I'm pregnant and unmarried - should I sign a deed of trust on our new house

[Bonnie2023]

Hello,

I'm in a bit of a pickle and wondered if anyone is able to offer any advice.

I bought a house with my boyfriend a few months ago. We have moved in and it's perfect. Given he put a fair whack down as a deposit, I signed a deed of trust. I think it's only fair that he gets that back if we break up and sell the house.

However, I have fallen pregnant. It wasn't the plan, I wanted to get married before we started to think about babies but sometimes, life happens. We are both really happy and feel really lucky. When I found out, the deed of trust was on my mind. He didn't offer to scrap it, even when I raised concerns

I'm always a bit on the fence with these- the only reason you have the house is the deposit he put down. Any profit will be equally shared- why shouldn't he be allowed to protect that, as you never had it, and without his contribution never would have?

@Bonnie2023 if you're paying 50/50 on bills and mortgage (we did this even though he earnt more) let him ring fence his deposit, you ring fence your deposit and then if you break up the equity in the house is split 50/50 once you've both taken your deposit back. It's not romantic but it is worth it, obviously if you get married it changes it but you can deal with that later.

What @SideshowAuntSally said is sensible

I think the deed of trust is a bit of a red herring, really. You need to sit down and figure out how having a baby is going to change your life financially. It's too easy to fall into thinking that the woman takes the hit through career detriment, childcare costs, going part time etc and the man chips in a bit but could basically walk away and maintain his salary while paying a pittance in child maintenance.

Marriage protects you against this a bit, and you could do a basic registry office ceremony that no one even has to know about for less than £100. Look at differences between marriage and cohabitation to know your rights over things like parental responsibility, being next of kin, pension rights, inheritance tax if one of you dies.

If he's not prepared to merge finances with you then you need to protect yourself by continuing to work, ensuring he pays half of childcare costs etc.

You should let him ringfence his deposit, as you originally agreed.

If I agreed to something like this with a partner then they backed out on a technicality, I would be very unimpressed.

I think him ring fencing his deposit is fine. I think you paying 50% of the bills despite earning less is not fine - especially not now you're having a baby.

Sounds like you’ve had a good conversation but FYI paying 50:50 when you earn less than him isn’t paying your way. That’s you paying his way under the guise of being independent/ not wanting to be seen as a gold digger or free loader.

you need to start paying proportionally because it’s very likely you’ll take a significant reduction in income while on ML at least and he needs to step up more.

Hi OP - I htink you need to have a good read of this site :
rightsofwomen.org.uk/get-information/family-law/owning-property-jointly-with-your-partner/

I know nothing about deeds of trust, but I can understand that your thinking on who owns what may have changed since falling pregnant. The Rights of Women site has lots of useful info about property ownership and the different situations of finance/custody in a split.

The short answer is: marriage is better protection for anyone who earns less than their partner, or takes time out of their career to raise a family, or takes a hit ot thieir finances to raise a family/due to illness/a career change. Marriage in the UK is pretty much 50/50 on everything in the case of a split with adjustment for the primary carer, whereas the situation you're currently in in the case of a split is leaving your joint home, recouping only part of your costs and him having a financial responsibility to his child that he may or may not uphold.

He may be the best man in the world, but marriage is a pretty good insurance policy when you have kids. Other added advantages are things like next of kin in the case of a medical emergency - this would be on my mind if I were pregnant - and naming the happy healthy baby. If he wants the baby to have his name, he'd better marry you.

I would ring fence both your deposits at this point. Going forward I wouldn't be paying 50/50 as you do not earn the same amount. It should be proportional to what you earn. If he earns more, he pays more.

The next conversation is how is this going to work finances wise when you are on maternity, how much maternity do you intend to take? When you are on reduced money how will the shortfall be covered? For me and Dh it came from joint savings but we were married for 4 years before Ds1 came along so had saved together for this.

Look into childcare costs for your area now. Ball park is £1k per month for a full time nursery place. Don't let this fall solely to you, all costs for the baby should be split.

