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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To want to know about DH's savings before marriage?

219 replies

Jinnywix · 22/08/2023 20:08

As the title says really. We have been married 2 years and have just welcomed our first baby and also just bought our first house together (it's been intense!). My question arises after thinking a new kitchen would be too expensive (£10k altogether) but DH went ahead and did to which I felt really happy but also a bit guilty thinking it was too expensive. And then DH wanted to sort out the driveway and front and back garden for which we received a quote of £30k. We both thought it was expensive and I said I didn't think it made economical sense as I really thought it would be totally diminishing all the savings. The following evening DH came home from work and said the builders would start on the driveway the following day. I was really worried as I thought we couldn't possibly afford it. DH says we could afford it and I said that I thought we had a budget of £50k for renovations etc. He said we do but he's happy to dip into his savings. I thought the deposit for the house plus renovations was X but turns out DH had another £200k saved. AIBU to want to have known about it? I've been really stressed with how much we've been spending on renovating plus the fact that I'm on mat leave with SMP and trying to figure out how to organise things about going back to work. I said to DH I would like to know the full picture with all the savings he has. AIBU?

OP posts:
Original poster
Jinnywix · 22/08/2023 21:55

CantFindTheBeat · 22/08/2023 21:52

I think it's important that all finances are transparent so you are not being unreasonable.

You ARE being unreasonable though to hire a trades company who can do a big job like that on minimal notice. That rings all sorts of alarm bells 🙈

We found them on checkatrade with good reviews and they seem to be working well 🤞

OP posts:
Motnight · 22/08/2023 21:56

EntreMummy · 22/08/2023 21:51

I’m afraid I can’t see the financial sense in putting a small deposit on a house because you want to keep your money to make the repayments - if your DH had put a larger portion of his savings into the deposit in the first place, that would have meant smaller repayments?

or would have got you closer to a forever home??

and why wouldn’t he want to be on the deeds?

I agree. None of his decisions add up.

tweetsandchirps · 22/08/2023 21:57

So he had 200K in savings which he kept quiet about throughout a house purchase and unemployed period he is now spending it like water on house repairs and improvements. Something is not adding up here. Is he money laundering for some pals or something?

A credit card is just credit - it is not the same as cash.

jazzyfips · 22/08/2023 21:58

Itsnotrightbutitsok · 22/08/2023 21:16

I also think £90 for bedding is insane and I wonder if you’re a bit of a waster of money which is why he doesn’t tell you the full amount.

I spend way more than that on bedding. Why is it insane?

FrontEnd · 22/08/2023 22:01

@Jinnywix can you say how much exactly was his contribution to the house deposit?

Original poster
Jinnywix · 22/08/2023 22:03

Tryingtokeepcalmandcarryon · 22/08/2023 21:07

This is the strangest thing I’ve heard on here in a while! If my husband and father of my child dropped into conversation he had 200K in a secret bank account that he had NEVER mentioned in the years we had been together my jaw would drop to the floor and I would be fuming. How can you agree to marry someone and be with them forever and not tell them that (I’m not sure how long you’ve been together or how old you are, that prob does make a difference here).

It takes a LONG time to save 200k. I mean, even for high earners, years, presumably he’s had to pay rent to live somewhere and pay bills etc whilst saving this huge amount of money. He’ll be making a decent amount on interest alone from that. If he’s on an income of 7k a month he’s clearly a high earner and has been for a while.

It seems so odd that he’s prob had a high paying job for years, he had this huge secret savings pot and then just because he’s unemployed for a short amount of time (in between his very high paid jobs) you have to take out a mortgage on your own on your much lower salary for a house that is probably nowhere near what you wanted..

I was unhappy tbh but normally once I suggest a solution DH is happy to accommodate.

I was aware of his income just not his savings. DH was made redundant and looking for his exact role/salary match for over a year. In the end he 'settled' for the temp role (mostly because we conceived but there was no permanent role in sight) and the permanent role he has coming up is actually lower paying than the temp role but with a promise of a potentially big bonuses eg. previous "bad years" they have had a bonus of 100%

And yes, the budget for our forever home looked very different to what we settled on but we were in quite a small flat in central London and it seemed like we should just adjust our house budget to something we could afford in the moment rather than keep waiting for DH to find a permanent role while baby due date was getting closer and closer.

OP posts:
Original poster
Jinnywix · 22/08/2023 22:04

FrontEnd · 22/08/2023 22:01

@Jinnywix can you say how much exactly was his contribution to the house deposit?

All of it! It was a 50% deposit on a £450k house.

OP posts:
blackbeardsballsack · 22/08/2023 22:04

I don't understand any of his decisions. However, he has paid a deposit for a house which is in your name only, is paying the mortgage, and is paying tens of thousands to improve the condition of the house and increase its value, and that's all good news for you. Much better than some situations you read about where the man's name only is on the mortgage.

