To ask for more money from DP

[whatthehay]

Back story:

DP moved in with me and my DC a year ago. He was renting a flat for £500pcm before this. We spoke about him moving in and he said he'd pay me the £500 rent. I agreed at the time but now I feel resentful and I don't know if AIBU.

I own my house and the mortgage is relatively small, I have 4 DC and obviously don't expect him to support them. I lost around £800 per month in tax credits when he moved in as I was no longer eligible. We are both self employed. I pay all the household bills, buy the food (cook the food) do the laundry/ housework, childcare etc. My monthly bills inc. utilities/mortgage/sky tv etc are £1500.

He does the dishwasher most nights and moans about the kids not helping around the house, if I asked him to hoover he would and he does any DIY that needs doing or fixes stuff when it breaks. He buys occasional shopping/wine/takeaways/meals out. He paid for some wood (around £300) for a project in the garden and spent a few days making it recently (I paid £2k for the rest of the project finished by a professional)

I know it's not his house and they are not his children but I feel like he's getting a really good deal for £500 a month. He paid that in rent but then paid food/utilities/council tax etc on top before he moved in. I am 20 weeks pregnant with his baby so my costs are going to go up. We have had a few conversations where I've said I'm supporting him but he maintains he pays his way/contributes.

AIBU to ask him for more?

You couldn't pay me to live with 4 kids who aren't mine!

He's a grown man. He supported himself long before I met him. Why do I need give him my house just because we shacked up together.

Why should he pay your mortgage, utilities and bills just because you shacked up together? Nobody is saying you have to give him a house but if you want to be a family unit and expect him to contribute then he should be given a financial stake to ensure his own financial security.

Taking the actual mortgage out of the equation he's still not paying even half the bills.

Why should he pay half of the bills?! There are 5 people in the house - he already pays 1/3 of the bills, which subsidises your children.

My children's father passed away. I'm not sure he would have liked me giving away half his house.

Then why "shack up" with a guy, move him in and have his baby if you have no intention of allowing him to have any stake in the property ou want him to contribute towards?

The DC are teenagers he doesn't need to parent them and isn't doing any childcare.

But you want him to pay for them. He pays 1/3 of the bills despite being 1/6 of the household. The budget for food/utilities especially if they're allergic to turning off lights and having 30 minute showers like my DD etc for 4 teenagers, will be more than 1/3 of your montly expenditure. Do they contribute to the bills? Your children are your responsibility, not his.

I live with DD12 in NW England, so a definitely a cheap area, but my essential bills - rent, council tax, water, electric, gas, phone, internet, insurance, travel, groceries - come in at just under £800pm for my 2 bed flat. It is a Housing Association flat (though I pay average market rent for the area) so it is a secured lifetime tenancy, and I will have an option to apply to buy it after a certain number of years. Your partner might be better off getting his own 1/2 bed place and being only responsible for himself and his one child than having to be responsible for funding your 4 children yet having zero financial security.

Tell him what about his contribution to his new child on the way. If he was living on his own you would be 300 pound better off with one less adult to feed and that's without maintenance off him. He would be paying his own rent bills and shopping on top of supporting his child. Calculate roughly your shopping bill a month and what percentage is his then half of utilities as kids would not be paying bills. Add 15 percent of his wage before tax that cms would takethen a share of mortgage. Show him that what his paying barely touches it. My partner pays our utilities and extra on the mortgage but I pay the TV phone shopping and half the amount we need to pay on mortgage. Won't pay extra towards it as I am not on the mortgage. Our shopping costs around 600 so in total household bill wise I pay about 1000 a month probably more. We don't do his and hers regarding kids we are all a package so really he should be covering half the bills. OK maybe not kids clothes and shoes but if it's a household bill he should be paying towards it.

@FortniteBoysMum if you are paying 50% of a mortgage of a house you have no legal stake in (and are covering utility bills of dc that aren't yours) you are definitely the kind of person OP would like to meet.
I can understand operating as a joint financial unit but not if the risks and rewards aren't also shared.

