Equity shortfall and renovations- how to split?

[LurkioJr]

Please help me with this one. My partner and I had a serious disagreement about money yesterday. We have been together for 8 years. Last June we transferred my house into joint names. I had 40k of equity and he paid 16k for an uneven share. He didn’t pay for half because (my recollection) he said he didn’t have 20k of ready cash. His recollection- he offered to pay 20k for half and I said no because it would clean him out. I then spent 23k on home improvements; he contributed about 2k for sundries e.g flooring, lights. He received a redundancy package of 35k in December and found a new job in March. At the time we put the house into joint names he earned 65k and I earned 40k, now we both earn about 50k. The final renovation we needed for the house was a new bathroom cost 9k. We agreed to pay half each. I have about 20k in savings mixture of cash and shares. It now transpires that he has 70k in cash and shares. 35k of that was the redundancy package; the other 35k he must have had at the time we agreed the house transfer. He thinks our deal last June was fair; I feel taken advantage of. I’ve asked him to pay me the 4K equity shortfall and to pay the whole cost of the bathroom renovations which he’s agreed to. It’s not a full 50/50 split of the total cost of the renovations but I think it will iron out in time because I’ll be asking him to foot the bill every time we need something for the house for the foreseeable future! AIBU to think he took the piss last June?

I agree he should pay 50% of the 40K and 50% of all renovations afterwards. However much he is behind, he should hand it over to you now. It should take at most two weeks to sell some shares and get the money out of an investment account. If that makes him unhappy, and you're feeling kind, you could let him pay out of his salary over a period of months by standing order, on condition he pays the largest amount that his cashflow can support.

With regard to last June, he was probably being unreasonable, though there may have been communication issues and difference of perspective that mean the issue is not as clear-cut as it seems to you. I think you should judge him by how ready he is to put things right now.

The big lesson here is that you should have known how much money he had at the time. You both need full disclosure going forward. (I'm assuming he didn't actually lie at the time, if he lies to you then you would be unreasonable to not immediately separate all your finances.)