DP telling me I need to pay him a rent

[helloballoon]

Bit of a long one here.

I've been with DP for 5 years, moved into his house 18 months ago, we have spoken about marriage etc and both fully committed and very happy. I sold my house which completed in February this year. I made some money from mine so we agreed that I would pay this off his mortgage. When we looked into this further we realised he was on a very good fixed rate deal so would be stupid to re-mortgage, this is where the issues have started. I was reluctant to pay the money off the mortgage which would remain in his name as I was worried if anything ever happened to him then I would have nothing. He has took this as me not being committed to the relationship and not trusting him. I have tried to explain that its not about that at all its about me having some security.

FWIW he has always been very generous with money, he has paid for so much while we have been together and its never been an issue. Now his view is that as soon as I have some money I wont commit it but I've been happy letting him pay for everything. I do really see his point of view but he doesn't seem to see mine.

We agreed to a Declaration of Trust which I got a solicitor to draw up, he has had this for 3 months and has done nothing with it, not even looked at it. It has caused a huge wedge between us. He has more equity than me and I'm more than happy for this to be documented.

When my house sold we also agreed to open a joint account so we effectively share money and pay all the bills out of the same account, aside from the issue above this works well for us.

The issue I am having now is that the past few arguments we have had he brings it up. We have had a argument today and in his anger he has decided to finally look at the Declaration of Trust and has told me not to bother and that we need to split our money back to separate accounts and and then I need to pay a rent to him.

I just don't know what to do, I've come up with the solution of a Declaration Trust but he still holds some resentment over it and we cant seem to move forward. Its really hurtful he moves the goalposts in an argument and says these things to me and it makes me feel really vulnerable that I've given up my security to commit to him and our life and he just cant see that.

We have had a chat about it once and he told me he its made him feel differently about us and that things don't feel the same, its clearly an issue for him but I don't know how to resolve it and how we can move forward.

AIBU? Any advice?

Always shake my head at these threads. I moved in with my boyfriend (at the time) and he used all his £30k savings to put a deposit down on a house for both of us. We had a joint account and never once had to say, you pay for this, i'll pay for that, or you pay 2/3's because you earn more. We both got paid, both wages went into a joint account, bills got paid, whatever was left was split 50'50.

We actually split because we got together too young. It was a joint mortgage so he bought me out of that (very generously) when we split.

Now married and from the off had exactly the same trusting relationship with DH. This time it was actually me that owned a property and I was the one who put his name on the mortgage so he had some protection given he was paying into it too. We weren't married at this point.

If you can't have this sort of trusting relationship, honestly , you might as well just be a flatmate. OP you even said this - FWIW he has always been very generous with money, he has paid for so much while we have been together and its never been an issue. Now his view is that as soon as I have some money I wont commit it but I've been happy letting him pay for everything.

Surely it would have made much more sense to get your name on the mortgage , own this house together and move forward to pay it off?!

Trust is gone now. I can 100% see both sides and honestly, if this thread was about a woman who bought absolutely everything for her bf and then he got some money and effectively held onto it, you'd all be calling him a cocklodger and telling her to get him to pay rent!

MN is so double standards.

I

Paying rent is fine.
Paying off his mortgage with no deed of trust and without any legal right to her money once it disappears paying off his mortgage isn't fine.
Did you read the op's first post?

Leave.

why didn't he sell his house?

You should have rented out your house and paid him rent, until you were both in a position to divide everything equally. Agree with PPs - buy another property asap......

Don't pay his mortgage or contribute a lump sum unless your name is on the deeds, and make sure you have a house in your name at all times!

I have my own flat on a mortgage. If I met a partner and wanted to move in with them I just wouldn't be comfortable putting my equity into their mortgage unless we had got married. I just can't fathom any circumstances where it would be a good idea.

That poster isn’t talking about the OP though, she is talking about all the replies telling her not to pay a penny in rent and how awful he is for expecting a rent payment. Telling her to only pay her share of bills and nothing else.

When a man does that, he is hauled over the coals on this forum and called a cocklodger. But almost every post is telling the OP that she shouldn’t have to contribute anything to rent and should live for free other than a contribution to bills. It’s mad; this place is so sexist.

This 'You don't trust me' is a form of gaslighting. He should know that you need legal security in these matters as no one can predict the future. My late husband and I loved and trusted each other, but we still had out house as tenants in common to before the estate was divided up between his children and mine, as I had paid more into the house to start off with. My late DH understood completely. It isn't a matter of trust, it's a matter of common sense about money.

His attitude would be a major red flag for me. But you need to sort out some kind of equitable system to make sure you are both now paying eaqually into your living costs. if you are paying part of the mortgage, make sure it is documented as such. That does give you some rights to part of the value of the house.

OP has said quite clearly that she’s contributing toward the mortgage payment. The issue is that he seems to want rent as well.

