Advice please - moving in with DP

[spaghettimaretti]

Myself and my DD (who will be 9) are likely going to move in with my DP next year sometime. We may buy a new place together, or we might move in to his house. We are currently (happily and by choice) renting. He owns his house. He has never been married and has no kids. We have no kids together and are definitely not planning any. We both have good incomes and can afford to live independently but want to live together.

I'm trying to figure out what would be a fair way to approach things if we do move in to his house. Do I give him 50% of the equity at the time, and then we move the mortgage and title in to joint names? Is that fair or is there a better / fairer arrangement? Going forwards, we would each contribute equally to the house, bills, maintenance etc.

Help me out with advice / ideas mumsnetters!

Are you currently living together?

Definitely ensure you are financially independent and plan for all possible futures...

If he does not want you to invest in 50% of his property, get a buy to let yourself and pay him 'rent' & split bills. You will a least be on the property ladder yourself.

Good luck :)

Ffsjustltb - no, we currently live separately.

Newtt - That's a good idea, thanks. I'm certain he would be happy for me buy in to the house with him, but in case he's not (or I can't afford it), then yes I would also buy something else to let out.

It totally depends on you and your DP and your respective situations but the baseline I would be taking is that if you move in together, you should BOTH be benefiting from any cost savings AND if assets/wealth are being accumulated you both should be in a position to do so.

so you could "buy" half his house. Or you could agree to pay a relatively low rent and use additional money to buy property/invest elsewhere. It doesn't matter, as long as on a relative basis you both benefit.

What would be bad would be if you move in, the house is in his name and you pay "rent" but the rent is only slightly lower than what you currently pay so your savings are minimal while his are significant. AND he's building more equity in his house.

You’d be better buying a buy to rent so that you’ve got somewhere to go if you need to.

Are you tempted to just buy a small property for yourself and dd if you are financially able?

Ffsjustltb- sometimes I am tempted, but because I have a child and he doesn't, he ends up spending very little time at his house. Which isn't good for him or the house. Plus we (DD and I) have lots of animals which mean a little house just won't work...

My back up plan (if we were to separate) is to build a little house on some land my parents own. I would prefer not to move there now because of DD's school and hobbies, and it wouldn't be DP's first choice. But if DP and I split up, i would get 50% of the value in what would be our house at that point, and could use that to find my build.

I did wonder about NOT buying in to the equity of the house, but i then couldn't expect him to put the property in to joint names. I don't really want to pay him rent because i just think it's very odd to do that as a couple, but if I don't, then it isn't fair on him. And what about maintenance? If i'm not on the title, i wouldn't want to split those cost with him. But also, if i'm living there it's not fair to pay no rent but not contribute to maintenance either!

It feels like the 'cleanest' way is to buy in to the house?

Also to say that if we were moving in together i would want to be married.