Disagreement about house buying with boyfriend.

[Doodles29]

Hi everyone. I wondered if I could ask for some advice please.

I currently live in my boyfriends flat with him and pay rent. We are looking to buy a home together.

I have 100K in savings from a previous property I bought, renovated and sold.

He has around 70k tied up in his flat.

I would like to invest all of my money into the property (with this being written up with solicitors to cover myself if anything goes wrong).

He would like to go 50/50 on the property, meaning that I would have £30K left sitting in my savings making little interest.

i have tried explaining that if we both put all of our monies in, it will serve us both better in terms of the mortgage and we would need to borrow less (meaning paying less interest).

He is still being very stubborn and is saying that he wants to do £70K each.

I have tried explaining that because I put more money in doesn’t mean that the house is more mine, it simply means that I just get out what I put in at the end if things were to go wrong.

am I justified in what I am saying or am I being selfish?

Thank you.

So it seems you are valuing your parents opinion over your partners, when it’s got fuck all to do with them really?

@Doodles29 your parents are interfering and being ridiculous.

If you don’t want to spend the £30k, whack it in premium bonds or a reasonable interest account. Invest it somewhere.

You can’t force your boyfriend to buy his house with you as tenants in common (nor is that the norm) and if you sign as tenants in common then actually you’re legally signing over part of your deposit to him, as I mentioned above. Have your parents actually realised that?!

Overall it’s unlikely to make much of a difference whether you put your £30k in, just don’t buy a ridiculously expensive house. Prices will always rise so if you split up in ten years time, you STILL might not be able to buy him out depending how much you earn and the value of the house.

My advice would be buy modest, make sure you’re at least 60% loan to value to get the best rates (and not over mortgage yourselves), and be sensible with your money. Don’t fritter it every month, try to keep saving a bit if possible.

I think your boyfriend is right and your parents need to butt out. If it helps, just say you put the whole £100k in - it's not like they're gonna see the paperwork is it?

Good interest rates around at the moment so you should get a good return on your savings.

That said, you don't really have a choice here. Your boyfriend will only go ahead if it's equal amounts so that either works for you or it doesn't.

Incidentally, what are your thoughts on marriage?

Your parents are putting too much pressure on you, putting all your cash into the house would not guarantee you could stay there if you split with your bf and, as others have said, the outlook for house prices is not good at the moment. People forget that what goes up can come down - in the late 80s/early 90s prices fell by 50% in some areas and didn't get back to previous highs for about 10 years. Any investment professional will recommend you do not put all your funds into a single asset - its less risky to split them across different types of investment - property, cash etc.

Your parents' advice isn't particularly good advice. It's risky to have all your money in one asset. As others have said, you'd be better off putting the remainder in a high interest savings account or investing it. I'd advise you to speak to a financial advisor about your options.

Go 50:50. Put the 30k money in a high interest savings account. Don't use your money to do renovations. Everything in the house should be done 50:50 unless you have kids together and one of you is off work caring for a child. Having £30k savings gives you a buffer but also exit plan money. I wouldn't touch it. It stops you being vulnerable in the future.

I think he is reasonable to want you to be equal partners in the flat..... but I do also note that if you then get married, the 30k just kind of merges in with his money and you can't get 100k back as a lump if you split and sell the house, only 70k plus half of whatever cash you have jointly at that moment. This also applies to house improvements - if you buy equally and then put £30k extra towards refits or extension etc then you can quantify your additional investment into the property, but the second you are married that becomes you both spending your equally owned joint money on your equally owned asset - so you are not unreasonable to want to invest it all upfront as mark it as your full 100k, either.

@Doodles29
You are prioritizing your parents over your boyfriend.
This is not how a mature relationship works.

You are also still working through past trauma and taking it out on your boyfriend. Again, not how a mature relationship works.

You need to ask yourself whether you are ready to enter a mature commitment like buying a house, if you are still struggling to set some healthy boundaries for your parents and overcome past trauma without it affecting your current relationship.

Your parents' ideas are ridiculous. I'm sure you as a grown woman can decide exactly how to spend or save your money. This fear you have over making every penny count and needing to invest every last cent to ensure your future is ridiculous. This fear that you will invest it all in renovations and then losing all that money is absurd.
Even if you do that, you can still have these spendings written down so that if you ever break up you recover your investment.
Even if you don't write these things down, who is to say your boyfriend will be an ass and intend to financially ruin you if you break up?

This conversation doesn't involve your parents. It's between you and your boyfriend. Stop letting them interfere. And if you can't, please tell your boyfriend he's better off not buying a house with you because he will end up in a relationship not just with you but also with your parents, and I'm betting he didn't sign up for that.

If the relationship doesn’t work out you would be far better not having the the 30k in the house.

However, that whole situation is a red flag.

You are buying a house with your partner. Not your parents. He has an opinion. You don’t have one. You are simply doing as your parents say, it’s not your opinion.and you are only arguing their opinion to secure their help.

it doesn’t have to be 30k extra in the house or renovations. It can 30k invested somewhere ensuring you have an emergency fund should things fail. Or to improve your financial standing.

