DP wants home ownership but not a mortgage

[Maplelady]

My partner and I have been together for three years. I own my house outright and he owns no property, but could raise a mortgage of around 350k on his 80k salary.

He currently pays £600 a month to live and my house but understandably doesn’t want to feel like my lodger forever. I suggested that we could sell my house and put that down a 500k deposit and he could raise a mortgage of say 150k-200k (which he pays and has that as a percentage of equity in the house). He really hates the idea of owing that sort of money to the bank and being tied to a mortgage for the next 20 years.

He’s suggested that I buy a new house from the sale of my current house and my savings (I have 100k in savings) and he pays me a monthly amount and gradually buys a share of my house. Am I right to feel really uncomfortable about this? There’s nothing compelling or exciting to me about selling chunks of a property I already own and can afford. I get that he wants us to feel more like a partnership rather than a tenant/landlord situation.

For a bit of background… I put my ex on my mortgage years ago and it ended up costing me a lot of money when we broke up after a few years. I can’t tell if I’m just being overly cautious because of my past experience

Just stopped laughing at his audacity enough to say to you NOOOOO!

Under no circumstances.

The CF can GTFO. Don’t do it OP.

Run! Or point blank tell him no! Either he gets a mortgage or he doesn’t get to own a house!

I am so sorry. This is so sudden, OP. It must be like looking at a diamond ring your bf has given you and seeing it melt into water. this must be terribly hard. His ego will not survive being caught out so fast with his interesting proposition being rejected almost as soon as it was made. His fallback was learly not prepared. He has lapsed directly into whining/sulking/threatening to withdraw from the romantic relationship. That is teally significant. At 50 years old his proposal was not made naively. He knew it was disadvantageous to you. But he Thought you wouldn’t reslize it.

How he can say that to you, nothing you have said has implied he is thinking about ‘us’ it’s all been about him and what’s best for him!

Thank you. I’m absolutely gutted because except for the lack of assets (which isn’t that important to me anyway)

As a pp said it should be. Assets are important to men. The rates at which they commit financial abuse is horrendous. Thank your lucky stars he has revealed himself at this stage and you did not become financially tangled with him.

There is a very simple way to own a house without a mortgage.

Get a savings account paying at least 4% compound interest.

Deposit £1,500 into it every month the day your pay BACS clears into your account.

After about 230 months (19 years) you will have enough to buy a house.

Very easy.

If you don't want to wait 19 years you can take out a loan instead. That's a mortgage.

What you don't get to do is freeload off your girlfriend to achieve the same end at her expense.

Finance professional here - here’s why you shouldn’t do this:

You take a greater risk with your deposit (equity) than the bank does with its mortgage debt (I.e if the house falls in value it comes out of your equity and you still have to repay the bank it’s original value). The upside of greater risk is greater reward (so if the house increases in value that rewards you as the equity holder and not the bank, which still gets repaid the original amount).

However this man wants to build up equity in your house while only taking the risk of someone servicing a mortgage. Worse, he’s not even doing that as he’s not even wanting to take on mortgage risk.

If all he’s willing to risk is pay rent, then his reward is on a par with that - he gets a place to live, no more.

Yup, this about sums it up. He prides himself on his expert negotiating skills in his line of work. It felt ‘off’ because it was and my instincts were correct.

@Maplelady Lack of assets in your 50s is actually very important. I know we're all meant to be romantic and in love but money means health and quality of life. You don't have the earning power and years ahead of you that you had in your 20s. Do you want to spend your retirement supporting a man who didn't work as hard and who made poor choices?

Divorce does not deprive a man of all his money, that's bollocks. He made some poor decisions along the way and he is suffering now and was hoping to leech off you.

You deserve better!

He’s gaslighting you!!!

