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how to proceed with fairly buying a house with a BF

1 reply

cabbagenotpatches · 12/05/2024 17:30

I am 44. My daughter, 12, lives with me, it’s just us. I bought a house in 2017 for 135K. It’s now worth 185K, would accept 175K. I have 90K left to pay off.

Me and my same age boyfriend of six years (not my daughter’s dad, and he has two kids from his previous marriage) would like to buy a bigger 4-bedroom property together, so enough room for three kids to each have a bedroom. Regarding whether me and BF marry; he’d like to (he’s very much the romantic one) but tbh, it’s just seems like a financial mess… if I die first, then my share of the property goes to him, bypasses my daughter and then when he dies, it all goes to his kids. Vice versa if he goes first. That’s a black and white example but you get the gist.

My financial position: 8K savings, I don’t have any debt other than my mortgage, I own my own (old) car, I earn 30K. When I bought the house, I used my own earned 25K savings as a deposit. BF has a different situation: he has about 2K savings, 40K salary, no car payment either, he rents, but he doesn’t have much left each month after child maintenance, rent, fuel, regular household expenses like utilities, food, etc.

We are looking at 275K for a property (we live in the North West). I will have 85K for the deposit (175K house sale minus 90K what is left) but BF won’t have anything for the deposit. Plus surveying and solicitors’ fees.

I know it all sounds very business-like and not very romantic. However, we’re not married, we don’t have kids together and I want to protect myself financially and tbh, I don’t want to put in around 30% of the property value from my own money as the deposit, but also pay 50% mortgage repayment each month… it just means it will not even out. To be clear, he wants it to even out too, this is not just me.

How do we ‘even it out’? What if I die before him, how would my share of the property, at the date of my death, be protected so that my daughter receives the right amount should he sell the house? As that’ll be her inheritance. Would he have to sell the house for her inheritance to be released? Should he pay more each month, by what %? I don’t even know what questions I need to ask and it seems very complicated. We do want to live together and I don’t want him just ‘living with me’ without any ownership of the house, and without his wage, we couldn’t afford a bigger house for it to be possible anyway.

Happy to answer any questions.

OP posts:
Annie098 · 12/05/2024 19:14

When you buy the house, buy it as tenants in common meaning that you each own separate shares that you can leave to whoever you want if you die, rather than it passing to the other.
You should then have a Declaration of Trust drawn up- this sets out your shares in the property if one of you dies or if you later separate- this can either be fixed percentages, or that you each receive your original contribution and divide the remaining value 50/50, for example.
You then need a Will. There are ways to ring fence your share in the property for your daughter whilst allowing your BF to continue living in it for a period of time.
You need take legal advice; this is not something to scrimp on, as taking good advice now can save a lot of issues in the future.

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