How to split costs

[Overthinker2016]

If you owned a house (mortgaged) and your bf was going to move in / what is the fairest/ best way to split costs.

In the interests of full disclosure I'm a high earner - he earns an ok salary but a lot less than me.

Best way is to get some professional advice.

Don't put him on mortgage. So he pays a few bills, you the rest.

As you are not married , then he should just pay you a third of his salary for rent and half the actual cost of any bills.

Where's this "1/3 of salary" requirement coming from?

IMHO he should pay some rent and 1/2 of the bills. You pay everything else like repairs, mortgage etc

No I wasn't going to put him on mortgage.

To be honest was thinking would ask him to pay a notional amount calculated to equal half my electricity/gas, Council Tax, phone and home insurance (and a few other home related bills).

Is that reasonable?
Wasn't thinking I would ask him to pay towards mortgage.

I've had other friends stay with me in my spare room and the above was what I asked them to pay ( roughly).

If all goes well and we then go on to buy our own place (which is longer term plan) - that would be slightly different and we would both pay towards mortgage ( albeit I might pay bigger share proportionally).

Antimatter most people budget a third of their salary or thereabouts for rent/mortgage.

I would split it so you pay two thirds of the total cost and he pays one third. Plus add an extra £100 each on top to go in to a bills account for general stuff - a food shop, DVDs etc.

I'm sure it will go swimmingly with you both but you should get him to sign a document saying he agrees it's your house and he's just a lodger. Basically.

Also, I asked this very question and I had all sorts of weird responses. People suggesting he paid half the mortgage and bills which made me a gold digger (seriously, someone said it sounded like I was only with him for his money even though I earn more than him) and then if he paid less than the market rate for rent he was a cocklodger. Oh, and I also got told it was extremely unromantic to get plans in place first.

It's very sensible to agree money and talk about it first so no problems later down the line. I also opened a brand new account which all bills and mortgage came out of which we both had access to the online banking and debit card.

I'm pretty sure if he pays rent or pays towards the upkeep of the home (repair costs etc) then if you split up he has some sort of rights to the home... Worth looking in to

Just to clarify - I am not that concerned about him getting legal rights to my home. I will take my chances on that. My question was more 'is this fair?'

Queenbeen - thanks for this. When you divide up the total cost tho are you meaning including the mortgage?

I am not that concerned about him getting legal rights to my home. I will take my chances on that. ... please don't.

People and times and situations change - please protect yourself and ensure that him paying towards the property does not give him any de facto ownership of your home.

When my then bf (now DH) moved into my flat it never occurred to us to do anything other than split everything 50/50 including the mortgage. That said, we knew our relationship would go the distance and when I sold the flat I used all the profit to pay both our debts and put towards a deposit on our house.

It's only since I've been on mn that I've seen people think that our arrangement was wrong, especially in that he paid half my mortgage and was never on the deeds. We're a bit unusual though in that I also own our house and he's not on the deeds for that either but we're married now so it's a bit different.

ThinkPink - that's not really the question I asked though. I will take advice on that off mumsnet. My question is what is fair.

OP the way it went for us was:
Mortgage £850
Bills: £200

I paid £800, he paid £500pm in to the bills account, everything came out of that and we had money to do other things with each month. He also had a deposit saved for a house with the idea that once we were ready to buy together I'd sell the flat, and then use the proceeds of that to match his deposit and we'd go in to it like that.

Thanks crayfish.

I presume you earn a similar amount though? I earn quite a bit more.

Also I want to be able to extract myself easily if need be. I hope it will go the distance but am a cynic.

The reason we split it like that is that even though he pays a tiny amount towards my mortgage, if he was renting he would be paying something towards someone's mortgage anyway. This way, we were each saving £300pm than what we had each been paying before.

The going market rent for him otherwise would have been £650pm so he was saving on that and I got to have a lovely new housemate and save some money too!

Yes we earn similar, not sure how we would have done it otherwise but what we do now is make sure we are left with equal 'disposable' income after bills (for coffees, shoes, what have you) as that is what we do now. I would have paid a greater proportion of bills to make that happen.

I just can't understand when you see threads on here and the woman is 'skint' while the man has loads of money left over or vice versa. That would never happen in my relationship!

Jeez a third? Most people I know don't spend a third of their income on rent or mortgage

Not a third of our income??! A third of the total house costs!!

Oh sorry limon, I thought that was in reply to me not the other poster

Agree, a third of your income is very high!

Odd! I get lots of landlord / homeowner data come through my business email, most of which is of no interest but:

According to Shelter and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, spending more than a third of your disposable income on rent or a mortgage means you may not be able to afford other basic needs.

However:

For 2013 - 14, published last year: Across England, private renters paid 43% of the average gross income of the main householder and partner including housing benefit in rent, but without including the state payments tenants faced costs that were typically 52% of their earnings.... Tenants in London faced higher rents, with costs equal to 60% of their gross earnings with housing benefit, or 72% without it.

Mortgages at the time, after tax, took about 27%

Jan 2016 Evening Standard (London): Official figures released today show private-sector rent has rocketed up from 49 per cent of average pre-tax income to 62 per cent since 2010.

The latest figures are just coming through from BBC and ONS:

• Renting a studio flat exceeds 30% of take-home pay in every London borough except Bexley. The cost of a studio exceeds £1,000 a month in Camden, Hackney, Islington, Kensington and Chelsea, Southwark, Tower Hamlets and Westminster

• Renting a room in a house or flat would swallow up more than 30% of the average disposable income in 15 of London's 32 boroughs

• It is impossible to rent a one, two or three bed property within the recommended limits across the whole of the capital. In 24 London boroughs and the City of London, a one-bedroom property would consume more than half your disposable income

• The average cost of renting a room in a flat or a house in London is £607 a month, compared to £424 across the South East

I'd say split the bills equally and have him pay half of what he now pays in rent - I'd put that into an account for repairs to the house. Pay the mortgage yourself. That seems fair to me - he benefits financially and so do you.

Personally, when I first moved in with DH I did so based on costs as a lodger. It was only once we'd decided it was working and long term that we changed to being equal partners. That means income was household income and bills were household bills. Anything left over was split equally as neither of us would have wanted to be better off than the other.