Joint ownership of the house

[LabyrinthIntheforest]

Please let me pick your brain. I jointly own a house with my partner, who has left for someone else abruptly. Now, we need to decide what to do with the house. There are three options that I can think of:

1.	Buy out his share: I can buy out his share of the house. This means I’ll be using up 70% of my savings.
2.	Gift the house: He might gift the house to me, with the agreement that whenever I sell the house in the future, I would share the profit with him equally. This option allows me to live in the house for the rest of my life, or as long as I like. When the time comes that I wish to sell the house, we would share the profit equally. The purpose of this agreement is to protect the asset, which we both agreed to leave for our children in the future.
3.	Maintain joint ownership: We leave the house as joint ownership, but I take over paying the mortgage from my bank account because I’m the one who keep living in the house with 2 teens.

Would it be a good idea to take the second option? Or is it a bad idea because it might create future disruptions or any dispute from him in my life? How does the third option compare in terms of potential future complications? Looking forward to hearing from you. Thanks 🙏

Sorry to be blunt.

Use your savings, obviously. Why should he get the profit from your payments? You aren’t married so separate your finances.

Option 1 all day long a good clean break and it becomes your asset to will as you wish or any subsequent profit years down the line is yours alone.

Thank you for your advice. But I’m scared of using the savings unless I really have to do it.

I feel that Option 1 would give me a clean break from him, whereas Option 2 doesn’t. However, Option 2 doesn’t cost me anything financially, so I can keep my savings. I might live in this house forever, which means I wouldn’t have to pay him anything in the future, but I’m afraid of future disputes or complications with him.

Buy him out the other 2 options are messy and leave u2 tied to each other

Staying financially connected to him means he will have a "say" over your home and so control over it.

Absolutely worst thing you could do.

4th option is sell it, split profit and purchase another property that isn't tainted by him.

So under Option 2, how on earth would you calculate the "profit"? You say share "equally" - even though you'd be the one to go on repaying ghe principal? How about maintenance- all on you, or deducted from profit? How about if it's not routine maintenance, but an extension? And how would any of that be enforceable in the first place considering it would formally be a gift?

Option 1 all day long. You will still have 30% of your savings, your ex will be totally your ex - no control from him and you gave a lovely home.

You might consider the rate of any mortgage being paid, relative to savings rates. Better to pay down debt if borrowing rates are higher than savings rates; less clear if no mortgage.
If you use up savings to buy equity, it's probably going to be easy to borrow back that money if you need it.

You need legal advice. DH still has a mortgage on and is co owner of the house his ex partner lives in - it's an absolute mess and dates back over 15 years. Don't let yourself get in the same situation. I divorced my ex and it was all sorted out in the court. DH let it slide, partly because the lender won't let his ex have the mortgage on her own, she has to live somewhere and she's paying it.

Thanks, everyone. Dear GrumpyPanda, I believe splitting the profit equally means I would deduct half of any maintenance costs and all the amount of mortgage I paid after the separation. I’ll be keeping all the evidence. What do you think?

Buy him out and get rid permanently. Never give him anyway to come back and stake a claim. I don't think He could legally gift you the house and he would always have rights over it.
Screw the savings you wouldn't be secure with option 2. You can rebuild your savings in time.

It’s so tough. I’m 54 years old, working for pretty close to minimum wage, with two dependent teens at home. It’s very tempting to choose option two if my ex agreed, but I also understand that a clear break up could give me peace of mind.

You would keep records of maintenance costs for forever? That's madness

What happens if you want to upgrade your kitchen, but it's not actually necessary? Is that maintenance? Are you going to count every paint pot?!

Imagine this (perhaps extreme) scenario:
Say you sell in 25years. Next year you need to replace the roof for £20k. In 25 years, do you deduct the £10k (20 divided by 2)? Or take into account inflation, which means £20k in 2025 might be the equivalent of £30k in 2049. On the other hand, the house needs reroofing again in 2049, at the time you are selling, which is reflected in the sale price. So you have had all the benefit of the roof you replaced in 2026. Why should your ex pay for that, especially as he is not getting the benefit in the eventual sales price?

Of course you don't want to use up your savings, who does? But i'd argue you've split up so you need to start finding your own life in it's entirety, which means buying your own house.

OP what @Butterflyfern said. Your ex may be amiable now, but you could end up squabbling over every little detail.

Regarding savings, will you need to build up funds for uni? Could you get your ex to commit here upfront to take any future burden off you? Maybe as accounts in the kids names? Then as you rebuild savings, make sure to not just save into an interest account, but to have a modest sum each month go into a index fund saving plan to take advantage of higher appreciation.

Thank you ever so much, everyone. I’m leaning towards buying him out. I have accumulated savings over the past 10 years for my child’s university expenses, but perhaps my ex can support her instead of me.

Are you married.?

Why would ( or should) he gift the house to you

Answer to the first question, I’ve been married to him for the last 22 years. Answer to the 2nd question, I really don’t know. I insisted that he gave me his part of the house as a gift in return for taking on the entire mortgage and look after children. I thought that it would be a good idea to protect my savings for my children’s future education because he uses all the money that he could have saved for himself such as drinking

Big drip feed there.

You're married. Are you getting divorced ? If not why not ? And if yes then are there are other assets to go into the pot like pensions.....and your savings.

And if you take on the mortgage can you pass the lenders affordability tests. You say you are in minimum wage so how much do you earn & how much is left on the mortgage. Rough rule of thumb is that you'll need to earn 1/4 of the mortgage. So if its £100k then you'll need to earn £25k.

2+3 don't work ! Why on earth would he want to ' gift ' the house to you

Divorce and clean break, If you are lucky you may get more than 50/50, but remember your savings will count as assets in a divorce, along with his savings ? his pension etc.

and of course he will have to pay maintenance for children if under 18 or is it 16 ?
If you get a very good solicitor you could ask for maintenance until the children have completed further and / or higher education.

Thank you guys. It was helpful but I feel overwhelmed so I don’t know how but I’m going to finish this thread. Thank you so much.

If you're married, the courts prefer a clean break in a divorce. Option 1 all the way.

Yes it's most of your savings (it was mine too) but you say you have teens, so in a few years they'll fly the nest (or contribute to it) and you'll have more money coming in.

Plus, depending on the childcare split, you'll either get maintenance from him or he'll be doing 50/50 so half the time some of your costs are reduced.

Don't be tied to this untrustworthy man for any longer than necessary. If he still owns the house, he'll try to wriggle his way back in when the shine wears off his new relationship.

You need proper advice but you’re rather living in cloud cuckoo land

Off you pop then.

I notice that you didnt want to address some of the issues raised. And the big drip feed that you are actually married (so why use the word "partner" in your opening post), which changes everything because your DH could let you keep the house anyway if he takes the equivalent in cash & other benefits (such as pensions).

If he decides to own the property still I would change to the type of tenants in common. He should have a lesser percentage than you. Or have it all in your name but with a deed of trust that he gets 50k or whatever when it's sold. I think it's better to have the price rather than percentage in case you don't sell for twenty years and the house price doubles. But then there's a risk the price could go down of course.

Tbh I would hate the guy and want financial ties cut so I didn't have to talk to him about it any more and I think I'd rather buy him out- suggest a cheap discount for yourself as cheaters tax though