Am I paying too much to live at my partners house?

[RJCHelp]

At the beginning of the year I moved into my partners house and I offered that I would pay £600 per month (not including food, I contribute separately to this). I came to this number as this was the amount I used to pay for my mortgage + service charge at my flat.

I have since found out that his bills (utilities only) total £800 per month but in recent months, he has been reducing these e.g cancelling sky and moving onto a cheaper energy tarriff (his electric car sucks most of the energy!) so essentially, I am paying for more than 50% of the bills here and he always said prior to me moving in that he didn’t need any help with the mortgage… HOWEVER I am better off than when I was living at my flat (£725 pre inflation) 🙁.

Do you think my contribution is too much? I am essentially paying £200 towards his mortgage here…

Please help x

Work out outgoings and split them 50/50. Easy!

If he doesn't want you acquiring a financial interest in the property then you shouldn't be contributing more than half the running costs minus the mortgage.

You shouldn't be paying any form of rent. You are a partner not a tenant. Rent would make this a business relationship and you would have the rights associated with being a tenant. I'm amazed that people are advocating that it's okay for a partner to charge you rent on a home you are sharing and yet clearly expect him to be able to boot you out at any moment. It's completely unethical.

You should be only paying half the running costs, and I would say the same whether you were a man or a woman posting. If he is looking for a source of income he should have gotten himself a lodger.

I’d base it on what the market rent would be to live in the house and then reduce a bit cuz you’re his partner.

This changes the balance of things. By "hardly any profit" I assume your tenants are covering your repayment mortgage, so at minimal cost to yourself your house is being paid off.

Perhaps your partner would like a turn at renting his house out so he has no rent or mortgage to pay - and live in yours for a bit with you paying the mortgage?

The only reason you can rent out your house is because you are living at your partners so you need to share his housing costs to at least some extent.

Is he cutting back on utilities because of the cost of living? Is his mortgage interest rate shooting up? You don't sound like much of a team.

Have you registered for self assessment for your rental? HMRC treat capital repayments off your mortgage as "profit" and if you are a higher rate tax payer - or the rent received makes you one - your mortgage interest is not fully deductible as an expense. If most of the rent received pays your (repayment) mortgage you need to save a chunk of cash to pay your tax bill.

All these posters saying “ creating an interest in the property” just paying to actually “live” somewhere - ridiculous !

Plus not many of you would know the expense and time involved to present an extremely complex beneficial interest case in a Lands Tribunal and especially one without merit.

OP - you are actually getting a roof over your head. Its not just purely paying for bills.

Op living her her Dps, with no rent, so she can rent her house out, not have to pay her own mortgage, so getting huge financial benefit there……would also make this a business relationship. Following your logic.

You could argue that he is facilitating her to have all the benefits of home ownership (mainly that it will keep increasing in price) with a steadily reducing mortgage. Why should he do that?

She wouldn’t be able to rent out her property if she didn’t live with him.

She should get something in place so he can’t make her leave immediately and that she should get some notice if they split.

If you're saving £200 or more on your outgoings by living with your partner, then you are benefiting just as much as your partner.

Unless your income is vastly different, then all bills should be 50/50.

I’d sit down with him and work out how much everything costs and then transfer him half of it every month.

This!!

You'll legally be gaining a beneficial interest as you are contributing to the household, rather than just bills. So if you ever split up to could claim a share of the equity in the property. He's being very silly charging you more than half the bills, this could have serious consequences for him.

Paying "rent" doesn't give OP an interest, exactly the opposite.

My friend has just been through this with a house she owns and which her ex (unmarried) lived in with her. Legal advice was that he was entitled for something for the money he had contributed to capital works - home improvements but not for rent, contributing to the mortgage or general repairs.

£600 seems very reasonable. less than £50 a week rent plus bills. He will still pay other costs for his house such as insurance, decorating, cost of new appliances etc.

It be really tight to only pay half the bills.

I think the fair way to do this is to work out how much you are saving as a couple by living together and split the savings equally. So if you think you are jointly saving, say, about £700 per month, then you should pay him £350 so you are both £350 better off than before.

But the real problem here is not the details of what is and isn't fair in terms of money, but the fact that you don't seem able to talk about it!

