Buying property with partner

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DP inherited some money which he would like to use to buy a house for the two of us to live in together. We have not lived together before, in fact we have lived in different cities so far (he will be moving to my city).
We are having a dilemma about how to do achieve our goal of living together due to the fact that I only have a small amount of cash (around 10% of the full value of the property), while he has enough to buy the property outright. We are going to speak to a solicitor (individually and then together) in the hope that this will help us figure something out. It’s really important to both of us that we find a way of living together whilst not being financially shackled. I would like to ask Mumsnetters’ opinions on this please. We are in the very early stages of figuring this out, but I feel like there are broadly three routes we could take:

Route 1: DP buys a house for the two of us to live in. I buy a separate house which I rent out to pay my mortgage.
Good because: I would have property in my name, giving me financial security/independence.
Question: Would it create a weird dynamic if I were to pay him rent or live in his house for free?

Route 2: We buy a house together, my half would be mortgaged, I would be responsible for paying the mortgage.
Good because: we would equally own the house we lived in.
Issue: DP does not want to be tied to a mortgage.

Route 3: We buy a house together, I would own a 10% share, he would own 90%; we would have it in writing that if ever we sold it, we would split the equity accordingly.
Good because: the house would be an investment for both of us.
Questions: Would it feel like the house was more his than mine? Would there be a way for me to gradually increase the proportion I owned, e.g. by purchasing another 5% from him each year, and for this arrangement to be formalised (in writing)?

I think it's good that you're thinking about this rather than plunging in. I'd have thought option 3 is the fairest. It gets around the no mortgage stipulation and gives you a stake in the property. How it 'feels' and whether there would be any kind of conflict would be something you'd have to discuss between you. Is there any prospect of you being married in the near future?

Personally, I'd probably opt for route 1 first (assuming you can get a buy to let mortgage with a 10% deposit), then route 2 would be my 2nd choice. Definitely not route 3.

What's the worst that can happen? You move in together and 10 years down the line you split up. You need to have built up enough over that period that you can afford your own place.

Route 1: He buys a house & you live in it. You separately buy a house for 100,000. You put your 10% down as the deposit. The house you buy increases in value over 10 years by 20%. House is worth 120K. You now have 30K in equity (your originaly 10K deposit, plus the 20K increase in value). This doesn't take account of how much you'd have paid off via a repayment mortgage.

Route 2: You jointly buy a house for 100K on a 50:50 basis. You put your 10% in to buy the house and have a mortgage for remaining 40%. The house increases in value over the 10 years by 20%. House is worth 120K. Your partner gets 60K back. You get your original 10K back + half the increase in value, 10K. Total 20K.

Route 3: You jointly buy a house for 100,000. You contribute 10%. The house increases in value over the 10 years by 20%. House is worth 120K, you get back 12K (ie. 10%). Someone I know was married for 40 years, then her husband left her. If your partner & you split up after 40 years and you only had 10% equity in the house, could you afford to buy somewhere with it with only 5 years to pay off a mortgage? Unlikely.

With Route 3, the OP isn't solely reliant on the increase in value of the property. Presumably, as it would be mortgage-free, they'd be squirreling money away into ISAs etc. which, as they are not married, would be 100% hers.

Thanks for your suggestions. I'm tending to prefer Route 3. Another option might be for DP to lend me 50% of the cost of the property at a 0% interest rate, then for me to pay him back over a number of years. We could have a contract that stated that if we needed to sell up before I'd paid the full amount back, I'd repay the rest after the sale of the house. But would me owing him money create a weird dynamic between us?

You seem to be anticipating 'weird dynamics' quite a lot. I can't work out whether that's your pride or insecurity talking or whether your partner is the type of person who is likely to rub your nose in the fact that you only own a fraction of the property. If it's the former then it's probably something you have to square away yourself. If it's the latter then you want to think again about moving in at all.

I would just rather keep financial matters separate from our intimate life together, which seems to be quite a difficult thing to do! Borrowing money off someone (or from an organisation, such as a bank) can potentially set up a power dynamic between the borrower and the lender, which might get in the way of other feelings that IMHO can only exist between people who are in an equal relationship with one another.

I would think from all practical points of view route-1 is best. However instead of paying rent to DP, could you put the rent into the 'common spend' pot such that its fault used for both of you.

This gives you the best of all worlds if things go south...

Fairly, not fault!

DP and I bought a flat recently. I put in 10% of the deposit and we went for route 3. I think its sensible to be prepared OP and to be clear headed about money

We bought a house together. Dh put down 60% deposit and we had joint mortgage. Had mortgage which paid equally for 3 years then my mil paid off the mortgage. Basically I have only contributed about 7% but we own the house jointly. I suppose we are married but dh very trusting.