No. She isn’t. She is paying towards bills.

She was going to pay off a chunk of the mortgage, and then have her name on the deeds. He hasn’t bothered sorting the legal side out to protect her interests so she hasn’t paid off a chunk of the mortgage. She was right not to. She shouldn’t be paying a significant chunk of his mortgage with the proceeds from her sale without her interests being protected.

He has said since they aren’t doing that anymore, then she needs to pay something in rent. This is correct. If they don’t sort themselves out and he doesn’t sort out the legal side of things then she should not pay off his mortgage but she should pay rent (around the same as a lodger would pay).

That is what women are told to make men do when they move in. She has to pay rent.

I bet it was all sweet until you moved in together. Move pdq. This is why women need financial independence.

She clearly said she was paying towards the mortgage in addition to planning in paying off a chunk with her house sale

All those saying she should pay rent... Why did he let her sell her house? Did he seriously think that she was selling it so that she could become his lodger? There is a bigger picture here, about what his intentions are with her, and whether they are on the same page.

My friend did this, they split up and she ended up losing all her money.

She had to start again in her 50's by doing up a one bedroomed house.

Romance scammer? It's not reasonable to ask your unmarried partner to pay off your mortgage. When you split, he signs an affidavit saying it was a gift and much pain follows trying to get it back.

I would walk away

I don't understand why when paying into a joint account, from which the mortgage is paid, he also wants 'rent'?

Do you pay in more to this account each month than you withdraw? What happens to the surplus each month (or if there is a defecit, what happens?). You also pay half the bills? And you are willing to pay off a chunk of his mortgage too? Why?

He wants to get rid of the joint account. The OP said he wants to go back to separate finances, and she is to pay her share of the bills and then pay him rent.

helloballoon · 07/08/2024 14:30
I do pay the mortgage and have been doing since February when we set up the joint account which both our salaries go into and all the bills including the mortgage come out of.

This is what OP wrote. Clearly says she’s been paying towards the mortgage from the joint account where her salary goes.

This! ⬆️

When I met my now husband, many years ago, I was in a similar position. We preferred his house to mine so I sold mine & we used the cash to upgrade his place but he immediately put my name on the mortgage/deeds so it became very much 'our' house.

We set up a joint 'house' account which we paid proportionally fair shares into, based on what we earned at the time & we both kept our own individual accounts, free to do whatever we liked with. We pretty much paid equally for things like holidays, social events, treats, house furnishings, etc.

23years, several houses, jobs, kids, etc later & it pretty much still works for us!!

@helloballoon my (now) dh and I had similar but different issues. Dh was, and is, utterly open and trusting. He 'trusted' that without a will his assets would come to me (and that his siblings would honour his unwritten wishes). He 'trusted' that our shared savings (in an account that had only his name on it) would be equally mine.

He hated that I wanted written guarantees, lodged wills etc. Not because he was trying to defraud me, just because he thought 'the world would be fair and nice'.

Many years down the road and sometimes he still doesn't get it. That if he doesn't apecifically state theat some of his estate might pass to his step daughters, the NONE of it will. It would pass to his next of kin (siblings) and through their blood line.

Every time we have a discussion about it, he wants to trust in love and equality. I've been bitten before and I want it in hard ink.

just to clear things up this is the most accurate interpretation of my post! I have no issue with paying for the house I am living in and happy to do so.

He has just over 2 years left remaining on a fixed rate which is really low (1.6%) so it wouldn't make sense to come out of that deal. To add me to the mortgage would effectively be a re-mortgage so we would lose the low rate, we stupidly did not look into this in great detail before I had sold my house.

My issue with paying the money off was my worry if that something happened to him then I would be left with nothing and most likely homeless as everything is still in his name and we are not married. The Deed of Trust would document this. The issue then became about money and splits of equity and it felt like it became really transactional rather than about the love and trust and has caused an issue between us since.

We need to have a proper talk about it and I appreciate everyone giving me the time to reply with good advice as this has helped a lot.

@helloballoon But it wouldn’t be remortgaging to a new product, he’d just need to port the current one? When I added my partner to my mortgage Halifax ported my existing product so the interest rate remained the same. We’ve then got to remortgage in December 2026 in line with the original fixed term end date and we know we’ll not get 1.8% interest again.

It sounds like you are being totally reasonable here.
I was in a relationship a year ago where my girlfriend wanted to move in very quickly- it had only been a few months into the relationship. She wanted to meet my children, wanted a say in the decisions that my ex and I made about them (before meeting them!) and wanted to get a Declaration of Trust if she moved in. She had no equity to put in. I did not want to do this as I had barely got divorced and she could force a sale if we did break up. We finished soon afterwards.

You, on the other hand, seem to be in a long standing relationship where you have committed yourself emotionally and financially and want to work together, but are being rebuffed. Move out. Get your own place. You deserve better.