There is no reason having a baby should impact your career any more than his unless you chose to let it. There is no reason he can't look after the baby. Apart from breastfeeding but you could try expressing or mixed feeding.

People on Mumsnet often suggest that they stayed at home with the kids to support their husband in their career as though it was a one sided sacrifice where most women chose to stay at home because they chose to. I'm saying this as a former SAHM. I really enjoyed it and felt my husband had the rough end of the deal.
I think you should not back track on signing the document so your partner can ringfence his money. I don't see how you would feel entitled to it. It be a little different if it was money that he earned after having a kid with you.

OP, you are in a very vulnerable position being pregnant and unmarried with regard to any equity, because you will not have contributed equally while you are on maternity leave. You are relying on him to be a good guy if it all goes wrong . I honestly think it would be reasonable to explain that, to balance this out, you cannot sign the new deed of trust. He will have to rely on you being a good guy too.

Or - get married now so that you're both in this together.

It enrages me when men either through design or lack of care get their partners pregnant - about as big a life decision as can be - but are not prepared to throw their lot in with them financially. 'I might have to give my. partner 30K she didn't earn if we split' is nothing when set next to 'I'm making a new human'.

Women are usually the primary carers (in fact even if not on paper) both when in a relationship and after it falls apart - this is why marriage exists, to ensure she's not fucked over in the latter case.

Of course having children impacts a woman’s career! Men often continue their careers completely unaffected. Most mums I know, have a career break, don’t take roles and promotions that will impact their families, take time off work to look after kids and so on. I know there are men who take career breaks etc but they are rare and I personally don’t know any. I’ve lived in many places and have friends all over the world. I don’t know any man who was affected by children and I could also not tell you any female friend whose career wasn’t affected by having children.

Absolutely what @Musti said. There is no way you will not be impacted more than he OP, not only during the first years but for the next 20.

Most women who put their career on a backseat after they have children, do so because they discover their husbands can't be bothered to do the hard and boring work of caring for infants and small children. If the woman does not pick up the slack, it's the child who loses out. Blah blah, get a divorce, self-respect, yada yada. The bald truth: the average woman is not going to allow her child to lose out because its father refuses to help care for it equally. Can't tell you how many women I know with husbands who always seemed nice, fair, treat her as an equal, and then after they have a baby he suddenly thinks he's living in the 1950s and thinks she should do everything for the children while his life goes on as before. Go back and see how many threads there are where a woman is using her savings to pay "her half" of the household bills while she's on maternity leave, taking care of the baby 24/7, while the husband goes to work and fattens up his pension. What about him doing "his half" of the childcare? Naah, doesn't exist. In other words, after the baby arrives, the men often see childcare as (a) of no financial value (even though if they were paying a nanny to do 24/7 care of a newborn they would have to pay thousands and thousands of salary to her), and (b) a woman's, and only a woman's, responsibility. Hence, they treat a woman who is home on maternity leave as if she should somehow also contribute financially even though she is already contributing by taking care of his child. Are all men like this? No. Some men do contribute fairly after the baby is born. Some don't. You don't know which you're going to get.

tl,dr: Once the baby arrives, it's too late. You need to protect yourself BEFORE the baby is born. Preferably by some sort of contract.

The deed of trust can be fair enough but do not give up an ounce of your earning power or career potential morecthan you have to until you are married and the deed of trust is scrapped. If you give up work to be a SAHM you arr absolving him of his financial responsibility for the life he helped create and damaging your own financial future while protecting his.

Marriage creates a safety net to allow you to sabotage your future earnings potential because your future prosperity is tied to his, even if the relationship doesn't last. Without that safety net, be very very careful what you sacrifice.

Well, if your financial interests are not protected by him via marriage, you will have to go back to work and maintain or build your career whilst being a mother at the same time, straight after maternity leave. To do this effectively, if you have no other support or live-in help, your partner will have to share all the care of the child with you. If necessary this means maybe you both going part-time, etc. Thats the reality (as I see it).

