How can my new partner move in

[Khrysteen]

Long story il try to keep it short.
Single parent to 2 boys age 5 and 18.work part time own my own home outright no mortgage payments.
Want to move my partner in within next year. Problems
1.i lose any benefits I currently get which adds up to almost £800 a month.
2.partner currently rents a property at £600 a month. Says he can't afford to pay me the £800 I will lose in benefits.
He will also have to travel further to work every work costing about an extra £200 a month fuel. He said he can't justify giving up his security, ie his rented property, to be worse of both financially and security wise.

I do understand what he is saying. I just don't see anyway we can make it work. Although we both want to.
Any advice or anyone in same situation.
If we can't find a way to live together we break up as the distance between us is too big to keep travelling to see each other

There's no easy way that doesn't involve both of you taking a financial hit. So you either agree to take the hit, decide to keep dating without moving in, or end it.

Oh dear that's it's been lifted from here and put in the Mirror?

OP you're getting quite a bashing on this thread but I'm with you here.

Keep your money/benefits and just see your boyfriend as a boyfriend. You've got all the time in the world to move in together.

Wouldn't the bf expect to take a 'hit' financially if eg he was moving from a pokey flat into a nice house? Most people do.

Ah but the OPs boyfriend seems to want a "lifestyle upgrade".

At the OPs expense of course, not his.

@Dettyspagetti

That article is from last month and the details are not even the same.

He if gives OP £600 and he is paying £200 to travel he is down £200. But OP will also be down from £800 to £600. Both loosing £200 that seems fair. Also OP you'd be losing benefit GG or elder DC soon anyway. Can't you work full time as your 5 year old is in school?

Sorry am I missing something here? Why on earth would he give you £800 a month to make up for what you'll lose in benefits?!?! You have a mortgage free home so surely he just pays half towards household expenses - utility bills, food etc???

erm - because the benefits system is based on the premise that if an adult moves in then the one who is the higher earer will start subsidising the person who was previously on benefits. The amout that OP gets from benefits isn't going to be particularly generous, it will be a bare minimum to cover what it actually costs to raise her family without anyone suffering an inhumane level of hunger/malnutrition or lack of the basic necessities of life. If he moves in and doesn't contribute that missing £800 then her child will be dropped into serious poverty.

Maybe the benefits system is wrong to make this assumption - maybe it should be OK for two adults to live together but have no financial reliance on each other so that the lower earner can continue to claim benefits as if they were single - but unless and until that change is made either he needs to make up the difference in what OP is entitled to if he moves in, or he must not move in.

@YireosDodeAver

" If he moves in and doesn't contribute that missing £800 then her child will be dropped into serious poverty"

WTAF?!?!

It means that her partner can potentially make a claim on the property down the line if they split up or if anything were to happen to her.

No, he couldn't.

He could contest a will that left the property to her children.

He could not.

He could demand she “buys him out” of any share he may have claim to.

He could not.

So she risks no longer owning her home safely if she moves a partner in without proper legal advice and an appropriate written agreement.

This is not correct.

I wish people would refrain from repeating this legal 'advice' which they read on the internet once and immediately believed.

Only if they have the entire house to themselves.
In this case the boyfriend is technically 'downgrading' from his own property, to a room!
A shared room with the OP. Not even his 'own' room.

I wouldn't do it, the chances are you'll be worse off financially and much of your time will be taking up cooking and cleaning up after him.

@Hont1986

Appreciate you helping the OP with another perspective but, to clarify, I am not “repeating advice I read once on the internet and immediately believed”. I am repeating advice I obtained on a similar matter, and at some expense, from a qualified UK solicitor.

Nowhere have I said any of this was a certain outcome, just that these are risks that should be considered and guarded against. In my original post I suggested that the OP should obtain her own legal advice and protect her position as far as possible via a vis her property, to ensure she did not leave herself and her children vulnerable to any risk in that regard as a result of moving a boyfriend into her home.

That all seems like good sense and entirely reasonable advice to me. (I flagged the potential risks you’ve quoted to a poster who repeatedly expressed that the house was irrelevant in the OP’s situation.)

Both OP’s income and the asset of her home are relevant here. And she should seek legal advice - not make assumptions about the inviolability or otherwise of her position, based on comments any of us here might make.