It's ours not mine - or is it?

[ohthiscouldgetmessy]

Help. This is more for advise than AIBU really. I have rented a house from a family member with my partner for many years, we have probably paid around 50% the current value of the house in rent. We have also spent money on a few bits that needed doing.

Now, here is the tricky bit. I am being gifted the house because we have paid so much in rent and what we have done to it. What we have done, we have done together and will have added value to the house. So essentially what we have paid in rent would have covered the initial purchase price of the property when we moved in. (Due to bad financial decisions by one party we were unable to get a joint mortgage so just continued renting).

Partner is under impression the house will be ours. It is only going to be put into my name as its my family member who owns it. Should I put the house into both our names as we have paid the same into it or would you be looking at the rental paid, expenses paid, take that away from current value and work out percentage? Or just keep it 50/50.

I think 50/50 but want other opinions.

I think there are lots of sensible reasons to leave it in your name, but if your realtionship is to thrive it should be 50/50.

You say it's being gifted because of the rent you've paid and the work you've done, which has been shared, and I think it creates an impossible imbalance if things are so uneven in a realtionship. For example if you alone own the house, does that mean you alone are responsible for the maintenence. How would you like that? Would you want to be in that position if things were reversed?

My only caveat might be the issue of the financial responsibility. If that was him and is still an issue, ring fence the asset.

No they don't deserve a thing. The house was gifted by a relative to the OP not to the oP and partner. It really is very simple.

If you've both contributed towards the rent and done it up . Both monies have been used. Therefore it would be our home and not solely yours. Id be livid if you kept it as only you, as its unfair and would be a deal breaker for me.

Tricky one.

It depends really, personally if I was renting for say 10 years with my partner and we were equally paying towards the rent and bills and he was gifted the house and said “it’s all mine” I’d reconsider the relationship.

You say you’ve been renting for years and nearly paid off 50% of what the place is valued at so I believe you’ve been in this renting arrangement for 10 + years unless I’m wrong.

Same for me.

If it’s yours then you need you need to pay the rent/mortgage on your own from now on.

Unless you knew that you’d get this gift years ago, morally I think that your partner only has a claim on half of the home improvements made until the house was yours. As with the rent/mortgage, from now on you need to fund home improvements 100% on your own if the house is yours.

Apologies, I could have swore I read a reference to ‘he’ in the OP, but perhaps it was in subsequent posts. Regardless of the sex of the partner, my post still stands.

Not nearly enough info.

Who made the crap financial decisions which kept you in rented for years?
Are there kids involved or kids planned?
Do you plan to marry?
Is it a good, stable, supportive relationship or is your partner a bit of a nob?
How will they react if it stays in your name only?

Not necessarily. It depends on the circumstances. But I know if I gifted my son or my daughter a house I would want the house in their name.
Besides we have no idea if the OP is male or female.

Sorry, I have ignorantly assumed gender. My post still stands regardless

if you opt to keep the house in your name only then I would prepare for it to be the ruination of the relationship to be honest.

and you need to state which one of you is the bad financial decision maker to be honest…

Surely the question is incredibly simple? Who does your family member want to gift the house to?

If your family member wishes to gift the house to both of you then I would suggest asking them if they are sure that they'd rather not gift it to you alone.

Im going to unpopularly disagree. I dont think the bad financial decision maker matters anymore

Since then they have both contributed equally.

You have been gifted it, it’s yours. The fact you were living there is not relevant, you would both have been paying rent somewhere and wouldn’t expect a chunk of the landlords house would you. And yes I’d say that regardless of the sex of the op in this case.

If they had been able to get a mortgage they would have bought a jointly owned house and the gift of this house would have gone to the OP alone.

If it's the OP's poor credit rating which prevented them from getting a mortgage and the OP keeps the house in their name only then the partner has spent years contributing to something they will not benefit from whilst OP is set for life. That doesn't sound like much of a partnership.

If the partners poor credit rating prevented them from getting a mortgage then I think it's less clear cut and would depend on the stability of the relationship and the partners approach to finances now.

Presumably rent will no longer be payable so both parties should be able to save money.

If the house is in her name she can charge her partner rent to cover repairs etc there is no reason why they should live rent free just because the house in in OPs name

If I was with my long term life partner I would share the house with them 50/50 irrespective of how much they'd put in, but if it was me I would have also chosen to get married.

You're not married. How come?

Seeing as you're not married - no way would I put his name on the deeds.
No f*ing way.

Well if they were living somewhere else then he wouldn’t have been paying for renovations either 🤷🏼‍♀️ I’m sure they knew it would be theirs in the end if he’s paying to do the house up! I feel like OP hasn’t given us enough context though because we don’t know if they discussed it etc

Agree with most that you should leave it in your name only. As another poster suggested, you can provide security for DP through your will. I am guessing it is DP who made poor financial decisions in the past so that’s another reason not to put him on the Deeds.

The thing I cannot get my head around is that you were willing to do a joint mortgage but due to either yourself or your partner’s credit rating, you are unable to do this. You obviously years ago considered a joint mortgage/property together.

So now I do not understand why years later and I could be talking 10 or 20 years now that you’ve been paying rent on this property equally with your partner you are now unsure about putting their name on the deeds.

If you have paid off 50% of what the house is valued at you obviously haven’t only been renting for a few years together. This seems like quite a long-term relationship to me. It would probably be a dealbreaker for me if I was in your partners position. Renting together for years and years 50-50 to be suddenly told “it’s all mine and your name can’t go on it” would be it for me.

If you are happy in your relationship and you have been together long term, and I mean long term then I do believe the right thing is to put their name on it

I have thought about this a lot, as I'd like to help my DS with a house purchase.

My conclusion is that if I do it, it will need to be a gift to both of them, as I can't see a realtionship being successful if they are living in a house, which they are both responsible for day to day, but which only one has any financial stake in.

If they marry, putting it in his name only would have no impact anyway, and once it's in his name, it's his to do with as he sees fit anyway, and for the sake of the realtionship, that's probably to put it in both names.

It a gift to you, not your partner. They don't accrue a share in it by having paid rent to your relative. 100% in your name. Presumably you won't be charging them rent in future, so they get a little windfall too to invest how they wish.

The family member would have been taxed on the rent paid (unless it wasn’t declared) so if they had a mortgage they might not have actually gained much financially because the mortgage isn’t taken into account as an expense. So I don’t think what your partner has jointly contributed to rent is relevant.

A family member wants to gift you a house. That is for you not your partner unless you are married.

Also I’m in the process of trying to gift a house to my son and it’s very complex and I will have to pay about £29,000 in capital gains tax so make sure your family member is aware of that. They would hand giving you a house but would land themselves with a big tax bill.

Who has paid for the rent and renovations.
Really, it is yours but if your partner has paid thpusands and spent countless hours doing the works then I would think he is due something.