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

You can get past just about anything if you gaslight yourself into doing it hard enough.

You actually don't owe anything to someone who has treated you this badly. Some things are actually unforgivable. It's been a few days now. If this was a brain-fart on his part, he's had time to think, realise and apologize. He hasn't. Funny how you think you both owe it to each other. Owe what, exactly? Respect, effort, kindness? You're right, up until the point he chose not to show you those things.

It's easy for relationship to go well and seem healthy when there's nothing wrong. It's when a problem crops up, how it's dealt with shows the true measure of the relationship. He had the problem of having done goodness-knows-what with his spare salary (did someone upthread work out its £46k/year?) and having nothing to show for it. Look how he dealth with that!

You're taking too much responsibility for fixing this. The problem isn't "we're not happy, it's a rocky patch". Which would require the discussion you propose. The problem is "he's manipulative and is trying to shaft me". That isn't something you can or should try to fix. Well, within the relationship. You can fix it by getting rid of him. He's 50, if he doesn't know how to behave appropriately towards a partner by now, it's not your job to teach him (and he's probably unwilling to learn anyway, having got to 50 and failed to learn it already).

Look up sunk costs fallacy.

ETA: and why should the partner who saved money from rent be able to take back that money they’ve saved from the joint account? I thought your initial point was saying you’d save that money towards your joint future and if you split you’d give them half of what you’ve saved .

If I met a partner who didn't have a mortgage and I wanted to be with them, they can live with me until we figure out if we work. If we don't, then they haven't lost out and I am in the same position I was. I understand the point what if they earn more but I have no claim on what they earn, we have no dependants. If they want to give me more, I'm not going to say no!

In the scenario where I moved in with a partner, I would have sold my flat. I'd therefore not be paying back my own mortgage, in order to live with them and figure out if our relationship works. Why should I miss out on building equity and build their equity?

I'm not naive that money is not a source of conflict - it is and it needs an ongoing dialogue. Sure there is a chance they could clear out the joint savings but realistically if you are making annual decisions how much money is there likely to be at one time.

I'm not sure what I am saying is very helpful to the OPs situation though.

I mean let’s be honest, if he’s only paying £600pm he’s barely covering bills and food, - he’s not even paying any rent.

In my case, that amount just about covers council tax, power, and groceries for one person.

Agree.

And also surely the person covering the mortgage is actually entitled to 100% of this money, because it was supposed to be the other half’s rent replacement?

Ultimately, unless you are married and have a long-established relationship, paying your way is just fairer.

From what I can see he’s used it to do the things he couldn’t easily do when he had the expense of privately renting. Doing lovely trips/experiences with close family members and DC. We do nice things together too. He paid off his car loan and saved about 20k. I suspect he’s had an easy come/easy go attitude to money and after a recent birthday realised that he’s not getting any younger and has no real financial security.

Right! This is the problem with non married couples “splitting “ the bills in this fashion.

If you are married and saving/spending jointly then your mortgage is his mortgage (your forced savings is his forced savings) and his splashy holidays are your splashy holidays.

If you are unmarried and keeping finances separate its essy to fall into a rut where you pay for the bread and butter and he oays for the jam. But the jam is what looks and feels good/important to some people when its really just surface and status stuff. Splashing the cash for his kids, or on holiday with you, seems like a generous thing to do. Everybody thanks him! Everybody is grateful! While your everyday support, the mortgage which is like you paying the entire rent, is ignored and taken for granted. In fact he is even resentful, in a way, that you “get” the asset at the end after your sacrifices.

He may have been unconscious if the unfairness at the start. But surely once you’ve pointed it out he grasps what he is asking is wrong for you and wring for this level of casual relationship?

Not many mortgages providers would let you have another name on the deed if the same names weren't on the mortgage. I was in a similar situation 5 years ago and it was a not doable at the time. You might have to get a broker to find a lender who would be ok with this, but would advise against in your situation..

I love the bread, butter and jam analogy. For me partnership means that you both love and support each other and can be achieved without merging your finances. He may see it differently and therein lies the problem. I don’t see my finances as our finances and don’t think I ever will. He’s an adult and think he should make contingencies/get insurance for unseen illnesses or redundancy. His income is good enough to build a substantial contingency fund so why would he chose to spend it all on jam and leave me to single-handedly deal with the fallout?

His income is good enough to build a substantial contingency fund so why would he chose to spend it all on jam and leave me to single-handedly deal with the fallout?

I hope you get your answer. Another question that may be pertinent is why did you let this happen over a period of three years?

He could always invest in a holiday property & rent it when not in use.

He spends his money on jam because he can. A nurse & a purse.

A long term commitment has to be counter cyclical by which I mean you have to expect and negotiate for bad times and good. By the time he is unemployed and unemployable or chronically ill—or you are—you have to have a plan for how you are going to handle it. Its one thing to kick him out if you are sick or unemployed and you need to tetrench. Its quite a bit more difficult to kick the grasshopper out at summer’s end when he has not been preparing for winter.