He needs to buy his own house with his own money if he wants a relationship. Then love you from there. You keep your house and he keeps his house totally separate. But you can pop in and out of each others places as and when suits. Then his finances are invested for him and his childrens future and so are yours.
That seems fair. Definitely 💯 do not let him get his grubby mits on your property.

maybe both go speak to a mortgage advisor and buy as tenants in common. Protect both your interests. I’m sure if you sell it to him that his money would be protected he’d be on board. There are ways to pay the mortgage and reduce interest…etc he should do more research.

YANBU to feel uncomfortable

I’m so sorry OP but he has shown you who he is. No going back from this, and although it doesn’t feel like it right now, you and your children have had a lucky escape. Nothing very useful to add except you could consider a lodger to replace his small contribution and provide some company as you get yourself back on track.

Don't do it.

He can get a mortgage with you - with you securing the money you already put in

From experience, if you ever split, people are very bitter and can and will try and take everything from a sense of entitlement.

I own my house outright, I've got 2 kids and one more on the way. The deal with my new partner is similar to yours - contribute to rent etc, as anything after 3 years (UK, and I was told this when I did my Will) otherwise, they can stake a claim on the house.

Imagine losing your home just because you broke up. Absolutely not.

It's easy to be blind with rose tinted glasses.

If your partner is like my new one, they'll understand and make the appropriate steps to be supportive. He can get a mortgage with you (somehow protect your assets!) or he can suck it up. £600PCM is nothing.

It makes complete sense to me. Avoids paying interest to a mortgage company. With robust legal paperwork in place it could be an efficient proposal

For him. Not her. She takes all the risk, pays all the costs and loses her asset. He can fuck off and buy a property that doesn't take it away from her.

I would say no, this could go so wrong for you and you’ll end up worse off. Trust your instincts and tell him if he wants to own a home with you it has to be through the proper channels. And make sure you have everything in writing about how much you put in. What happens if one month he doesn’t pay? How many years would he be paying you? I just think you should protect yourself and your house, and if he truly loves and respects you he would want this too. 💐

"He said that he needs to have a think about our relationship because I’m thinking in terms of ‘you’ and ‘I’ and not ‘us’."

And you need to have a think about your relationship because he wants to use you for his own benefit, without the commitment of paying a mortgage. And you know from experience it's not a good idea.
Sorry but it's better to know this now - I wish I'd known better when I got fleeced by someone like this.

The OP did not opt to be a bank.

It’s a very efficient proposal for him. There’s zero benefit for the OP.

And even a ‘robust’ legal document saying that he pays X for Y years will leave the OP vulnerable to his whims of when he’ll pay and when he won’t. He’s already clearly planning on sponging off her when he gives up work to set up his business.

Does he want to get married to you? Wouldn’t that give him half ownership? What’s sauce for the gander is now sauce for the goose originally placed in law to protect women in their child bearing years and their lower expectations in the workforce and when men were given a tax allowance for a wife. So it was necessary to protect the woman from poverty on the breakdown of a marriage.

I had a long term live in relationship and was always pleased he didn’t push for marriage as I was the property owner (and he paid me a monthly standing order mainly to cover utilities, we didn’t call it rent)
I had lost half equity in the family house when divorced and had to extend a nearly finished mortgage to a 25 year one to pay him off and enable me to stay with children in the house and it would be mine. I wouldn’t jeopardize that again.

To escape from his position of lodger your partner would have to match your mortgage burden in a new house, that is if you want to move. It would be a big commitment from both of you. Watch out. He wants his cake without paying for it.

I might add that my last partner who paid monthly swanned off with friend after ten years, she had a house too. And his status as lodger was thrown in my face by one of his friends as if he hadn’t been my partner and stepfather to my children etc. so there are consequences. He would not have been able to swan off so easily if there were legal and financial responsibilities. My children too were shocked how he just left with no baggage.

but understandably doesn’t want to feel like my lodger forever

He could reframe this to " I have a lovely house to live in without responsibility for a reasonable cost which allows me to build up savings and potentially buy another property to rent out"

Well you are wrong as a matter of law and finance.