Moving in together and finances

[Overthinkingismyforte]

DP and I are talking about moving in together next year when we’ll have been together around 3 years. I have DD14 and DS12 both living with me full time, he has DD23 and DD19 both at uni. They’d both be spending a portion of their uni holidays at my house. My DCs’ dad pays child maintenance of around £520 a month. Monthly household bills come to around £1800 (mortgage, bills, insurance etc) but I’ll lose child benefit when DP moves in as he earns over £70k. I earn £47k. The house is in my sole name and I have no plans to change this. Finances can be a bone of contention so I’m wondering what the fairest way to split bills would be. Would 50/50 be cheeky given I receive child maintenance and also he’s contributing to a mortgage that he’s not named on? We haven’t discussed the practicality of moving in together yet, just that it’s what we both want, but I’m wondering what others have done who’ve been in a similar situation.

If it was just him moving in I'd say he should pay just half the bills, and nothing towards the mortgage - you don't want to inadvertently give him a claim on your house in future.

I think he should pay a bit more towards the bills and food shopping when his kids are home from uni

he’s contributing to a mortgage that he’s not named on

That's not a good idea.

Then he’s paying no rent, and the op is short child benefit. Thats a terrible idea- rule 1 is no one should be worse off.
op, you say finances can be a bone of contention- do you mean between you? If so I’d can moving in, why add that financial challenge to a discussion you’re already not seeing eye to eye on. Youd be adding two young adults to your teens house periodically, lots of reasons not to.

It’s fine if it’s clearly rent.

This is something I’m wondering about. I don’t want him to have a claim on my house if we were to split so would drawing up some sort of rental/tenancy agreement be a good idea? Contributions towards bills are all fine but it’s the mortgage that’s stumping me.

Not between us two, no, we’re both on the same page where finances are concerned but we’ve both come from relationships where our exes were reckless with money. I want everything fair between us.

Half the bills but not the mortgage. Not paying towards mortgage means no claim to the property, I would write this down to protect you in the future and to be clear

So what will happen with his DC? Will he increase his contribution? Don't understand estimate how much uni age young adults/eat/consume, nor how much mess they make.

Do you have bedrooms for them all?

What’s his current housing situation? Does he own a house he will be letting out?

My DCs both have their own room, I have an additional spare bedroom plus a room downstairs which is a converted garage and we’re talking about making that into a guest suite. At the moment it’s a dumping ground so it would be nice to put a day bed in there and use it as an extra family room/guest bedroom. His eldest DD lives with her boyfriend so it wouldn’t be often she’d be over, the younger one would split her time between us and her mum during holidays.

He’s currently renting as he sold his house when he divorced. He made a decent profit so he’s toying with the idea of buying a small house which he’ll rent out until I’m ready to downsize and then we’ll move into it.

@Codlingmoths has it - if you move in together, you BOTH have to be better off. Not just financially, but practically and emotionally too. So splitting bills only is a ridiculous idea and makes me angry just thinking about it - as you'll be LOSING money (child benefit plus you'll have to pay more council tax) so his half of the new bills would be a tiny drop benefit for you. You'll also be losing space and flexibility.

Where is he living currently? Does he rent? own? is he planing to rent his place out? These are all things to take into consideration when thinking about how to ensure the financial benefit of consolidating to one home is working well for all parties.

Then, because everyone on MN is so terrified of a man getting his hands on a woman's house (I've never actually seen a single post from a woman who, on breaking up with a man, has been finding that he wants half her house... but whatever) get a solicitor to draw up whatever the appropriate contract is to ensure that anything he pays is considered rent or whatever, and NOT a contribution to the mortgage.

Personally I wouldn't do it. British men have got a deserved reputation for taking advantage of a woman as soon as they move in with her.

Stay dating - it's much more fun.

So... he'll have someone else paying HIS mortgage (a tenant) but you are thinking you have to continue paying your mortgage completely alone?

No.

The financial split needs to benefit you both equally both in the short and long term. If his bills are suddenly slashed as he's not paying rent, and is splitting costs at your house while simultaneously benefiting from an asset that is appreciating, then frankly, you need to be the same. He doesn't have to pay half your mortgage, but you need to have YOUR monthly costs slashed, including a reduction in your mortgage payments.