I really get why you moved in with him without marriage—it doesn’t make sense for you financially—but living together without a plan for the future is a recipe for disaster since you both have such different attitudes towards things.

If he has kids then who is the mother of the children? Maybe the reason they split is why he doesn't want to tie himself to you?

OP isn’t asking him to tie himself to her. He is the one who is trying to create a ling term relationship through property without committing to a more formal arrangement.

This is for you to discuss with him. My partner and I hold the house as tenants in common and contribute in unequal shares, but we split bills 50/50. We took this decision because unequal equity can be resolved, but we both use half the electricity, gas, water, internet, eat half the food, have to pay council tax etc, and therefore took these decision these bills should be halved and if we lived separately we'd both have to pay these in full. So my additional salary goes on mortgage, and then I tend to pay more towards treats - I'll pay for special food like meals out or takeaways, and I'll do things like pay for the accommodation when we're on holiday so he only has to pay his flights.

@Maplelady
I hope you are strong-willed because I doubt he is done trying to manipulate you into getting his hands on property with your money.

He was wasteful and spent money as if he was more well-off than he as. Now, reality has bit him in the ass and instead of taking stock of what HE needs to do to fix it, he figures it's your job to make him financially secure.

He showed you his true colors, made a threat, and you still think he's a "DP"?

Mind-blown

So, since he already got to spend lavishly on family by being "there is always tomorrow"; he is now panicking about how to become financially stable. But, instead of looking at himself, he just figured that since you already pretty much give him a free ride, he can just let you make him financially stable by using your money and house. That way he has all reward and zero risk.

The fact that you are "forgiving him" or whatever, is very sad. He must be a master of gaslighting and manipulation.

Yeah, he sounds REALLY nice. 🙄

You may wish to actually READ the thread so you don't sound so uninformed. 🙄face palm

We’ve set aside some time to talk about it this week. I’ve really taken on board what other people have said.
-Why he hasn’t saved money on his salary is a big concern. The only thing I can think of is that he was spending it on fun stuff and also had debts to pay. I suspect he hasn’t disclosed things to me because it would be embarrassing
-His suggestion was a shit one and I hope he’s reflected and realised that’s what it was.
-I want to know that he has some sort of plan for himself going forwards. It’s not good enough to say that his business plans flopped, he didn’t make contingencies for this so I should prop him up because that’s what love is
-sulking or intimating that it’s over because he doesn’t agree with my boundaries is not okay And I’m not going to stay in a relationship with someone who thinks it is

@Maplelady so what’s the plan? I would have ended it but that’s me.

I'll be interested to hear what comes out of this conversation but to be honest I doubt it will shed much light for the following reasons:

• He'll give you a variety of justifications why he got into debt/spent most of his money instead of managing his finances sensibly but the important part is that he was making irresponsible choices for years and now that they've caught up to him, he's trying to make it your joint responsibility to fix his solo choices
• He didn't reflect on whether it was a shit suggestion prior to making it, so if he's prone to evading uncomfortable self-reflection, it doesn't seem likely he'll start now
• He obviously doesn't have a plan, as evidenced by the fact that he doesn't understand that love is love and business is business and they don't cross over. My ex tried the same bullshit with me, trying to get me to put our home (which I mostly owned) up as collateral against a business loan and suggesting that perhaps I didn't really love him because I wasn't prepared to do that. Unless you are an expert in your DP's industry and are capable of objectively evaluating whether his business is a good investment, there is absolutely no way you should be getting your money involved in his business. My ex's business turned out to be an absolute shitshow behind the scenes despite appearing superficially successful and I'd have been putting a substantial part of my financial security at risk if I'd gone along with it
• He already played the manipulation card, so you should make your decision whether or not to stay with him based on what he did then, not what he does next. Of course now he's going to back down and say he didn't mean it; it was a bluff from the start, and that's the point. If you're not prepared to dump him for trying to manipulate you, he had nothing to lose by trying to manipulate you

I'm a bit disappointed by the update. What's the point of this conversation?. Either he will be sorry and promise to improve but will not improve and will let OP down spectacularly and expensively sooner or later or he-ll arrogantly tell OP how wrong she is and the relationship will be over with more pain and upset thsn just calling it off.

These are excellent points. We’re talking tonight and I will update. I’m quite nervous because I know this could mean drawing the curtains on our relationship. He’s been behaving like a rich person when he should have been saving. If there’s any whiff of ‘if I lose my job/I get sick/my business fails and you should support me because that’s what love is’ I’m out. I can’t be with someone who’s all frill and no knickers

Sorry you’re having to deal with this, but I love your resolve @Maplelady. I must admit when I read your first post, I was praying you weren’t going to just roll over on this issue.

Lots of people on other threads that are allowing themselves to be manipulated could do with taking a leaf from your book.

Good luck OP. It's going to be a tough talk unless he immediately apologises for putting you in a bad position with his house proposal. Don't feel pressured (either by him or us) to make any decisions immediately unless you feel 100% comfortable making them