Buying our first house - now he says I owe him a lot of money

[Tamara9]

Hi mums,

First off I realise all relationships are different and this isn't necessarily wrong or right but talking definitely gives some new perspectives!

My partner and I are unmarried, together 10+ years, no kids yet, but buying our first home together. He has an awful lot of money saved (has always lived with parents) and is putting down ALL of the deposit, I have almost nothing saved (stuck renting since I was 18). We're both on the mortgage as joint owners. However he's saying that I owe him half of the money he's putting down, we're talking like more than £30k each, he's saying he would be annoyed if he didn't get that money back, and then he expects it back in 4/5 years.

Now this isn't completely out of the blue and I did expect that this would be part of our agreement to live together and accepted it. But I expected us to buy somewhere a lot cheaper, he's just quite high maintenance.

However now that it's happening...

It's taken ALOT of the fairytale 'love' away from our relationship on my part, that's always been there previously. I wouldn't be doing this if it was reversed. Him saying he'd be 'annoyed' has put a lot of pressure on for me, especially as I kinda expected within 4/5 years we'd be having kids and if that's the case how am I going to pay him.

And my questions are:

Is this what adult relationships are like or is he just being immature/naive?
Am I wrong for thinking it's a little unreasonable and unrealistic?
And imo if this wasn't the condition for moving in together we wouldn't be... so should that be ringing some alarm bells?

I'm no longer in contact with my mum. So I was hoping the mums of Mumsnet can give me some motherly advice!

Thanks x

Walk away.
My ex did a similar thing.
Killed our relationship dead.
We ended up married anyway, I didn't love him but I was trapped.
Divorcing him has been very long and he has made it as difficult as he possibly can.

Scratch that.....don't walk away, RUN away!

I would literally dump him and end it. My DH Bought a house for us. We were unmarried and together 5 years however in love and committed. I was a student so there was no point me going on the mortgage As I was a liability. My DH put down the entire deposit of 80k - all his savings!!! He then proposed two months into the house and we got married 8 months later as he wanted me to have half ownership of the house. There was never even a discussion of me paying him back or if not being our home. I pay half the mortgage (now earning) and we are married so house is half mine (we will remortgage soon and put me on the deeds even though I’m already entitled to half if anything happens). In my view what happened to me is what happens when your DH loves you and wants what is best for you and believes ‘ what is yours is mine’. Your partner seems out for himself. Are you supposed to go without new clothes makeup holidays etc while your scroll and save to pay him back? Uneven relationships never work.

He stayed at mummies and daddies house and saved while you rented?? He never stayed at yours?? Jeez run for the hills, he sounds awful

All this dump him business, what's wrog with you people? If this was reversed you would all be screaming protect yourself and your money - so damned hypocritical.

@madcatlady there is a vast difference between protecting your money and what this man is expecting.

My OH paid the whole deposit and has always said it was his pleasure to provide a home for me and DC 🤷🏼‍♀️ he wouldn't dream of taking the money even if I offered. He says what is his is mine

I provided the deposit (similar amount) when me and DP (now DH) brought our first home. As far as I was concerned that money was put in to allow us to build a life together, I never expected any of it to be payed back. You need to have a serious conversation before you proceed as it is not normal to expect your long term partner, future wife and mother of your kids to stump up £30k over 5 years. Often men who have such thoughts about money and family history of bad divorces won't marry so you have to be wary that he's all talk on that front.

OP, I agree don't buy this house with him.

Him wanting to protect a big deposit is not the problem, its everything else.

I think you are being played.

I don't think you have the full picture of whats going on.

No way would I be buying a house with him.

Money trumps all? No way.

I wouldn't even consider it unless you're married first. And I'm not sure he's marriage material with those attitudes ingrained. Imagine yourself on maternity leave and him keeping track of how much you 'owe' him for purchases for the family...

No no no
If it was your daughter, what would you say?
No no no
Listen to your gut, gut is never wrong

Why as he never moved in with you??
Because, he’d have to PAY HALF
He’s no fool!!
After uni , you could off got together?
10 years off dating is an awful long time

If someone is money oriented, that’s not a good start in living together
The arguments about money, aghhhh

Only way
He pays deposit
Tenants in common, with deed of trust, he gets first 60k back in event off anything happening. This way only
Mortgage & bills, food is 50/50, and only if you can afford that, with money left over for yourself to spend on yourself

Sorry op, this is real life
Don’t let him masks it as a fairy tale, happy happy bubble. It won’t be
I know you will be excited and it’s a new adventure living together
But let’s face it, that could off happened after you finished uni.
Did you meet him at uni??

Do not consider using your 5k in his money pit

If he's like this now, what's he going to be like if you take a few years off to look after your future children?
Will you then effectively owe him money as you won't be earning for a while?

I'd suggest you get out now tbh

Financial control before you have even started living together.

