Moving in together: safer to pay rent or invest house sale proceeds?

[Jemim1234]

Hi
I am moving in with my partner, we have been together for several years, we both have teenage kids who are all happy with the situation. We have decided I am moving in to his house but we need to do some renovations to make the house work for us perfectly. My partner has a mortgage on his house and significant equity in it also. I am selling my house.

We both want to be sure nobody loses out if anything did go wrong. The debate is (and my partner is happy either way) do I -

1. Initially move in and just pay “rent” and towards bills, and put my profit from my house sale (around £50k) into a high interest account/ other investment . My partner would fund any renovations himself (but more limited than option 2). In time I could invest in the property in the future. But id be paying “empty” rent money for now and it would remain his house
2. Put the 50k in to the house renovations work, contribute towards the mortgage, and be due a share of equity from the house if anything went wrong. But he would not be able to give me the full 50k back if it went wrong because it would have been used to fund further renovations. He’s proposing initially 30k back plus share of mortgage, rising as years go by.

option 1 feels financially safer, option 2 the house would feel more like “ours” and we’d be able to do the full renovations!

Looking for any input and advice thank you. We would of course write this up legally.

Don’t put any money into the house unless the deeds are going to be changed. If it is not done officially you could really screw yourself over.

to protect both of you pay towards bills and not the mortgage then talk to some mortgage providers to see if you can change yours to a let to buy mortgage and keep your house as security maintaining paying off your own mortgage.

Keep your money and pay a token rent plus share of bills. When DP moved into my house we set up a joint account which only he paid into which we used for new chairs, paint etc.

I would “rent” for at least 6 months to see how it’s working, after a year or so if all is well then investing in the house is a good idea as long as you do go on the deeds too

can you move in as planned and pay for bills and food and expenses as deemed fair, but rent out your own home to save that equity to pass down to support your kids to purchase a home?

Look into getting a cohabitation agreement or at least an informal one.

I wouldn't invest £50k into his property knowing I may only get £30k back.