Who should really own our house?

[Littlething]

I will appreciate some advice and fresh perspective on my situation please. Sorry if it is a bit long.
Me and my partner of 15 years (two dc, 11 and 8) are about to exchange on a house that we are buying with the money I inherited from my late parents. There will be a small mortgage, paid out of rental income on my flat in London. We moved to where we are now 2 years ago from London for his job. We were renting here while we were looking for a house to buy paying rent out of the income on my London flat. I have stopped working after my youngest was born, my dp has a good job (architect), that covers our bills. My parents gifted me the flat in London, so we lived rent/mortgage free and they gave us cash for holidays, new car etc, we would not be able to afford it otherwise. We spend rather carefully, shopping in H&M and Lidl but we like to entertain, go to the theatre and children have lots of hobbies. My partner has a flat in London that he bought before we met, he pays mortgage on it and rents it out, so mortgage is covered.
The house we are buying here is small and will need extension and loft conversion, it will be paid for with what’s left out of the money my parents left me. For context, we decided to buy a small house (in a not very ideal location) because it is all we can afford without selling mine or his flats and he is strongly against selling since “it is our pension”.
I agreed to put both our names on the title. I want to make it clear that he is a kind and loving person, he is my best friend and the children adore him. I do not want to upset him by spelling out that it is my money that we are spending on the purchase and renovation. However when I said the other day that I expect to have an upper hand when it comes to decisions to do with renovating (and maybe selling when the children are off to Uni) he got very upset. He feels that he will “pour all his energy, time and skills into the house and will be left with nothing”. He also said he feels his contribution to our finances is major because all his salary is spent every months, he provides for us and this needs to be recognised. AIBU to expect him to see it from my perspective?
Many thanks for reading and sharing what you think.

@monkey36 @SirChenjins no. For him to have been supporting them alll he would have had to be paying for childcare.

He has effectively been employing her as part of their choice to raise children with a stay at home parent.

That means she was unable to be employed. Her contribution is to e money she was not earning because she was not available for work.

His fine career and substantial deposit giving him a wonderful start on a new property whilst he has his apartment in the background growing in value.

You do realise that the average earnings for architects in the UK is £40k? Those are the RIBA figures. And where is his substantial deposit to come from? He's paying council tax, utilities, food, clothing and household costs for his wife and children — all sunk costs, no getting them back — while her investment in the house and her flat grow steadily. As a previous poster pointed out, what happens when the tenant in her flat loses their job and stop paying the rent and it takes six months for a court order to remove them? Is the husband also expected to pay the mortgage on their house? If he's on the mortgage (which is probably the only way they can afford a mortgage if the OP isn't working) he'll be obliged to pay, even if he has no financial interest in the house. If you reversed the sexes and he was an independently wealthy SAHF while his female partner worked to pay the bills, you'd see it differently.

Relationships require trust and fairness. As previous posters have said the 'my money's mine and your money is ours' attitude is not conducive to a secure relationship.

No he hasn't. She's said herself she's doing a second degree and then thinking about a new career. Both the children are in school.

When you do renovations go to the shop and ask for the receipts on real paper with your name on them, not the heat slips, to prove you have paid so a claim cannot be made later. The work your partner does is paid by living in your paid for house.

His deposit would come from the house being sold because his name was on the deeds.

He would be entitled to half the value of the house if he is put on the deeds.

Her inheritance has paid for the house.

He gets to live in a house paid for by HER inheritance.

He has a separate property paying for itself.

Should they split he goes into work on monday.
She doesn't and needs to protect what she has.

I think she needs to return to work too if necessary, and start sharing childcare with him, but she should not hand over 50% of that house.

A small morgage to improve the house?
How much would rent be costing him?

He is looking after himself telling her he feels he should get half the house.

There is no way that a man who had their partner and children's best interests at heart would suggest she sign off half the house and then not married.

He is working and has a pension no doubt.

She doesn't have one.
She needs every penny she has.