Good grief, this was a long and confusing read. With respect, OP, it would have been better if you'd come clean in the first post about the fact that since he moved in, you inherited some money, bought a second property and are now no longer entitled to that 800 quid's worth of tax credits. So that point is moot. No more tax credits, no UC if he moves out, all that's irrelevant as is the "Poor me, I lost 800 when he moved in." Half way into the thread we learned you're a two house home owner.

From there you work out the expenses and what's fair. You've heard lots of times from PPs who say (and I agree) he doesn't have to pay for your four DCs. And yes, those of us with teenagers know that the utilities and food for teenagers are as much or more than for adults.

You say he now has a lovely house to live in not a grotty flat. Well he's also lost privacy hasn't he? To each their own. I'd call that a wash and stop including stuff like his laundry in your inner calculations, just stop doing that or insist he shares responsibilities for it if it's bugging you, same with the cooking etc. This is not part of the financial equation.

Then work out how much he should pay - remembering you will be a household of six and he should pay for himself, half his kid after said kid's arrival. And don't even tell us you aren't including your kids' after school stuff as though that shows how ethical you are. That's a no-brainer.

Next time, I'd put it all up front in the initial post for the best feedback.

Sorry, but putting someone on the mortgage doesn’t entitle someone to a share in the house - only the debt.

Also, if the house is in trust he can’t get a share anyway, even if he is on the mortgage.

Putting him on the mortgage makes it worse for him, not better.

However you look at it, whatver your take on who should pay what, the inequity if the relationship is really clear.

He is getting a very cheap lifestyle
OP is feeling the inequity, he doesn't seem to be.

That will fester. They need to talk.

At the moment their relationship is neither one thing nor the other, neither casula nor fully committed, depsite the child on the way! They have fucked up and need to reset things right now before the new arrival adds to their stressors.

And remeber OP, despite what many seem to think, your arrangement doesn't have to be scrupulously 'fair' with him paying precisely what he uses and half of what his child uses. That way lies madness, not a fully committed, loving relationship. You can both choose to come to a completely inequitable arrangement, as long as you are both truly happy with it!

@lakesidesummer the kids are both mine one is shared. The house is in his name but if I didn't live in it I would be paying rent elsewhere so it's still a bill I would pay. It seems ops partner is having it easy. Their is about to be a baby added to the equation so surely he either pays more towards costs to help support his child or he moves out pays his own rent utilities and food bills then towards baby on top.

@CuriousaboutSamphire

He is getting a very cheap lifestyle
OP is feeling the inequity, he doesn't seem to be.

I don't think this and others like it are really fair. I think he costs will have come down but that comes with sharing a property with others.
If he should move out yes his costs would go up but he will have the space.
The OP on the other hand is getting £500 for his food and his usage of utilities. All the other costs would remain the same. So should he leave se would probably in the hole for £2-3 hundred pounds.
Obviously this is before the baby comes.
I also wonder who is dragging their feet as far as becoming more of a family unit. It seems the OP is the one who doesn't want to commit for fear of seeing her equity to be shared with him.

Hang on - you own a second property and were entitled to tax credits? How does this work?

He built a rod for his own back, he wasn’t thinking when he entered into this whole arrangement. There’s no way you’ll get this remotely fair. You have four previous children, and rightly the house (and other things) you owned with their father should be theirs. Equally he shouldn’t have to pay a penny for them.

He probably was better off in his (mouldy) flat paying 500, + consumables. Assuming the 500 was less or around 1/3th of his income, and he lived within his means he would have at least have some perspective of someday owning a property. Now you want him to pay more; and probably save less. He’s ‘protected’ by the very conditional 21 (mortgage free) + ‘cash gift’ stipulation. Pretty useless if you split up. And to top it all off he now has a child that he has to pay for further diminishing his financial possibilities.

@chopc

Hang on - you own a second property and were entitled to tax credits? How does this work?