EntreMummy · 22/08/2023 22:08

Jinnywix · 22/08/2023 22:04

All of it! It was a 50% deposit on a £450k house.

Show quote history

So his actual savings originally were £425k?!

RoyKentsTieDyeTop · 22/08/2023 22:10

None of his decisions make the slightest bit of financial sense.

At all.

sweeneytoddsrazor · 22/08/2023 22:10

He put £225k deposit on a house in your name?

Original poster
Jinnywix · 22/08/2023 22:10

If it's any consolation to the people saying sense.. my siblings say similar. They have put it down to him coming from an almost £0 income family and perhaps hasn't seen how previous generations save/invest. It stressed my dad out a bit that all DH's savings just sit in accounts uninvested. In terms of hearing/seeing friends do things a certain way, he isn't very close to the friends he has. DH is perhaps ever so slightly on the spectrum. My DB (17 years younger than DH) is often surprised how little DH seems to know about money.

OP posts:
Original poster
Jinnywix · 22/08/2023 22:11

sweeneytoddsrazor · 22/08/2023 22:10

He put £225k deposit on a house in your name?

Yes.

OP posts:
Original poster
Jinnywix · 22/08/2023 22:11

Sorry that was meant to say people saying it doesn't make any sense

OP posts:
Dentaldrama · 22/08/2023 22:11

So the whole £200k went on the deposit?

FrontEnd · 22/08/2023 22:12

Ah, that deposit amount makes more sense to me now. You should still have full knowledge and decision making responsibilities though...

Original poster
Jinnywix · 22/08/2023 22:12

RoyKentsTieDyeTop · 22/08/2023 22:10

None of his decisions make the slightest bit of financial sense.

At all.

😫

What would make sense..?

OP posts:
Parker231 · 22/08/2023 22:13

Are you planning on adding his name to the deeds - still can’t get my head around buying a house, the family home, in your name only.

Fifthtimelucky · 22/08/2023 22:14

I wonder whether most of the OP's husband's "savings" were actually a redundancy payment.

He may have been happy to use half of it as a deposit on the house but to keep the rest, in case it took him a while to find a new job.

Transparency would obviously have been helpful, but if he has paid £225k deposit for a house not even in his name, it doesn't sound like he is financially abusive.

PinkTonic · 22/08/2023 22:19

Can you get a 7.5 x income mortgage if you put down 50% then? And why wouldn’t he be on the deeds if he put down that much? Also doesn’t the lender want to know where the deposit has come from? So many questions.

EarringsandLipstick · 22/08/2023 22:20

All of it! It was a 50% deposit on a £450k house.

WTF?

Did the bank not query where you got £225k on £2k a month?

If he provided 50% of the house price why isn't he on the mortgage / deeds? That's nuts.

And if you knew he had £225k then, surely you're not surprised he could have more savings of equivalence?

Finally, how did he save that kind of money, even on a substantial salary?

That's an unbelievable drip feed as well as a bonkers one.

RoyKentsTieDyeTop · 22/08/2023 22:20

I’m surprised the mortgage company let this happen actually.

When my parents lent my siblings money for a deposit they had to sign to say it was a gift (even though it wasn’t) so that they didn’t have a claim on the house. And when DH bought a house before we were married I had to sign to say I had no claim.

I’m not sure how it would work with a spouse paying 50% of the house value but only the other spouse being on the mortgage/deeds. It wouldn’t pass money laundering checks, or it would have flagged it up anyway. As I said earlier, it’s shady.

Comtesse · 22/08/2023 22:21

Whaaat? He paid £225k deposit, but the mortgage is in your name? That’s super weird.

If he gets paid £9k a month how can he have saved £450k???

Original poster
Jinnywix · 22/08/2023 22:21

PinkTonic · 22/08/2023 22:19

Can you get a 7.5 x income mortgage if you put down 50% then? And why wouldn’t he be on the deeds if he put down that much? Also doesn’t the lender want to know where the deposit has come from? So many questions.

We were able to borrow that much, yes. Our broker was aware the deposit was gifted to me by my husband

OP posts:
Calmdown14 · 22/08/2023 22:21

I hope he doesn't have more than 85k in any of his accounts at least.

Perhaps to be kind to him some of this has been built up again in the time since the move? Say he kept 100k to cover getting a new job but then you lived quite frugally so he didn't dip into it as much as expected. Then he gets a big bonus in temp job or payout from previous role he didn't want to bank on?

It is all very odd but if he's saved say 5k out of his 7k a month then that's 120k in time you've been living there.

The decisions he has made favour you more than him. In effect he's given you 225k if the deposit isn't ringfenced so you are quite equal.

As to why you wouldn't mention it. No idea. Perhaps he's been a lot less confident about a new permanent job than he wanted to admit.

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