Exactly. You will end up making all the sacrifices, financially dependent on him with no rights, maybe a few dependents, his dependents of course, but he will feel that he is being fleeced, that he is your glorious benefactor not your financially abusive partner. My x put me thru this and i was too scared and too optimistic to parachute out at the point when he was telling me he could horrow more on his own and i could payvfor bills groceries council tax. This was 20 years ago. Embarrassed that i didnt run.

The love of money is the root of all evil.

You say he's in partnership with his brother and others in various financial arrangements. It entangles him in other people's business so that they can't get away from him, will possibly make HMRC look at him sideways, and he will be able to hide money if he wants to.

I'd take a step back if I were you.

Tamara is the one on paper who is the higher earner.

I think this doesn’t sit well with her Dp so that is why I think by taking the £500 of her every month is going somewhere to redress the balance in his eyes.

I think these things need to be discussed but atm the Dp has answers to everything... even the colour scheme of the house.

My worry is you cannot talk to this guy about anything

Everything has already been sorted.

He has a plan and he needs Tamara’s earning power to put it in place.

Tamara can not save any money, due to high cost of living.
Tamara will never be able to get on the property ladder.
Tamara will just pay rent which will go out every year
Or
You agree to this with someone you say you love.
Not sure if you will ever marry, but only you know that
After 5 years you have saved half the rent you would have paid out as money down the drain.
You have a deposit if you need to move on.
People on here only see it from their own view, they are not you

Don't pay him half the deposit. If he doesn't want to sink all the money into a house right now, buy a cheaper house.

If you go ahead, be open about what would happen if you split up or one of you died in different scenarios - with/without kids, with/without marriage.

You could say he gets 30k out of proceeds of sale if you split. If you're together for the long haul then presumably you'd be leaving everything to each other anyway.

I haven't read all the comments (sorry) but I think he sounds quite sensible in a business-like way. My take would be to buy a cheaper house so he keeps some of his deposit and decide what you both want to do legally to ensure he gets his deposit back if you should ever split (it would be a percentage of the house's value by the way to make it fair to him). It is unreasonable to expect you to pay it back while you are together. It wouldn't put me off staying with him as you sound happy together apart from this (unless I've missed a huge update, sorry!).

It's a bit shit of him to suddenly drop this on you if you've not agreed to it beforehand.

But I completely understand why he'd want to protect his investment should you split up. This is easily remedied via a solicitor to ringed fence the amount.

Another but, this time for the op, you'll benefit from living in a bigger house as a result of his deposit, and also have cheaper mortgage payments. Just something to keep in mind.

You also need to ensure you're on the mortgage if you are paying half (if you're not then you need another conversation about what you pay) and it's all done legally via a solicitor at the same time you sort out the deposit.

@mummmy2017 she’s in a relationship so shouldn’t be treated as a single entity.

How it should work is Tamara is in a committed relationship with a man who says he wants to marry her and have children. due to her situation of going back to study etc she doesn’t have a deposit but she has a good job so is able to contribute to mortgage. Her other half who supposedly loves her and wants to build a life with her earns less but has a deposit due to his circumstances. They buy a house together using his deposit - he ring fences deposit just in case. The both pay off mortgage. The end.

Not this you owe ME X because I put in Y. I need all MY money paid back. You have to pay ME back.

This is not a good relationship. I outlined my situation above. And our discussions were: WE should buy a house now as it’s a good time. My now DH says yes I have 80k to put toward deposit. Great. WE go view houses, pick our house and he buys it for both of us. We get married less than a year later so I am legally entitled to house. We pay half the mortgage each. The end.

I actually think it’s ok for his deposit to be protected in that he’d get it back if you sold the house/split. But not for him to demand payments just now.

You need proper legal advice: contact an independent solicitor today.

Did you actually read what she said.
He offered her several options
Pay more mortgage.
Pay him back over 4 to 5 years
Sell the house after 5 years to recover his deposit and she gains from buying and paying less rent.
So just because people got married soon after they moved in does not mean everyone does.
So why are people only focused on one of his suggestions.

I'd rather chance it with this guy and walk away with enough for my own deposit if we didn't work that see no return by still renting.

Because all the options are not about a ltr.

If this was one friend helping another out then these would be good suggestions.

It sounds too much like a business deal yet op is talking about marriage and children.

lifestooshort123 "I haven't read all the comments (sorry) but I think he sounds quite sensible in a business-like way. My take would be to buy a cheaper house so he keeps some of his deposit and decide what you both want to do legally to ensure he gets his deposit back if you should ever split (it would be a percentage of the house's value by the way to make it fair to him). It is unreasonable to expect you to pay it back while you are together. It wouldn't put me off staying with him as you sound happy together apart from this (unless I've missed a huge update, sorry!).

Yeah, why bother seeing if anyone else has had the same amazing insight as you in almost 300 replies.