Why is it ok to 'pay the landlords mortgage' but not your partners?

[Luidaeg]

So many threads I have seen where one person owns a house and the partner is moving in (sometimes planning) and they are told, you shouldn't pay towards their mortgage unless you are married and it is shared.

Why?

Why should someone live rent free just because they have chosen a partner who is in the position of owning a house?

Obviously you don't want to 'make a profit' on them, but equally you can't expect a free ride.

My son is buying a part buy rent that he can afford on his own ( big deposit 50k)
His partner is going to move in but will pay some rent - why wouldn’t they /

My son is paying the mortgage / rent and council tax
his partner will probably pay around £500 month at present he is paying £750 a month for a tiny en-suite room in a shared house of 7 people :

why shouldn’t someone pay to live somewhere I never get this logic

My sons flat that he is it’s a lovely 2 bed /2 bathroom apartment
and his partner wouldn’t get to live there for £400 a month it’s a choice that they are free to make £750 for a tiny room in a shared house
£400 a month in a huge apartment set in 10 acres of parkland . I know what I would choose

Renting just a room would cost a min of £600 -£700 in my city .
1 bed flat around £1100 plus bills .

So my son could get £600 a month min if he let the spare room and bathroom

They both win

Initially an arrangement where both parties are paying less per month than before seems sensible. But if the relationship is long term and there are children, it makes more sense for both people to go on the mortgage and deeds (ringfencing off the amount that the original owner put in). That way both are on the housing ladder. The other option is for the non owner to buy a separate property and rent it out. Obviously it depends on a lot of things like how much each earns, how much they contribute to housework, maintenance, childcare, etc

I don't think it's an issue paying a Partner rent, I do however think it all needs to be very carefully laid out, and ideally legally tied up as to the expectations.

Paying rent to a Partner with no agreement in place can indeed be seen as you contributing to the mortgage and could indeed in a long term relationship put you in a position to claim an interest in the property.

It's needs to be agreed and clear if they are paying 'rent' or if they are contributing towards a property for the protection of all parties.

To answer the OP - because the landlord is running a business and your partner isn't. A landlord has no moral obligation to care for you as anything other than a tenant. With a partner the whole point of the partnership is that you supposedly care about each other. If a partner wants to share the mortgage they should sell their home and invest the money (or keep it and rent it out to someone else) and start from scratch buying a shared home with their partner. A person shouldn't pay "rent" to their partner who they live with because it's not rent it's their grabby partner using them as a cash cow. Living in someone else's home because they've invited you to share it with them (whilst having zero rights to remain there and zero obligation from the homeowner for giving any notice period to leave, which you get if renting) isn't freeloading, it's of mutual benefit to both people because the homeowner would ordinarily have to pay all the mortgage (with the rights that gives them) and all the bills. If they invite their partner to move in they're only going to be paying part of the bills. So they get to keep all the rights to their house that comes with having bought it and having to pay the mortgage on it, their living costs reduce because someone else is paying part of the bills with them and they get the life enhancement of living with their partner.

"Will you move in and pay half my mortgage?" isn't love

"I don't want to move in with you if it means starting again in a new property" isn't love

Why would a partner want to move in with you if you're displaying signs from the beginning that you value something else (money and property and keeping the status quo) more than you value having your partner around?

If I rented a home (maybe because I liked not being tied to a property) while having an amount of money sufficient to buy a house sitting in investments earning me interest, nobody would think it's reasonable for a partner to move in with me without contributing to the rent just because of other assets I owned. So why should things be different if I had exactly the same value of assets but they took the form of a property instead?

Why would a partner want to move in with you if you're displaying signs from the beginning that you value something else (money and property and keeping the status quo) more than you value having your partner around?

Nobody would move in together if that was the expectation. Who can confidently say it's a long term relationship before they have lived together? Someone saying "I'll move in but I'm not contributing until I'm on the mortgage" would set off red flags for me.

@DitzyBluebells - the person moving in has moved in your scenario from paying all the rent to paying no accommodation costs, while the honeowner still has all the mortgage to pay as well as additional wear and tear on the property. Better yet, the person moving in might gain rental income from their own property over and above their mortgage, yet have no accommodation costs to pay of their own. You see, putting words in bold doesn't actually make things fair or not fair, what you need to do is write out the full impact on finances for both parties.

What's strictly fair is that neither party should lose out by living together, that each should contribute according to their means insofar as they are happy to do so, and that they should have a contract to guarantee fair treatment in separating. If one is happy to subsidise the other then they are at liberty to do so knowingly, but that makes them generous rather than making the situation fair. Presumably your personal contribution is low, so you'll always be subsidised and not need to worry about it.

You're twisting my words, taking things out of context by missing off the rest of my post. I didn't talk about not contributing, I actually specifically said the partner would be contributing - just not to the mortgage. I talked about not paying towards a mortgage when you're not on the deeds of that property which is totally reasonable. If someone wants equal finances then either rent together or buy together, not both pay towards a mortgage in one person's name, that's unfair and grabby.

