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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Moving in to DP's mortgaged house... who should pay?

291 replies

hollsmoi · 02/09/2021 20:36

I'm shortly due to leave my rental property to move in with DP who already owns a property. The plan is to live together there for a while and if all goes well, we will rent out his place and purchase somewhere together which is more suitable. We are in central London so DP currently rents out one of his bedrooms to a lodger (he makes a lot of profit from this), who will be moving out when I move in.

DP has implied that he expects us to split all outgoings for the house 50/50. Having never moved in to a partner's home, I'm not sure this is right. Without question I will be contributing 50/50 to all of the household bills, council tax, food shop etc. but part of me feels uncomfortable about essentially paying half of his mortgage as 'rent'. AIBU?

Also, when I move in we are needing to covert the spare bedroom to an office space and storage area for me e.g. desks, built in wardrobes and drawers for my things. DP has mentioned when "we" buy these things which again implies 50/50. WIBU to expecting DP to fund this since it's his property and in the event that things didn't work out, he would benefit from them i.e. they'd remain in his property. Thoughts welcome as I'm new to this!

OP posts:
Pebbledashery · 02/09/2021 22:15

I think you should pay half the utilities and food shopping. I wouldn't expect a partner to pay half the mortgage if they moved in.

TakeYourFinalPosition · 02/09/2021 22:15

I did this. I paid half of our costs - so realistically some of the mortgage, but practically less than rent, and he covered the mortgage, I did some bills & most of the food. It roughly worked out.

WIS76 · 02/09/2021 22:17

It's hard to say, I moved in with my DP under the exact same circumstances. We split all bills including mortgage 50/50. However, we earned roughly the same amount and his mortgage was £550 a month where my rent had been £1000 a month so I saved money. Many years later, it did work out, we got married and I own half said property now anyway.

sst1234 · 02/09/2021 22:17

So you are taking two rooms in his house and want to pay nothing as rent. Quite cheeky really.

NotStayingIn · 02/09/2021 22:18

You sort of lost me at needing build in wardrobes for your new office space.

hellywelly3 · 02/09/2021 22:20

If you were renting somewhere you’d be paying someone else’s mortgage. I don’t think it’s fair you live rent free. It’s only till you decide you want to buy together, get married etc then it all becomes both of yours anyway.

MustBeDueSomeBetterFeet · 02/09/2021 22:22

When I was in a similar situation, we split bills but the money I would usually have paid in rent I put into a savings account and then this was used as a deposit on our house purchased together later.

Pinkcadillac · 02/09/2021 22:25

@sst1234

So you are taking two rooms in his house and want to pay nothing as rent. Quite cheeky really.
Spot on
CarrotTops · 02/09/2021 22:27

I think half is unreasonable

It's his house, he has chosen a mortgage based on his outgoings not yours. What can you afford? You need to look at your income compared to his

You have no say on where you live, the cost etc whilst he has. You may wish to live in a 400 pound a month room whilst he has a 2000 pound a month mortgage for example.

Secondly there are lots of things that I'm happy to pay a stranger for and not my partner, cleaning the house, cooking, gardening. A massage. I don't charge my DP rent on my TV or my car etc. I don't charge my partner rent on any of my belongings, because they are my belongings. I will leave with them should things go awry

It depends how long you are paying him rent for. Say 6 months is fine but if it's going to be years them it can leave you in a difficult position, he walks away with a house, you leave with nothing. You need to have a proper plan

Personally I feel 50/50 bills is fine (but again depends what you can afford, you haven't necessarily chosen to live in a say a 4 bed house). Mortgage I'd go for 25% or proportional to your income type amount. Similar to say an adult child living in their parents house, a discounted rent type arrangement

Lockdownbear · 02/09/2021 22:27

The other consideration is if they end up splitting she'll have put a load of money into he's mortgage and have nothing to show for it.
Which is why I think paying a share of the interest is fair and building savings to put into a house together.

CarrotTops · 02/09/2021 22:27

Money not spent in rent can go towards your share of a deposit to buy together

Peanutsandchilli · 02/09/2021 22:29

I think he's being generous by offering that 'we' pay for your office furniture that he doesn't need. IKEA sell desks and drawers fairly cheaply. You don't need fitted ones. I'm sure you can afford to buy them yourself from the money you save by moving into his property.

IStoppedWatchingTheWalkingDead · 02/09/2021 22:29

If a woman was saying she was about to lose a significant amount of income as she's losing a lodger because her boyfriend was moving in, and on top of losing income he wants her to also fund converting the lodgers room into an office/extra clothes storage etc but thinks he shouldn't have to contribute towards it, he's saving over £300 a month even if he did contribute towards housing costs he's be called a cock lodger and the woman would be told to think twice.

I think because you're saving so much extra you should be paying, if you aren't sure how it'll go then buy basic wardrobes from IKEA or something that you can take with you.

