When to buy a house together

[Booksandotherstuff]

I'm 32, DP is 33 . Together around 18months.
Neither have kids, both own our own houses about 40 Minutes apart. I WFH mainly but need to be fairly close to a train station he lives about 20 minutes from work in the opposite direction to my house, so about 1hour from me.
In between us are mainly villages with not alot in them so would need to be fairly close to one town or the other. So one of us would have to compromise on location basically because one town will always be more inconvenient for one than the other

When would you consider purchasing a house. No need to wait for marriage as this isn't something I'm interested in ever, happy to protect our deposits in unequal split legally when buying the house

When do other people think you'd go for it. I'm debating whether to bring up possibly putting the houses on the market in autumn in the hopes of being able to move around spring next year when we would've been together around 2.5 years, is this reasonable?

@Booksandotherstuff It's clear from your answers that you haven't researched the legal and financial implications very far. Yes you can petition the court to force a sale but it's very costly and not actually guaranteed. Yes you may very well be able to save if you buy this place, but you can't mandate that your partner does that meaning you can't actually ensure that they're in a position to buy your parents out if you passed. Just as you can't ensure your partner doesn't remortgage or sell their share to whoever they choose without your permission.
You're very clear that you don't want to financially merge with this person - and you don't have to in order to live together! Especially when you need to ask a bunch of strangers when to do it 🤷🏻‍♀️

2.5 years seems a very reasonable amount of time to be together before moving in, I’d say go for it

I bought a house with my DP and didn’t think about any of this stuff, what would happen if my parent inherited my half…and I am
now on house number 4 with same partner, amazingly nothing untoward has happened despite us not being married 😂

@Lampy123678 petitioning a court to force a sale would be cheaper than giving him 50% of my money in the event of a split, I'll take that risk happily
If he leaves himself in a stupid financial situation in the event of my death that's his own problem, but at least if he goes into debt for some unbeknownst reason I wouldn't end up with half the debt at divorce like some people on Mumsnet have ended up with. He is a good man with a decent head on his shoulders with how much equity he would have and how much he earns he could easily save alot of money or remortgage in the event of death.
We would both be on the mortgage so he wouldn't be able to take extra money on a mortgage I'm jointly liable for without my knowledge. Internet banking shows remaining balances , so I would notice if he tried, with land registry notifications you would also know if they tried to sell their share without my knowledge and few people would be interested in a less than 50% equity on a property. Marriage offers no extra protection from partners bad financial decisions and actually drags you into a lot of them. I may be asking randoms on the internet advice but not about the financial protections and certainly not marriage. My stance is quite clear and I would be protecting myself as much as possible and would expect him to make sensible decisions alsp

My DH sold his house, I kept mine and am renting it out. The rent just covers my mortgage payments and relevant insurances etc so I'm not actually making profit so I don't have to pay tax on it. It's a friend who's renting it. We put an offer in on our house after 5 months together, moved in after 7. We just knew. We're now 3 years down the line and married.

We were already living in the same town so there was no debate on where to live. I'd say of you're WFH it makes sense to live somewhere close to his work but also take into consideration that your jobs could change. I wouldn't move to the middle of nowhere to suit his current job if he could change jobs in a few years.

Ignore people harping on about marriage. You've stated you're not interested so I don't see why they're trying to convince you otherwise. The issues with being unmarried is that people often don't ringfence their deposit or have a co-habitation agreement in place and they end up fucked if the relationship ends. Or they give up work to look after children, end up financially dependent on their partner and again end up fucked when it ends. It sounds like you're being very sensible about the whole situation. I agree renting somewhere is a waste of money in your situation.

Has he not sold his share of the property to the cat down the road yet... Asking for a friend 😂

Yes but I prefer living with the cat tbh

Glad to see it's worked out well for you ☺️
If I had a friend I could rent it out to I would definitely consider that but I couldn't think of anyone who would be interested as most already own houses and just wouldn't be interested or it'd be a really helpful situation. Family members have rented out properties in the past and you just never know what you're gonna get with tenants even with references and meeting them

@Booksandotherstuff well it would actually be your parents in the shit situation should your partner not be able to afford to buy them out. I didn't say without your knowledge I said without your permission. I don't know how many times I can tell you I am in no way saying you HAVE to get married, I'm not even saying you shouldn't buy together unmarried. I'm just pointing out that you seem to want to have your cake and eat it. You can in no way 100% protect yourself from being out of pocket unless you keep your finances individual and protected.