I can’t get my head around the fact that most people think that OP’s partner is being unreasonable here or taking advantage of her in some way - this is definitely not the case from what I can gather.

Imagine a similar scenario the other way round:
OP’s partner moves in with her and rents his place out - getting his mortgage covered by his new tenants and having his asset paid off - whilst only paying £200 towards OP’s mortgage (unless of course her mortgage was tiny). OP continues to pay the majority of her mortgage plus half of the bills. People would be saying he was taking advantage of her!

BTW OP I’m not saying you’re trying to take advantage of your partner - I’m just saying people are not taking into consideration the fact that you’re now renting out your own property. It’s not fair that your partner is being slated and being made out to be taking advantage of you - you are both benefiting from you moving in together.

It’s just a case of working through the numbers and either agreeing that the current arrangement is fair or tweaking it slightly. IMO you’re getting a good deal but I don’t know what your salary split is. For example if one of you earns significantly more than the other then maybe you split the bills as a percentage of income?

Hope you get it sorted x

@TheWayoftheLeaf

Agree!

I think if the cost of the utilities goes down then your contribution should go down. You based your offer on a certain expectation of what the living arrangement was going to be like. He cut off Sky without asking even though you are paying towards it! Since you pay, you should get a say.

This.

What would have been funny would if the OP had posted without identifying the sexes of the parties involved so people would tie themselves in knots trying to work out if the OP was a savvy woman or a CF man.

But the OP say that the 'utilities only' are £800 pm, so what about council tax, broadband, streaming services etc?

It's a difficult one, but if the OP is having all the costs of the house she owns covered, and still has the investment/equity gain so she's not losing out by not being a homeowner then she shouldn't expect to live completely for free in her DPs house. After all if they'd moved into her house instead, Mumsnet wouldn't think it's fair that he move in and only pay towards half of the bills and pay no 'rent' type costs.

Splitting the savings sounds like a fair way to go about it, so you both benefit financially from the situation.

The other solution would be to sell both houses and buy a house together, share joint costs and protect individuals contributions to the deposit, but obviously that's rather drastic if you don't want to make that commitment.

The issue for me isn’t what you are paying (only you can decide what feels fair in this situation), it’s that there is seemingly not open and transparent communication around finances. This is not good. Having a proper talk about money - who earns what, what your goals are as individuals and as a couple in regards to money (are you saving together or separately? Do you want to ‘live for now’ with expensive holidays and so on, but few savings?), and also what your thoughts about the relationship are (how committed are you both, do you want kids, is marriage on the cards?), will help you proceed on a more even keel, understanding why you are making the choices you’re making.

If he won’t have that conversation that’s a bigger issue imo than what you are paying.

Maybe it's time to draw up a Co-habitation Agreement?

When you share with someone, you should both end up a bit better off financially.

Sounds like he's come out significantly better off. If he's decent, this will be an oversight and you can rework this.

You should be saving some money for yourself as currently if the relationship ends you are homeless so make sure you have some savings. Have a sit down and go through all the bills and work out a fair arrangement based on actual costs

What I find concerning is that when you told him how much you'd contribute he didn't say something like "hold up, my utilities come to £800, this is what they are bla bla bla".

I would have asked for him to write down how much every bill was and work out what to pay that way. I know, too late for that now, but the fact he didn't offer it either...

It's never too late for that conversation though.

Yeah, usually renters don't have sex with their landlords and they have a rental agreement in place. It hurts my brain how so many MNers can't understand the difference.

This.

As his girlfriend why do you think 200 pounds rent is fair? You're getting a bargain.

And for those saying the OP will have a beneficial interest in his home as his girlfriend you're wrong.

If he doesn’t want you to contribute to the mortgage and utilities only, then I would ask for a reduction (usually I’d say what’s wrong with a bit, but I’m guessing he wants to make it clear the house is his (unless maybe you get married and draw up an agreement of % ownership).
If this continues long term that is fine, but I would strongly suggest to purchase a property yourself and rent it out, or you’re just lining someone else’s pocket and you could be left high and dry. Sorry to be cynical, just trying to be devils advocate.

I do already own my own property and it is currently rented. I have mentioned in follow on posts but apologies if this wasn’t made clear in the OP - My bad!