You are, essentially, deciding that your parents opinion is more important than his. And that’s not a good sign for the relationship. You are saying that you will bend to their threats, for your own benefit and will belittle him and call him stubborn for having his own opinion that doesn’t agree with them. It’s not a good sign in a relationship. A good relationship isn’t built on one person doing what their parents want and trying to force their partner to go along with it.

Wow what a fortunate position to be in!!!

I agree with your boyfriend that it is good for the relationship for the property to be 50/50 ie £70k each.

Tell him that all stuff purchased for your home plus home improvements will be 50/50 too.

If it were me, I’d do the following with the £30k.

£5k - keep in an instant access savings account for emergencies (boiler breaking)

£25k - keep in premium bonds in case as your parents have said, the relationship doesn’t work and you need to leave. You can access these within less than a week.

£20k - use your allowance to invest in a stocks and shares ISA. The idea is your money will grow over time (but it needs to be in the market for circa 10 years).

Don’t continue to discuss your finances with parents. Nothing good comes from it!

Why don't you loan him 15K out of your 100K and then put in 85K in each?

You write repayment terms for the 15K via a legal loan agreement. Interest free presumably. But you get the agreement so that you are covered in terms of getting it back in case of relationship breakdown.

Pros:

The house is owned 50/50
You've put all the money in so repayments are minimised
You've covered yourself in terms of repayment

Cons:
You are loaning someone 15K

Put the surplus money in an investment you can’t touch for a few years.

otherwise your parents are right you will end up spending the £30k on house renovations.

you need to ensure you both have joint expenditure into the house if your boyfriend wants it to be 50:50.

altho personally I wouldn’t take the step of house buying with a boyfriend if you aren’t both completely on the same page.

DO NOT loan him money - large loans between family and friends often lead to the break up of families and the end of friendships. And it would be very hard to get the money back if you broke up and he spent the cash and was unable to pay you.

Not sure if you can read, but the money is not being loaned into his back pocket but being put directly into the mortgage.

You don't have to put all your money into the property. There are lots of saving and investment options that would give you a decent return.

However, I'm baffled by so many people saying he is right and you are wrong. There isn't a right/wrong here.

What if you see a house you both love that you could afford if you put in your last £30k but not if you don't? Is he going to be a dog in the manger about it?

You absolutely need to ensure your deposit is ringfenced and any increase in the property value is treated accordingly. That still leaves you the option to work out different contributions to property maintenance. Bills including council tax are different -they'd be payable if you were renting so you can split them in whatever way suits you both.

It’s probably easier to put in equal amounts, but the issue then comes with the fact that you have 30k in savings, which is likely to get tapped into for joint things, so effectively you end up putting in more without recourse to recompense if things go wrong.

Interest rateas are the highest they've been in a very long time, so just lock it away in a savings account you can't touch

So you've said what your partner thinks and what your parents think, but what do you think?

What do you think, if you take away the pressure from elsewhere?

I think that he is right actually and you should do 50/50. If you put in more then you would need to own it in that ratio, say 70/30 or whatever, and then you would get the equity in the same ratio if you sold. You would want to pay repairs etc in the same ratio and then you would always be paying more than him. Just keep it simple, 50/50.

If he wants it to be equal then keep it that way and keep your £30K in savings/premium bonds. (Premium Bond wins are never guaranteed, but I have around half that in bonds and have won £750 since January).

Don't spend it on the house improvements either, that should also be 50/50 and your bf should understand that too, he can't have it both ways.

If you split up and need to walk away, you will be far better off to start again with £30K in the bank than if you tie every penny up in a joint property that you would need to sell.

Do what is right for you and your relationship and not what your parents want, just make sure that you safeguard the money and your share of the property.

@Doodles29 would this article give more clarity for you?

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/dec/06/im-buying-a-house-with-my-boyfriend-how-much-should-we-pay-each

If I was your bf your dependence on your parents advice and their insistence on giving it, with threats and conditions attached, would be a big red flag for me.

There are pros and cons to wanting to put all your capital into the house.

If you do do this, make sure that the Deed that specifies your share is based on a percentage of equity. If it simply reflects the cash value of your deposit and you then split the mortgage and other equity 50/50 you lose out on any increase in value of your initial deposit.

Would you pay the mortgage costs 50/50 - or pro rata to your different investment?

£30k is a good start on a nest egg for you. As PP have pointed out you can get more in savings than the interest rate on mortgage costs. Are you careful? Would you spend and squander it?

50/50 put the rest in fixed rate bonds HSBC have just offered me some good rates. You can't touch it for the period it's in there so you won't be tempted to spend it

Split 50/50 for the house but also make it clear your savings are your safety net & put them in a separate account. Save up for renovations together. That 30k would allow you to stand on your own two feet if something went wrong. Unless you agreed to be tenants in common he would have a claim on your £30k if you split anyway. It’s safest in savings, you can reassess down the line if you get married / have kids or buy a new place in future.

Put the 30K into something that you cannot get to easily, like £20K into an ISA this year, keep the rest and add it next year. Leave it there forever, your safety net.

That way it is not yours, not easily accessible and he will have to understand that this is the consequence of his decision. That £30K disappears from your joint life completely.

Your parents are mad. Telling you you cannot go to them for help if you don't do as they say? Laugh and move on!