I think it’s unreasonable to be living off his income while you don’t work but expect him not to want something out of it in terms of decision making. Why not put all three properties in both your names? I can totally see why you want to protect yourself but if I were in his position I’d want to be contributing to the mortgage or something since he’s paying for everything while you don’t work.

Yabu. Appreciate it’s your inheritance but he’s paying for all day to day things. Fair split really. Can definitely understand why your comment regarding the decor didn’t go down very well.

you own three homes betweenn you, pay for some professional advice to protect both your interessts.

@Pluvia I expect they both want her to be at home when the kids get back from school, homework etc - and I bet she does all or most of the emotional labour, planning, domestic shitwork. The day-to-day needs of the family are provided by both their labours - she owes him nothing on that count.

This. Emotional work, childcare, cleaning, shopping, cooking, caring…why have these tasks essential to life become so cynically undervalued?

Because women traditionally do these tasks therefore they are giving a low social status.

I am just going to reiterate.

You have to do two calculations: 1) assets and 2) income.

These are two separate issues that need to be assessed separately. You can use "sweat equity" to equalize. Don't forget to do an imputed income for SAHM "work" which replaces cost of childcare. (Use an average cost of childcare in your area to determine value.)

Leaving all of that to one side though, why is it that DP’s income can’t either be paying the mortgage (as per him being assessed for it by the lender), and why can’t OP’s income from the gifted London flat either be for bills/sunk costs or there be a 50:50 split of mortgage and bills across both incomes, thus rendering the partnership fair to both parties?

Why is it that DP’s income gets frittered on running costs while OP’s income feeds unto itself into another appreciating asset like a snake eating its own tail?!

Everything else is borderline irrelevant.

Because they are simply part of adult life (childcare for for people who have children obvs)

His salary is family-pot income.

Her nominal salary (ie. whatever she would be earning from her previous career had she not stayed at home with the kids) is ALSO family-pot income. (OP, do not cost this at local childcare rates - cost it at full-time nanny plus full-time housekeeper rates at the very least, if you don't use your previous salary as a nominal salary).

In terms of assets:
She came into the relationship with significantly greater wealth. He has benefited already from that, for many years - she has been effectively paying his mortgage by providing him with free housing. He will eventually own that asset, by himself, outright. He thinks of it as his pension.

Currently the OP has no such pension, despite having greater personal assets.

Once they move into the new house, her flat will likely be rented out. Now the OP has a pension too. There's no mortgage to pay down, so she could put the rental income towards increasing her pension, which will then be bigger than his to reflect the differential in their individual wealth.

The final asset - the new house - has also been bought with her resources. She owns it. Not only has it been bought with her wealth, but she continues to financially support her DP to the amount of the rental he gets from his flat.

They work together - perhaps using some of her rental income which would otherwise go to her 'pension', or perhaps by the OP taking on even more of the domestic burden in order that he can 'pour his effort' into to make their living space comfortable and pleasant for both of them, to their mutual benefit.

If the DP continues to make a fuss about effort/skills-pouring, she could offer to pay him for his architectural services. It will be about £10K I should think.

I wonder if there will be an inheritance on his side?

If both or one of you don’t want to marry then you definitely will need to visit a solicitor and get all the properties put into joint names so everything is equal. Talk to him I’m sure he will agree. Sort your will out at the same time.

I understood from the OP that both London properties are currently rented, with DP’s covering his mortgage and OPs providing her income stream as it is not mortgaged. DP doesn’t want them to sell either as they constitute their pensions.

Seeing as it was gifted fully purchased, then I cannot agree with your following take:

”she has been effectively paying his mortgage by providing him with free housing. He will eventually own that asset, by himself, outright. He thinks of it as his pension.

Currently the OP has no such pension, despite having greater personal assets.”

In reality, OPs parents have fully paid the mortgage and so when there is no mortgage payments to make, there is no one in that situation paying any costs except the living/running costs, (covered by DP).