Unless you are married, then there is a bit more wiggle room in a traditional or semi-traditional set-up. These days you should probably still keep up your work and income, as men do not have the obligation to support their ex wives for ever, as they did in the past.

I know it sounds a bit weird, but you could even consult a divorce solicitor to see your rights (or lack of them). Maybe thats too weird - but it would definitely clarify it, rather than a bunch of strangers like me on the internet.

But if he doesn't want to get married, I'm not sure what you can do tbh.

I'm just putting what @cexuwaleozbu said in slightly different words I think.

OP,

I hope you are reading because you sound so unbelievably naive and you really need to protect yourself.

You have accidentally gotten pregnant, you do not have to continue with this.

He earns loads more, but is happy you pay 50%.
He doesn't want to get married because his friends aren't.
You are so unbelievably vulnerable.
You are with him years, no marriage but are so besotted you want to chance a child.
What if he decides it actually isn't what he wants.

You are screwed.
The deed of trust is just another symptom of him protecting himself.

You and this baby are not his priority.

I think you should look long and hard at single parenthood because you have no idea he is going to stick around.

Guys who are determined to usually want to get married.

@Musti @WinterDeWinter I don't think you read my post properly. I know most womens careers are adversely effected by having kids but there no reason for that to happen unless they chose to. Apart from breastfeeding there is no reason a man can't have as much responsibility for raising children as a woman. It's a bit sad that people are still perpetuating the myth that only females are capable of looking after kids.

I was the SAH parent in my household but my brother was the SAH parent in his. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I'm genuinely glad for you - but I don't think many women go into relationships thinking they will be trapped into being the parent that cares/knows when the GP apt is/does all of the millions of tiny and not-so-tiny things that must be done to keep a child thriving.

The problem is that so many men - even those who seem lovely - opt out of actual parenting, rather than 'helping out' - and usually by the time you've realised you have one that talks the equality talk but doesn't walk it, or who says 'well my earning power is already greater so it makes sense doesn't it babe', it's too late.

It's men's fault, not women's.

The vast majority of trust deeds work this way.

If you want your baby to benefit from DP’s deposit he could always do a will.

You can’t refuse to sign this deed now - it really does make it look like you’re using pregnancy as an excuse to money grab, even if this is NOT the case. It’s what it looks like and he will not trust you, and certainly not take the risk of marrying you.

I’m not on a high horse and I’m not saying you’re entitled. What I’m saying is you had an agreement where your partner could ring fence his deposit. You then found yourself pregnant (both partners equally responsible for this) and post purchase are now trying to back out of an agreement. If a partner did this to me, I would lose all trust and faith in them. It would make me feel that he is out for my money.

For the issue of you paying 50/50 when you earn much less is, in my opinion, scandalous. I have no issue in someone protecting what they came into the relationship with, but he is taking advantage of you by allowing you to pay 50/50. IMO, you either pay proportionally according to income (including if yours is a part time salary in the future) or all the money goes in one account and you both transfer the same amount out for your personal expenses.

Of course you need to protect yourself. However, backing out of a financial agreement post an unexpected pregnancy will breed distrust and resentment. He can ring fence his deposit and you’ll still be entitled to half of all equity and profit going forward.

This!

Get married before baby is born.

This . Get your own legal advice.

You are quite right to be much more careful now you are pregnant .

Your career options , promotion prospects, earning capacity and pension are all going to be adversely affected while his are not.

If you work full time , you are going to be paying a fortune in child care while he will not.

You are going to be working at two or three jobs ( paid and unpaid ) while he is not.

yes sure, people can bang on about how there’s no need for this to happen etc etc. But it does in 99% off couples so probably will in yours.

You need to deal with reality rather than pie in the sky.

If you work full time , you are going to be paying a fortune in child care while he will not.
Only if they split. I don't know any couples where the mother pays for childcare and the father does not.

MN is full of posters where woman are expected to continue to pay 50% of all bills during mat leave and all childcare when they return.

Having children is the worst thing that can happen to a woman financially on MN.