, is good company, and we often have a pub lunch with the kids or a dog walk on a Sunday and he treats her and the kids really well.

However about 8 months ago he moved in with my sister and my husband presumed that when he moved in we would get some offer of rent. To put into context he is an engineer for BT and does quite a bit of overtime and we understand he is on about 45k a year. My sister works part time as a secretary and earns about 16k a year. So they are a 60K household with no rent/mortgage.

Now it's been griping at my husband for some time - and yesterday he actually got really annoyed. This is going to sound silly but because he is still working my husband asked him to pick up some steaks from a farm shop he passes and leave on our door step. He did - but then my sister messaged me that night and said the steaks were £32. My husband who is a calm man lost it - and claimed he lives in our property that we could rent for £1500 a month and can't shout us a few steaks.

Now I need to say my sister is my best friend in the entire world - and it's not the money with my husband but the fact he feels this guy is taking the mick. The house would rent for £1500 - but I know my husband would let them have it for £800.

Now is it our fault with the wording "have it as long as you want" even though that was when she was a single parent living on a part time wage.I don't want it to affect my relationship with my husband.

Let me know - am I being a cow?

I agree Op. you sound like a lovely sister and a fantastic Aunt.

Why is HE paying the entire £1k rent?

Am I missing something here??? Your sister is such a CF 😱. I feel so sorry for her new BF 😢 She's lived rent free since she split from her husband, then used the £500 a month that her new fella thought was going towards bills/rent to pay off her own personal debts, and now HE is paying the entire £1k rent and SHE is still living there rent free! Unbelievable 🤷‍♀️

If you havent done so already, I think you need to pay for the steaks to get that out of the way.

I would suggest that it would be a good thing for your sister to actually look to rent her own place so you can rent it for the full market value. (She may simply have never thought about the rent issue or may be swinging the lead, you know most.)

She has been in there 8 months. The longer it goes on, does she gain more rights?

Given the situation, it might be worth just getting a little legal advice up your sleeve so you know what your position is in law. You may also want to consider using a letting agent so that puts someone in between you and the tenant.

So caught up in her own emotions and now this new love affair, she obviously doesnt have space for emotion intelligence of how she is impacting your family, so it may all come as a shock, so raise it gently but firmly. Things like, "You've been here 8 months and we were pleased to help but now we cant manage without rental. We have to look at rent, a property like this normally rents for £1500 a month etc etc"

Remember £1500 x 8 months is a lot of money you have lost but v worth it to help your sister. Now she needs to step up.

There has been an update from the op. All sorted.

There are two different discussions to be had. First of all, the man paid for the steaks. Secondly your sister was given the flat for free. So you owe the man money. And your sister was given the flat for free. So she doesn't owe you anything, as you haven't asked her for money. But now you need to change her understanding or contract with you.
I understand completely why you feel as you do. But that wasn't the agreement with your sister.

Why is HE paying the entire £1k rent?

Am I missing something here??? Your sister is such a CF 😱. I feel so sorry for her new BF 😢 She's lived rent free since she split from her husband, then used the £500 a month that her new fella thought was going towards bills/rent to pay off her own personal debts, and now HE is paying the entire £1k rent and SHE is still living there rent free! Unbelievable 🤷‍♀️

Haven’t read the whole thread, but if this is true she’s indeed a massive pisstaker. Were it a man people would probs be calling financial abuse.

The thing is, she’s probs not going to ‘get back on her feet’ any more than she has now, unless she changes careers, so I don’t see her being in any better position to pay you in the future than she is now. You need to set the ground rules now.

I honestly don’t see the issue with him being the one transferring the 1k rent. I know for a fact that all the household bills are in her name. So let’s say.

Council tax 160
Electric/gas 100
Water 40
Phone/internet/TV 60

Total 360

I see that as quite a fair split - considering one earns 45k and the other 16k.

The fact remains he is getting a house valued at 1500pcm for 1000pcm inclusive of all bull see

I know some don’t have high opinions of my sister - but I would have thought in most relationships the partner that earns significantly higher would contribute more.

Inclusive of all *bills

The complicating factor is her children live in the house and I assume his don’t. I would hope their father is contributing something towards their upkeep (even though he seems to be a bit unreliable).

But agreed this guy saved a fortune for eight months living react free and only having to pay towards housekeeping.

How they spilt the bills is a matter between them, however they are at least paying some rent now.

Ohhhh my goodness I’m sorry this has happened. Have you decided what to do?
I realise the thought of losing the friendship with your sister is really scary. I had a thought that maybe you could provide her with options so you minimise that risk, including starting off small and gradually increasing so that the rent isn’t a financial shock to them. It could be that this puts a strain on her relationship with her man so starting small would be good for that reason too. As the rent gradually increases it’ll help them decide whether to find a different house together or pay you more. Good luck 🌷

To be fair, he's getting a quarter of a £1,500 house for £1,000. He wouldn't need such a big house if he didn't live with three other people.

The children's father does sound useless, but it appears that, after just 8 months, the new boyfriend is being expected to pick up the lion's share of the family bills as if he were the husband and father. Until and unless he actively decides to take on the role of 'father' to his girlfriend's children, he has no moral duty to pay for them (or for the GF, in fact). Who pays for the food and groceries?

As has been said, if he were your brother and if she were his new-on-the-scene GF, inviting him to move in and quickly start heavily supporting her and her kids, the responses would have been somewhat different.