They have both enjoyed free housing so it’s not altruistic on the part of the OP to not charge her DP (& father of children) something that costs her nothing, in particular when the trade off is that all running costs are covered.

That’s not a bad thing imo, it’s teamwork. I can imagine it worked well and felt generally fair both sides.

What isn’t teamwork or fair is the acquisition set-up and unfair income-funnelling re the new house. It is fundamentally unfair. (Notwithstanding obviously a cast-iron ring fence around the inherited deposit).

As there’ll be a mortgage on the new property which will be based on the DP salary/income, if they did split up then this will mean that he is unable to borrow as much for any other property as he’ll have the existing lending. So it’ll either need to be sold, remortgaged under OP (who will then need to find an income for whatever amount is needed to satisfy the lender) or he’ll be trapped named as sole borrower on a mortgage for a property solely in op name.

It’s not just op who should protect herself in this precarious scenario, especially when DP came in with less to start with and seeing as his income isn’t appropriate “allowed” to be used to pay off a mortgage (that he has been assessed by the lender for, seeing as op income would not be counted for this purpose).

if they did split up then this will mean that he is unable to borrow as much for any other property as he’ll have the existing lending

He wouldn’t need to. He’s got his own flat, remember? He could live in that.

Lol. So DP should be evicting his tenants as he walks away with absolutely nothing as all of his wages have been spent on outgoings for c.15yr, while simultaneously being financially beholden, tied and enabling ongoing OP mortgage requirement while OP owns two properties, one fully purchased by parents and the other fully enabled by DP. It’s already an unfair situation if things proceed with this income-funnelling as planned, but you’re essentially saying that even if things ended for any reason (Op cheating for instance), that he should shrug his shoulders, remain as the sole borrower severely impacting his ability to move on and pootle off waiting until it’s cleared?! 😂

What if there is an untenanted time in the inherited rental property? Op could default and it would be on HIS name. Wholly unfair!

all of his wages have been spent on outgoings for c.15yr,

With no rent to pay. OP’s housed him for nothing for 15 years while his mortgage on an appreciating asset has been paid by someone else. My heart isn’t bleeding for him.

This is the stupidest thing I think I have ever read. Of course she was able to be employed. And they would have then been responsible for paying for childcare.

Anyway, OP says they're nearly ready to exchange and clearly haven't spoken about this before. He's on the mortgage; unlikely he won't be on the deeds. The conveyancers can sort this out and she should protect her inheritance - but you know what, as unpalatable as it may seem, it's not right that if the relationship dissolves that the person that literally allowed the house to be bought should gain literally nothing from that.

So? If they weren't together, he would have lived in his other property. He clearly has the capacity to pay for his own housing - but they're in a relationship and have kids.

OP would probably be living in her own property. But she would probably have worked unless her parents paid all her outgoings.

I really despair for the hardnosed approach some of you seem to have for your partners.

But she's studying for her second degree. She isn't spending eight hours a day cooking, cleaning and doing the emotional labour. And who's to say he isn't shouldering his fair share of the burden when he's at home? I'm all for women choosing to stay at home if they wish to, but once the children are in school full-time let's not pretend that housework is a full time job, of that the emotional burden takes hours every day. If it did, how would any working mother cope?

I notice a few people say that getting married (and pulling all assets together) will solve it for us. Sorry for not seeing the obvious but how so, if his asset (flat) is worth, say, x, mine is 3x and my inheritance is 2.5x. In case of divorce, splitting assets will leave me worse off…or is it implied we will sigh a prenup of sorts?

Op I honestly think you need professional legal and financial advice. For both of you. Is property really the best way to save? Would you be better with a big house you could downsize from later?

If anything happens to you do your assests go to DP or your kids? That could result in money getting lost via inheritance tax.

From a personal POV the marital home should be 'ours' not his or mine. I couldn't see DHs house that I had no stake in as 'ours'. We sold and bought together.
And a workmate said similar him and wife had a blazing row over a picture or an ornament and a 'my house' comment. They sold and bought a 'our' house.