Buying a house and finances - clueless!

[newchronicles82]

Hi, long time lurker and occasional poster, could just really do with some outside views on this.

Basically me and dp are in the very fortunate position of being able to buy our own home in the near future. The thing is, it will be my money that is going down as a hefty (50%) deposit.

We have a DD together and are very happy / secure as a couple.

I'm just not sure what I should be doing re safeguarding 'my' money? It is money I earned before we got together and I have been working and saving hard to get enough together to buy this house. DP has also been working hard but somehow has nothing to contribute to the deposit. Ongoing, we will be splitting the mortgage and bills 50/50.

Insofar as there is a gender difference, it could be justified by pointing out that it is more often (though by no means always) the woman who reduces her earning capacity as childcare requirements increase, and who may reasonably be expected to be the one left holding the baby for more than half of the time in the event of a split. It is more important for the partner who is giving up some financial independence to ensure any assets are protected. This does also apply to a SAHD, or to the SAHP in a same-sex couple, obviously, but because it's more often the mother in this situation that is why the advice appears to be skewed along gender lines.

That said, if the OP's relationship flourishes, they will enjoy their home together for many years and it really won't matter who put what in. If they marry in due course he will acquire rights to a share of the property anyway. Which is fair enough in most circumstances.

Hmm, I am inclined to agree with your DP.

DH was gifted our deposit by his aunt and has never for a second suggested he ring fence his investment. Whoever said get the house in your name only and draw up a tenancy agreement - and they say romance is dead! I'm sure any woman on here with a DP that proposed that would be told to LTB.

What would the general consensus be if the OP were on maternity leave and her DP was keeping their finances completely separate?

Its a personal decision.
I’m buying a house at the minute, we have a large deposit of which i have contributed c.20%, i have suggested a DoT a couple of times to safe guard my BFs contribution but he doesn’t want one. I’m handling the solicitors and once again asked him if he wanted Tenants in Common or Joint Tenants; he asked what the difference was and then said he can’t take it with him if he dies so Joint Tenants is fine.

The question you may need to think about is ‘if you were already married, would you still want to safe guard your money?’ personally if that’s still the case then i would be feeling insecure and concerned if i was your DP as rightly or wrongly i’d be worried about your view of the relationship.

I suspect that you shouldn't move ahead at all if that is how you both feel.

What would the general consensus be if the OP were on maternity leave and her DP was keeping their finances completely separate?

I think there would be suggestions that she should insist on some kind of legal protection so that, in the event of her DP being run over by a bus, the OP and her baby should not be flung out into the street by whoever inherited the house.

It's very naïve to think that "It won't happen to me, and even if it did my lovely partner would be fair".
Read some of the threads on here. People change.

Interesting thread.

For all of you talking about protecting ones assets, demanding that deeds be in one name only and generally instructing solicitors to draw up documents that set out what is ‘yours’ it is a fuck of a lot easier said than done when it comes to having this nice black and white discussion with your partner. Glad you all found it so easy.

I am in the process of buying a house with my wife, I have put down about £70,000 as a deposit, equity that I have taken out of a flat that I owned way before I met her. We will both be paying towards the mortgage but she has contributed nothing towards the final deposit. The deeds will be in both our names.

I broached the subject of drawing up a legal agreement that in the event of separation I would get my deposit back out of the house first with the remaining equity being split 50/50. She burst in to tears thinking that I doubted the long term future of the relationship and that I was in fact putting together the equivalent of a ‘pre nup’. Lots more tears, lots of reassurance from me that I am going nowhere and that hopefully said document would never see the light of day. Some people are incapable of removing emotion from the equation.

The clue is in the word [wife] CuChullain.

'All my worldly goods with thee I share'

Op isn't married so it doesn't apply

But it does apply to you chu

@Cuchullain.... It's a very different prospect telling your existing wife that you want to ring-fence cash in an attempt to exclude it from being a marital asset.

DP has also been working hard but somehow has nothing to contribute to the deposit

Hmmm... a) what's he spent it all on? & b) why doesn't he want to contribute to the deposit? I wouldn't buy a house 'with' someone if they weren't prepared to put their money where their mouth is.

DP hasn't saved because he found things to spend his money on. There have been no debts to pay off apart from a small one of his that he accrued before we got together. I guess he is a spender and I'm a saver

Divergent attitudes to finances and its consequences are one the of the top 10 reasons for divorce. I think that a compatible attitude to finances is a key element of general compatibility in a ltr.

As it stands in this partnership it seems that you will be saving money and he will be spending it. While you might not mind stumping up the deposit now, 10 years down the line of a continuous pattern, you might feel differently.

So in addition to sorting out the house buy legally, I would sit down and talk straight about how sees his finances, any joint finances, what plans he has for saving etc.