I would get a cohabitation agreement drawn up with a Solicitor. This would be a responsible thing to do given there are children involved.

It's not just the child benefit that you'll lose; you'll also lose out on the council tax. How much does that add up to? He should pay that so that you're not losing out financially.

Then what about if he takes that amount off his current rent and splits the difference between both of you so that you're both better off living together.

Split the bills 50:50 but you put another £200 or so into the food budget when his children aren't there - when they are, food should be 50:50.

Would that work?

Thanks for all the insights. I do agree he should pay something towards my mortgage but I think getting some sort of cohabitation agreement written up is a great idea. He would also contribute more to food etc if his DDs were here.
I’ll be losing around £170 a month child benefit and my council tax will increase by about £50 a month.
I also have additional expenses like after school clubs/school trips/car finance and petrol costs (he can wfh 2 days a week) which he doesn’t have but he is making parental contributions towards his DD’s uni accommodation so my outgoings are higher on a lower salary. He tends to pay more if we go out because he recognises he earns more and hasn’t got the commitments I have, but I never ask him to do this. He just thinks it’s fair. We’ve booked a holiday in the summer for us both and my DCs and he paid half, even though I offered to pay more for my DCs so I think he’d want to split everything 50/50 in the household but the mortgage thing bothers me.

Note that Labour have said they will look at some "common law" marriage type legislation if they come into power. So you may not have as much choice as you would like about divisions of assets in the event you co-habit for a long time and split up.

I haven't looked at this but the big difference in any kind of marriage, I assume, is that ALL assets are split. So, if he does have a claim on her house, she would ALSO have a claim on any of his assets.

The thing she needs to protect against now is him having a claim on her house because he has supposedly being paying towards the mortgage. It's a concept that makes no sense to me but comes up on MN ALL the time.

Has anyone ever actually been in this situation? Allowed a man to move in and he paid half costs, including mortgage, then claimed half the house when he moved out.

I didn't think you'd lose CB as he's not the father of your dc and you're not married?

It goes on individual earnings in the household so even though we will not be married and he will not be my DCs’ stepdad or have any kind of parental responsibility, I’m still going to lose it due to his earnings.

Whatever you decide, get a legal cohabitation agreement drawn up by a solicitor (not expensive!) it would mean he has no claim over your home, should you split up. It’s essential if you own a home and have kids etc.

It is not fair he should pay 50/50 of the bills seeing as there are 3 of you all the time and only him much of the time. When his kids are there 50/50 is fine, but if he is not going on mortgage then why should he pay for your kids?

If this was to happen with me I would look for us to get a mortgage together while protecting assets: So as an example.

She has house with 200k equity - we split the mortgage 50/50 and if we split, any equity above 200k is shared 50/50, so if we split in 3 years and there is 250k equity then 50k split into 2. Same with savings - if he has 30k and you have 10k, that should be ringfenced, pensions too. I would suggest that the joint account pays for just house stuff, your account pays for your kids clothes etc..

I would not want to be paying rent - it's dead money. I would rather pay into a mortgage and use that as an investment (as med-long term houses always increase in value).

You will have savings combined - if it was me instead of us paying 325 council tax between us for 2 houses, it would be 200 on one house, so we would be 60 each better off a month for that alone. Food can work out cheaper in bulk than being alone, and you only have to heat 1 house, not 2, have one Sky subs not 2 etc... so even if he is paying something towards all that it should offset any CB loss.

I’m out at work 10 hours a day 5 days a week, he’s out at work 3 days a week for 8 hours and WFH the rest so actually he’ll be at home more than I will. Also the DCs are out at extra curricular clubs and with their dad twice a week. Because of this, I do think a 50/50 split with bills is reasonable. I’m not saying he should be paying for my kids, but he’s moving into my household and I think we should contribute equally towards household bills. It could be after a period of time living together we become tenants in common and he maybe buys a 15% stake in the house depending on his contributions and the value of the house but this all depends on how our relationship pans out living together. This is why I think 50/50 bills is fair but the mortgage needs looking at.

Cohabitation agreement stating proportion of bills and no equity in house. He shouldn't live rent free either. He will be vulnerable if you decide to end things but he's already looking for a BTL property and you need to protect your interests first.