Paying rent to a Partner with no agreement in place can indeed be seen as you contributing to the mortgage and could indeed in a long term relationship put you in a position to claim an interest in the property.

No it can't. This is a very pernicious myth on Mumsnet and I wish people would stop repeating it because it encourages women to accept 'partnerships' rather than marriages, thinking they have some legal protection.

The circumstances to claim a beneficial interest in property are quite difficult to achieve. If you pay for an extension, or take over the mortgage for years while your partner is out of work, yes then there can be a potential claim (that will cost thousands to litigate). But your common-or-garden situation of a woman transferring £500 a month to her partner's account does not create any interest.

I see plenty of people encouraging other posters to start charging their kids rent at 18, why aren't they worried that their kids are getting into a position to claim an interest in the property?!

Will you move in and pay half my mortgage?" isn't love

"I don't want to move in with you if it means starting again in a new property" isn't love

Can I live with you rent free because you own a property is cocklodging

Presumably your personal contribution is low, so you'll always be subsidised and not need to worry about it.

Not sure if you're meaning to talk about my own personal circumstances her or if it's a general "you", but if you're meaning me then you're way off the mark, which is unsurprising really considering you know absolutely nothing about me.

Yes you're right that the partner moving into someone's home has no rental costs but they don't have "no living expenses". They have a proportion of the bills to pay, on a property that they had no say in choosing either the area/street/size/running costs/decor of and have no security to live there. One partner moving into another partners home is a compromise for both of them, it's not some kind of no-strings freebie for the one who moves in.

@JenniferPlantain

i think A should get the 30% deposit, then a split of something like A65 B35 of the remaining capital, but that also needs to be varied depending on where their DC is going to live.

I know you approve of freeloading off a partner @DitzyBluebells, and that you don't understand that a person owning a home gives something up in sharing it. It certainly all suggests you don't really have a full grasp on how things work as a homeowner, whatever you protest.

If you ask someone, then yes potentially a cocklodger (because it shows bad attitude) and definitely a CF. A person should wait to be invited to move in to someone else's home, not invite themselves. Which is not to say the non-homeowner can't start a conversation about living together, of course they can, but it should be respectful and come with the expectation to either rent together or purchase together. There should be no expectation of being invited to live with someone for free.

Living by invitation in someone's home, rent free or otherwise, isn't cocklodging if you're contributing towards bills and pulling your weight with housework.

People who get described as cocklodgers are doing nothing except permanently hanging out in someone's home. Living there whether it's their official address or not and sometimes not having been invited to move in but having done it by stealth. Contributing nothing or very little, either financially or in terms of effort, whilst often increasing the home owner's costs and getting waited on hand and foot too.

@Itloggedmeoutagain

I don't see where the complication is with this one.

the house belongs to Dave, he invites Betty to live with him, they split the other bills.

they split up, Betty moves out, she has savings where she hasn't had to pay mortgage/rent. Fred has additional capital on HIS Asset, but only due to time, nothing Betty has added. They've both gained from splitting the bills.

what's the issue??

I don't approve of freeloading off anyone Mrex. I do however think you're just looking for a fight so I'll not engage with you further.

The problem here is when A & B are a couple, their money is "family money" and gets spent on what makes most sense for the family.

No one would advocate 1 parent saving money in their own name in lieu of rent whilst the other parent renovated their family home at their own sole cost.

Yet when the relationship breaks down it's suddenly all his & hers and the non-owner is supposed to have had the hindsight to save for a situation they weren't expecting. Most often it's the women who has the double whammy of also reducing work hours, pension etc.

This is why marriage before children makes sense. I'm as feminist as they come, many argue that it's outdated etc (and yes white dresses and fathers giving you away maybe) but in many cases marriage as a legal contract IS the feminist thing to do.

Exactly this.

When my now ex first moved in to my house we split bills in proportion to earnings, but I did want a “rent” contribution of 1/3 of the mortgage, I paid 2/3. She was saving massively my no longer renting.

this seemed to constantly be an issue, they were never happy “paying my mortgage” and even me saying it was “rent” was apparently saying I only wanted them there for the money.

we’ve now split. Was I wrong?

I don't know about others, but for me YANBU. I didn't own a house when me and my boyfriend (then) moved in, but we shared the finances together after a year, so I think paying a mortgage together is a natural thing. It's just a matter of choosing sensible partner instead of ignoring red flags and moving in with some scumbag.

Another question here is did they declare the additional income they were receiving from their partner and pay relevant tax? If not, I'd say it's not a strictly rent type relationship and some equity should be shared...

@FloydPepper if you see it purely as rent then it is additional income - did you declare and pay tax on it?

This. Not paying 'rent' makes a person a freeloader.

Exactly what me and my DP currently do (except I pay more than half as I earn more, we split it on %)
It's a win for him as he's paying way less than he would do in rent and therefore is saving more (his protection I suppose if we split), and its a win for me as I also pay less.
Hopefully it's an investment in our future together for when we get married, but if we do split then we've both had a short term financial benefit from it and we will go back to paying higher rent and higher mortgage respectively

No it’s a contribution to a bill, not an income