But agreed this guy saved a fortune for eight months living react free and only having to pay towards housekeeping.

Not really. He has a quarter-share of a household that isn't his own, and he still has to buy his own food etc (maybe theirs as well). If he'd shared a house with three other single adults, I very much doubt his quarter-share would have been more than £500, just for rent and bills.

I don’t know who pays for the groceries - not my business to ask.

But thinking logically the 1100 a month she takes home or whatever it is - can only go so far.

I mean if my husband refused to pay the lions share I would be living in the garden shed with a tin of beans. I really don’t think it’s unusual for the higher earner to be paying more.

It he didn’t share a house - he came from a one bedroom flat that was 1200 a month without bills. He has a better deal now.

She earns 16k rather than 32k because she chooses to only work part time.

And as others have pointed out, 3 of the 4 people in the household are your sister and her children, so he's paying nearly 3/4s of the total household costs despite being only 1/4 of the individuals in the household.

Were the situation reversed and a full time working woman had moved in with a part time working man and his two teenage children, I don't think there would be many people saying that she should shoulder the majority of the family's costs just because she earns more.

Ultimately, as long as all parties are happy with the arrangements that's all that really matters, but this man is far from some freeloader who's struck gold - that's definitely your sister.

I am so glad that this difficult situation has worked out for you .... but after reading through the thread I still don't know the answer to the one question thats been bugging me from the word go .... what is the reason you are so adamant that you don't want a tenant agreement??

I dont think they will be there more than a year, not for a second I’ll think we will need it but there is more than enough written evidence to support it’s a rent only, TA really not needed.

Glad it all got sorted out.
And it is so nice to hear of families sharing their assets and looking out for their own . You and your husband sound like a lovely sister/brother in law/uncle/aunt to have. Her partner isn't the freeloader that your husband feared and your sister has sorted out her credit card.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

Not sure I follow your logic. If he lived in a shard house he would still have had to pay for food, electricity, rates, broadband etc as well as his share of the rent.

I really don’t see how that would have come to less than £500, even if it was really low quality accommodation? This seems to be an expensive enough area to rent. He was paying well over this in his previous place for rent alone.

£500 all in is an absolute bargain. Food alone would be at least a couple of hundred quid a month. I assume they also have tv subscriptions, broadband etc I too of electricity and gas.

I mean if my husband refused to pay the lions share I would be living in the garden shed with a tin of beans. I really don’t think it’s unusual for the higher earner to be paying more.

But that's in the context of a committed marriage, with children who 'belong to' both of you - so any 'earning sacrifices' that one of you might have made to care for the children are for the good of the other adult's children as well. It's very different from somebody you've known for less than a year moving in and then being expected to support a partner and that partner's existing kids.

It he didn’t share a house - he came from a one bedroom flat that was 1200 a month without bills. He has a better deal now.

Financially, he's saving money (and was saving more when he was only paying her £500), assuming that he isn't paying for a lot extra for food and other costs for her and for the kids, but he had his own space and could use it all exactly as he wanted, with no noisy children and their toys around, so the non-financial part of the deal is clearly objectively less desirable (purely for the sake of comparison).

I am on yours and your husbands side the steak would have annoyed me. But I suspect the BF isn't the first to buy the drinks when you meet on a Sunday sometimes and £500 a month he was tipping up wasn't really enough if he thought rent was getting paid. He was much better off than living singly.
I suspect he's not a generous person.
I don't think your sister is any better off financially with him. But you haven't done anything wrong by sorting it out. They would have possibly started going on holidays arc and things would be grinding away at you.
I lost a best friend after she lent me some money. I paid it back as agreed and I had said I would pay extra to compensate her losing interest in the bank but when I had paid the full amount back she said, Don't pay any more. I'm in a good position financially and you know what they say give to beggars and big issue sellers!"

Not sure I follow your logic. If he lived in a shard house he would still have had to pay for food, electricity, rates, broadband etc as well as his share of the rent.

I really don’t see how that would have come to less than £500, even if it was really low quality accommodation? This seems to be an expensive enough area to rent. He was paying well over this in his previous place for rent alone.

£500 all in is an absolute bargain. Food alone would be at least a couple of hundred quid a month. I assume they also have tv subscriptions, broadband etc I too of electricity and gas.

True. the costs would be considerably more in the area that they're in (I'm used to the Midlands and Wales!), The £500 (and now £1,000) didn't/doesn't include food. We don't know who is paying for the food - he could now be paying for food for all four of them.

If he'd been in a shared house with other independent adults, that would have been a quarter of the rent and shared bills, but there would have been no question of him paying extra for food, clothes, travel costs or whatever for the other three.

I suspect he's not a generous person.

So you think that the extra £2K that he insisted on paying completely unbidden and unexpected was actually her money then?

Oh okay I missed that update, I assumed the £500 housekeeping he was giving before rent-gate included food.

I lost a best friend after she lent me some money. I paid it back as agreed and I had said I would pay extra to compensate her losing interest in the bank but when I had paid the full amount back she said, Don't pay any more. I'm in a good position financially and you know what they say give to beggars and big issue sellers!"

How was the friendship actually lost? Was she mortally offended at your very reasonable offer to make good her lost interest or did you still insist on paying it into her account and offend her that way? Surely a good friendship wouldn't die as a result of your offer to replace the interest and her declining that, would it??