Living in a house bought by my partner

[Hayjela]

I thought I’d ask on here as I have no one else to ask.

I have been seeing my boyfriend for over four years and things are overall great. We both currently live at home but he stays over at mine and I stay at his. In the last 12 months, he’s told me he has a trust fund and wants to buy us a home. I won’t disclose the amount but it is a lot. He has allowed me to have a lot of input and say in the house. I actually chose the area I wanted to live in and the house and his parents asked me if I liked the house before the sale went ahead. I’ve chosen the furniture and we’ve both mutually agreed on things we want.

That house has now been bought and I haven’t contributed a penny to it in terms of furniture. We’ve already agreed that I won’t have to contribute to bills or anything like that, just to treat him to the occasional meal now-and-again. He has told his parents about this and we’ve all met and they are happy with that as his sister-in-law has a similar agreement with her husband and his parents have a similar agreement too. We plan to get married within the next 24 months and he has said if we were to get divorced then I wouldn’t be entitled to half of the house as it would be in the trust or something (not that I would want to take half of it anyway).

My question is, should I prepare for the worst case and save my money just in case he leaves me? Is anyone else in this situation? What do you do? I would ask his brother’s wife but I’m not sure how I’d approach the situation with her as I don’t know her that well.

Thanks

This is also the relationships forum op. Next time either try a legal section or something on a forum like money-saving experts where people are a bit more realistic.

Ps. We will probably now have lots of posts of people who know people who'd been in your exact situation....

won’t be asking MN a question like this again

You've had some sound advice on here, OP. Stop being so snarky.

I genuinely hope that you never find yourself in my situation. I thought I was too clever as well.

Everything might seem like a bed of roses now, but people change, shit happens in life, so you need to totally protect your life and financial future.

There has been some good advice on here, so please don't dismiss it.

Whatever happens, seek your own independent legal advice. That is what your DP's family have done, and you need to do the same. I'm not judging them for wanting to protect their assets, but you need to do the same, and to ensure you are not disadvantaged by them protecting their assets.

So, if you get married, then later divorice (statistically quite possible), any of your assets / property / money in the bank is split between you both. If your DH has his protected by a trust then he gets to keep it all. If yours isn't protected by a trust, then he gets a portion of it. Potentially half of it.

I would also be concerned that the house won't feel like 'yours', but if you feel you can live with that, then that's no problem.

The comments about children - say you decide to adopt, it's much more common for the woman to take time off / go part time / take the less stressful job, meaning your earning ability is affected in the short and long term. If you later split up, you're financially worse off.

By taking good legal advice you should be able to ensure you and your DP have considered all these scenarios.

I'm not sure I would believe that you will inherit the house if widowed. They are clearly keen to keep all their assets 'in the family'.

So long as you go in to this with your eyes open, and genuinly understand their reasons, and cover yourself legally as much as he is doing, then I'm sure you'll be fine. Better to put the legal groundwork in now and forget about it, than to ignore it, think everything will be fine, and end up shafted in a few years time.

@Hayjela I am only 24 and my parents have said if it doesn’t work out then I’m always welcome to come home and that would never be a problem.

You are only 24 now. A lot of the advice on this thread is coming from women who were happily in love at the age of 24, didn't worry too much about the future then, and ended up shafted a few decades later. You have a lot of years ahead of you and you won't be young, carefree and energetic for all of them. Moving back to your parents house would be fine if there's a serious breakup in the next 3-5 years but fast forward till you are 45, you're used to being independent from your parents, they are a couple of decades older too, and I promise you that moving back in with them will not seem like a great plan.