What happens if we split up?

[youredeadtomesteven]

Hi, apologies if not correct thread area for this.

I bought a house with DP of 10 years, this year.
Both first time buyers.

I put in £28k total, he has put in deposit of £5k on paper (I have paid it, he has given me £1k so far). So on the deed of trust, I put in £23k, him £5k.

If we were to split, we would get back our deposit amounts and then split the rest of proceeds when selling…

If i wanted to stay in the property, how would I do that? How much would be ‘enough’ to buy him out/get him off the mortgage?

just thinking as i want to prepare myself if this does occur…

Additionally, we are on a fixed rate mortgage until 2027. If we were to split up before this, could we still sell or do we have to wait until the mortgage term is finished?

Few notes as I don’t want to drip feed:
• I am the breadwinner as it were
• He has mentioned getting his mortgage contributions back if we were to split and me not wanting to sell?
• We both share bills and house expenses 50/50
• I could afford mortgage and bills on my own, but I haven’t had that approved by anyone like a broker. Eg I earn £2.1k and bills/mortgage including food is £1.6k ish.
• No one in my family or his has bought a house so I don’t have anyone close to me to be able to ask and get a clear/correct answer.

many thanks in advance for your responses! :-)

I would give him 5k and get him to sign the house over to you. He would get a percentage bigger than 5k if it went to court

I’m going against the grain here to say, with a long term relationship I think lending him 5k is fine. But I do think that he needs to pay it back and that needs to be a priority over an engagement ring, so I think that you were right to be clear about that.

It sounds like you’ve already got something in place for if you split - that you both get your deposits back and split any equity 50/50.

People can change their views about money and I’d spend some time together, before you marry, thinking about what your joint values are and how you will manage finances to see if you’re compatible.

If you’re worried about what would happen in that circumstance, then the most protective thing that you can do is build some savings privately.”

The split would be as FeedingPigeons has set out.

I disagree
He's really set this up to his advantage
So there is a legal document setting out that he gets 5K in the event of a split when he only put in 1K.
Insane to do this
Very sneaky and looking at the bigger picture , he has zero savings but also wants his mortgage payments back.
She will be wise to get shot of him

Would transferring the title to you cause a liability for you to pay stamp duty? You should check this out.

Would he sign document to say you in fact paid £32 deposit and he only paid £1k? I'd get house valuation which EA will do. Get 2 or 3 done and use average. Deduct £32k then you'll see roughly what might be left on mortgage. Remember you might not get house sold for this amount though. Houses often sell for 5 percent under advertising price. Definitely don't marry this man.

Kudos to you for being way more switched on than i've been in the past! Stick to your guns and dont marry him unless he can match you otherwise yes, when you divorce he's taking 50%

This 100%.

As for people saying "pay him off 5k"-unless he's really stupid, why would he do this? for all we know, the house has increased in value above this 5k. This increase, or lack of it, could be the most significant factor in how you go forward. that and trying to sort out a sole mortgage.

As for the 5k you loaned him, on paper, it sounds like you gifted this money to him and probably signed to confirm as much as part of the deposit split, regardless of your agreement for him to pay it back.

Please listen to me. Do not stay with this loser! You are worth someone a million times better.

Just because you’ve wasted the last 10 years, there’s no reason to waste the next 10 years! (Google ‘sunk costs fallacy’) You already know he’s crap with money. He’s never going to get his shit together. They never do.

I say this as someone who wasted my 20’s with a loser. We split when I was early 30’s (he cheated). Luckily, he was still shocked at being caught cheating that I got him to sign paperwork from the bank that transferred ownership of the property and mortgage to me. I was also the higher earner.

I met someone else afterwards and my lifestyle is so much better than my ex. He’s with someone else too and they’re still living more or less on the breadline according to a mutual friend. Not surprised in the slightest.

Someone who, despite working full time, has no savings and can't scrape together more £1,000 towards a deposit should absolutely not be buying a house.

As pp said, why on earth did you agree to this?
Why are you pretending he paid 5k of the deposit when he didn't?
You've been planning on buying together for up to 5 years and yet has has saved nothing towards it.

@youredeadtomesteven what the $#@ are you playing at???

So, you have put in £27k and he has put in £1k. So why on earth would you show the contributions as £23/£5k?

You said earlier that he has been saving for 3 to 5 years, and he only has £1k to show for it - so your chances of getting your £4k back seem slim to me.

Why a 50%50 split of the equity? It should be in the ratio 27:1 (or 23:5 if you prefer - which would be 82%/18%).

He's going to TRY to pay you back over 3.5 years? Again, I think you will be lucky to see much of your £4k.

Do you have "meal ticket" stencilled across your forehead? This man is taking the piss.

Do not marry him.
Do not have children with him.
Sell the house as quickly as you can and start again. Get a solicitor who will advise you about how to set up a fair agreement that recognises what you are both contributing and protects BOTH your interests.

It is unlikely that each of them is responsible for only 50% of the mortgage, even if they own the property as Tenants in Common. Mortgage lenders prefer to lend on the basis of joint liability for the whole amount. If there is a default, the usual arrangement would be that they're both responsible for the whole debt. The mortgage company is most likely to pursue the most financially solvent party (the OP).

Why a 50%50 split of the equity? It should be in the ratio 27:1 (or 23:5 if you prefer - which would be 82%/18%).

Because I assume they have both been paying 50/50. Why would it be fair on the OP to have a greater share of equity?

Get a solicitor who will advise you about how to set up a fair agreement that recognises what you are both contributing and protects BOTH your interests.

She has, both deposits are protected - we can argue the toss about her gifting him 5k until the cows come home, that ship has sailed, 50/50 split on equity.

We had a deed of trust. It was similar to yours except it reflected what we had contributed. We both get our deposits back and then the rest is 50:50. I can never remember what type of tennants we were but it was the type that allows you to be not 50:50. We had to work out what are relative ratios were. I think it was something like 40:60 for our first house the 45:55 for the second although it said to refer to the deed of trust for specifics.

If we were to split up but one of us wanted to keep the house we would have essentially had to "sell" it to the other person - give them their deposit back as well as half of the equity in the property and then get a mortgage on a single name to cover the rest.

In hindsight you probably should have written in a payment plan into the dead of trust, with him gaining £1k a year as he paid it to you or that you would redo the deed of trust once you had been repaid.

Our deed of trust is now invalid as we got a civil partnership 2 years ago, we didn't see the need to redo it as our circumstances were quite different so it wasn't appropriate still - children, me working part time to provide support, now I'm a stay at home parent. We also have a lot of equity in the house so the difference between getting deposits back and splitting the rest of the house isn't far off 50:50. But and it's a big but we had been together 16 years when we got our civil partnership, living together for 12 years and it had been 6 years since we put the first deed of trust in place.

I think you have an issue here that isn't so much about money itself (though you really do need to get to grips with that issue too) and is more about how you cope with the fact you're (presumably) in love with someone who has an entirely different approach to finances as you.

It seems like you're pushing him to be more like you - he isn't and it sounds like he doesn't really want to be. And I think that's likely to lead to tension in your relationship. Differences over money is a leading reason for divorce. If you want to stay with him, I would suggest you try and accept him as he is and aim for a life where you do not think of him as a partner in financial planning for the future (even the fairly short term future by the sounds of it). It's difficult since you've already bought a house with him, but if you can afford it on your own with him instead paying towards bills and possibly a small rent, it might be better to buy him out now. Do not marry him.