The OP stated quite clearly that she bought the second property with an inheritance after her tax credits stopped (and after her partner moved in)

Tax credits have existed for a long time. How have people not yet grasped that they are based on taxable income?

Child tax credits were not widely seen as a 'benefit' in the sense of 'unemployment benefit' but more in the sense of 'child benefit'

Universal Credit has different rules, more in lines with some of the other benefits it replaces such as non contributory jsa

I'm quite bored of pointing that out now.

I don't think this and others like it are really fair. I don't think you read that in context! I didn't say either of them were right or wrong, just that they had made a mistake not talking it through more! What they decide to do after a frank discussion need not be fair either, just mutually agreed!

Full board and lodging for £500 a month - where do I sign?

@AhNowTed to live with someone else's FOUR TEENAGERS?! You'd have to pay me £500 😂😂

It’s not been unfair to date money wise, it’s been appalling housework wise and both need to change when baby comes. If he doesn’t want to pay more then he can stay home and look after the baby and the other 4 children like every other step mother does when her new partner has children already. I can’t believe he doesn’t cook or do any laundry.

He’s whining about branded Weetabix, but had unprotected sex with you to breed a FIFTH kid?! Is he a bit gormless? Five people to provide resources to on a dying planet is really shocking, I can’t understand how anyone thought this through to be a brilliant idea 😐

Do the four existing kids like him, and want him in their home? That’s the most relevant issue, having your mother force her current lover into your home is a huge deal, and all these teens will be hugely traumatised already, following the death of their father, the boyfriend shouldn’t feature on the list of Things Which Are Very Fucked Up, he should obviously have not been forced into the teens home and lives, but now they’ll have to cope with yet another sibling, while grieving, being in a huge emotional development stage, planet in its death throes, and their mothers new boyfriend and a newborn. The focus needs to be exclusively on all these teens.

Is he a bit gormless?

I'd say a majority of the blame is on OP
He hasn't bread 5 kids.
He can most likely contribute accordingly to his 1 child.

@TheLegendOfZelda

Whilst I am sure you think you are correct, it is the OP herself who says she was no longer entitled to the £800 allowances ( before her DH moved in).
So whilst I can see you your (frankly smug) comment about being tired of pointing it out I very much doubt you will know more about the OP's situation then she and any advisors she has do.
It maybe that the OP has held back further information that would have shown her DH in a better light, which may have changed your ideas but whatever, it seems she has lost the £800 allowances and this did not happen becuase of the DH moving in.

Sigh

Please refer to op's original post and also the below

*@SimonJT
I lost the tax credits when he moved in.

Then I inherited some money and decided to invest it for a bit of income. (Which I needed because I lost my benefits)*

Op is no longer entitled as she would now have to claim uc not ctc. But she ckuld have stayed on tc with the inheritance

Many people appear not to understand the rules are different

Anyway, op, how are you doing?

Sign other things the OP has subsequently said after her initial post

@RandomMess I'm not eligible for universal credit (I own another property) so I'd actually be worse off if he moved out 😬
@dogperson05 I bought the property after ceasing to claim tax credits with some inheritance that I luckily got.
t was situational. I didn't have the money to buy another property whilst claiming tax credits. If he hadn't moved in I may have lost the tax credits at this point any way. I'm not sure on the rules of tax credits. But I know I'm not entitled to UC now. I get a small income from the property so it's probably about even overall with DPs contribution but my income isn't really the point.

I would like to assume that the OP took proper advice at each step rather than believing someone who is trying to be clever without knowing the full facts, especially as the information is coming at misleading and a drip feed nature.

The bottom line here is did yout costs go up by more than five hundred a month by him moving in. Food. Bills etc etc. I suspect the answer is no they did not, as such he is more than paying his way.

There is one of him and five of you. As such if it was pro ratad and you both paid equal you’d be paying 2500 to his five hundred. You’re not, you’re paying 1000 and him 500. So he’s more than paying his way here.