Berkeys · 02/09/2021 22:29

I did precisely this. My DP didn’t want me to contribute to his mortgage in case I got a beneficial interest in his property. He also had a great mg rate and didn’t want to remortgage. I am a solicitor and he is pretty savvy businessman too so we both saw the sense in this. I pay for food. He pays bills as he’d pay them anyway, his decision entirely, I did offer to split. I used my spare money to buy a little house of my own as my back up plan should things not work out. If we want to upgrade and things go well we can sell both houses and buy somewhere much nicer jointly or keep mine and rent it out. We are both high earners though so both more keen on protecting our assets than income. Don’t plan to marry either.

Boulshired · 02/09/2021 22:30

I could only afford my first property by renting out a room. This always gets complicated when you try to split in percentages instead of a set sum. I charged lodges, they agreed to pay. The same if a boyfriend moved in, I worked out a payment, which was always cheaper than what they were paying elsewhere, if they wanted to move in they could and if not they could stay in their current set up. My mortgage and bills were my business until the relationship became more serious.

Lotusmonster · 02/09/2021 22:30

@FlyingSoHigh

I never understand the responses on these threads. You move in. You no longer pay rent to cover a stranger's mortgage so you have loads more money. But you think paying rent to your boyfriend is wrong - you think getting free housing as the fair thing. And on top of that, you boyfriend is losing his lodger so he will be much worse off. Reverse the genders here and people would be yelling 'cocklodger'!!!
I do agree with this.
HalzTangz · 02/09/2021 22:32

So you don't want to pay for the room he is losing income for and you also want him to fit this out for you.
This is your office you should be solely paying for the refit.

As for the mortgage, I would perhaps argue this, however I would still expect to contribute to rent.

The other alternative is to just rent his place out and rent or buy a property jointly from the outset

holidaynearlyover · 02/09/2021 22:35

I always find these threads weird.

I moved in with dh after we'd been seeing each other for a year, I paid groceries and for various things we did to upgrade the house but from early on we thought of it as our money.

Maybe we were lucky that we are still together 23 years on- the money is still very much joint now. I can't imagine having to sort out what to pay and how best to split things but can see that it's sensible to do it!!

BeesButterflies · 02/09/2021 22:36

If you were a man people would be calling cocklodger. Pay your fair share- you know what it is. Not really fair for DP to loose out in his lodger meanwhile you feather your own bank account to the tune of £300 per month.
If you were my partner proposing this I’d say ‘no thanks, continue renting’

holidaynearlyover · 02/09/2021 22:37

Should add that the money i saved on rent I put into a savings account and after a couple of years when he put me on the mortgage I paid of a chunk

Hekatestorch · 02/09/2021 22:37

The more I think about it, the more I can't believe someone thinks they should br able to live rent free. Even when they are already saving loads and it's costing their dp money for them to move in.

And then take over one of the bedrooms, want it entirely kitting out with fitted wardrobes and an office and not think they should pay for any of that room doing on top of not paying rent.

Tbh, if I was him and my dp said any of this to me, I would swiftly decide living together was not going to work.

CattyMcNips · 02/09/2021 22:40

When I loved in with DH I paid 50% of the mortgage on hit flat. It was about £300 less a month than my rent.

When we bought our house we sold the flat to renovate our new house.

Even if we'd have split up after 6 months he would have saved me a fortune in rent!

Lotusmonster · 02/09/2021 22:40

Pretty decent of him to suck up the loss of rent from his lodger tbh…..this whole you moving in with him is definitely going to end up costing him more. Why are you dissatisfied exactly?

RandomLondoner · 02/09/2021 22:43

The technically correct thing to do, if you want to pay your own way, is to pay half the rental value of his house. You should pay this same amount regardless of whether it's more or less than half the mortgage payment. You should pay it even if he doesn't have a mortgage, and every penny of your payment is going into his savings.

If you think you are not getting half the benefit of living in the house, then some other fixed fraction of the rental value might be appropriate.

It always irritates me in threads like these when people complain about paying someone else's mortgage. While I agree that "half the mortgage" is the wrong calculation, nine times out of ten it will be less than the "half the rental value" that you should be paying. To act as if you are the one being ripped off when in fact the wrong is in the opposite make people look like sanctimonious idiots.

CarrotTops · 02/09/2021 22:54

Or you could look at it that he clearly has a mortgage that he can't afford and he needs to find someone to pay it. Moves in his girlfriend so she pays half, ultimately the more he pays off on his mortgage the better the house he'll be able to own in the future.

He could just move in a succession of girlfriends to pay his mortgage. It should be a mutually beneficial. What is the mortgage, what is the rent on a room? What can OP afford? These are all questions you need to answer before just a flat out half. What's the difference between the two incomes?

Say mortgage is 1000, room is 500. Op paying 250 means they both save about 250 each. You say 'we will do this for x months, if all good after x months we will get a place together and rent this/sell this'