Edited to add: yes I know you're acting like I'm being overdramatic but as someone who's partner almost died very suddenly with a lot of shit not sorted out or accounted for there's a lot I wish I knew or had thought about before. Fortunately they pulled through and now everything possible is sorted and accounted for. It happens more than you'd think!

Are you tenants in common 4 properties down the line or joint tenants though?

@Lampy123678 they could also force the sale if needed🤷 not my problem I'm dead in this scenario 😂

Never

@Booksandotherstuff by that logic just be joint tenants so he can have the place when you die and save everyone the hassle of trying to protect your 70k 🤷🏻‍♀️

Actually I take it back. If you are entering into house buying together and not planning kids then I can see the advantages of not getting married.
The disadvantage comes if and when you reduce your hours or take prolonged maternity leaves if kids come along. Then you do need the future protection of marriage if his assets, pension, income are outstripping yours for many years. Crystal ball territory though, I get that.

Nope, I will amend the will if I wish at a later date. For now I'll protect my assets as I see fit. The will is for when I die, the equity split is to protect while I'm still alive.
If I want someone else to inherit my assets that's my choice as he has the ability to leave his to the person he wishes to receive in the event of his death
Unsure why you're so pushy on this 50% split but you may wish to leave the thread if the only advice you seem to give is the kind I haven't asked for

If we were to plan children at a later date then discussions around finances will be had then as obviously that would change things if either of us were to change our work to accommodate childcare then they would indeed need more financial security. And I say this as I would expect to take a cut to my own finances if he were to have to reduce hours at work. Obviously a will would also need to get updated also in that case to make sure if anything happened they would be in a better financial position to look after the children

@Booksandotherstuff oh for goodness sake I am not pressuring you to do an equal split. You're reading what you want to read for some reason and you're sounding very defensive and uninformed the more you reply. I've simply checked if you have thought the logistics through as that would really answer when you should buy together.
Good luck! 👋🏻

@Lampy123678 I have thought the logistics through as stated

Honestly, just go for it. It's not like you're both teenagers living independently for the first time. You're quite clearly established adults. I assume you already spend a few nights here and there at each others places so will have a rough idea of what living together will be like.

No one can tell you what is the perfect amount of time to be together before buying a place. You'll just know. I reckon if you're currently unsure then perhaps you're not quite ready yet. DH and I moved pretty quickly. We were talking about moving in after 2/3 months and there was never any doubt that we were doing the right thing. I had known him about 20 years at the time so he wasn't exactly a stranger.

If it feels like the right time go for it. You seem to have your head screwed on pretty tightly and have thought about the legalities of it all. There will always be someone who'll tell you you're making a mistake or moving too quickly but that's for your to decide, no-one else.

I have 3 stepkids so my situation was far more complicated than yours and we still went for it.

Just my opinion but too soon. If you do it then have a financial agreement in place protect your share and money if you split up. I’m probably just old but I’d never do it.

If it’s for love and you want to be together then do it. If it’s for any other reason then no.

How long would you say is a good amount of time. We do love each other and spend alot of time together already. That's the primary reason for wanting to sort something, but a financial agreement would be in place if we did

Makes sense :-) I’m only thinking about what I would do (and I’m guessing at that). If that’s the case, what is it you’re really questioning do you think?
Is it positive stories from others who’ve done it / bringing it up with him /excitement /doubt /finances…?

I've never been in this position before so I wanted to see how it worked out for other people, but also so I know if bringing up the possibility of moving in the suggested timescales in my op are ridiculous or not. Cause I want to go into the conversation with open eyes, obviously noone can guess what he'll think about it but if the general feeling was that people usually wait 3-5years or something I would more likely to be told it's too soon to be thinking about. But if lots of people have done it with similar timing, then maybe not entirely crazy to be discussing

Did they sell them years apart to allow them to save more for the next house or for another reason do you know?

A combination of wanting to live together, to save up for a house and to make things go as simply and stress free as they could.

Different situation but my DH and I got engaged after three months, bought a house together after 10.5 months and got married 6 weeks after we moved into our house.
He moved into my rented flat before we bought our house as I wanted to live with him and I’d never lived with a partner before so wanted to make sure we were compatible.

That makes sense. In my experience there is no generally understood’rule’ or whatever about this; everyone has completely different ideas and some people don’t even think much about it. Therefore his response is impossible to predict.

I would advise either
-Bringing the notion up casually to see what he thinks about the idea in general
or
-Being completely honest that this is what you want
(Or both., Depends on your relationship)