Buying a house

[ThisLoftyUser]

I am purchasing a house with the father of my children. We are not married. We cohabit but our relationship is dead (long story, not for this thread, not looking for advice on that for now)

He is putting in a big deposit. I am putting in a smaller amount of cash. Both names will be on the mortgage. We are also using the proceeds of a house sale. For this previous house we've just sold I owned 10% and he owned the rest (he put in the deposit but my name was on the mortgage so this is what we agreed) but I contributed to looking after it for 10 years - maintenance, cleaning, expenses etc.

We also have 4 kids together. I work 3 days a week, he works 5. I do 90% of anything to do with the kids.

My career has suffered because of pregnancies, years spent on IVF, childcare, etc. But we contribute in equal shares to living expenses, etc.

My question is...what is a fair ownership arrangement for the new house - he has suggested a 15 / 85 split in his favour. He has put in most of the money, so I want it to be fair and reflect that. I feel lucky to live in a big house I could never afford on my own. But equally, financially, Ive also suffered because I've taken on the role of "main" parent. My pension, for example, is almost non existent. I'm really stuck trying to work out what's fair.

Our relationship is civil and we have agreed to stay together for the children for now but who knows what might happen down the line...

Any thoughts much appreciated!

Well...50/50 in reality though I don't know why your bothering your arse with this arse hole

Would 15% of the house equity be enough for you to set up on your own if and when you separate?

How much do you contribute to the bills and mortgage?

Will you be paying half the mortgage?

The fairest thing in my opinion is to protect what you each put into the deposit, then have it 50-50 ownership after that. That way you’d get the say 25k you’ve put in back, plus half the equity. Bills should be split according to income.

But that assumes you are a couple - partners. It sounds like this will be more of a housemates situation so the cleanest thing to do is have a legal split agreed based on who puts in what. That might be like the above, or it might be 85-15 if that’s how deposit and mortgage payments are split.

If you are intent on doing this as tenants in common, then you you need to work out what percentage deposits you are each putting in, including equity from what you’ve paid into the previous property, then you need to work out your % contributions to the current mortgage as you estimate they will be for the length of the mortgage, and base your % ownership off that. I don’t think any of us can tell you those numbers.

But in a long term relationship with children, it’s a bit of a silly exercise. When we bought our house, I put in probably 60% of the deposit and Dh 40%. He pays probably 60-70%of the mortgage monthly plus nearly all house repairs (or does them himself). We are joint tenants 50/50. Obviously, that’s because we’re married, but also because in a long relationship with children our fortunes ultimately are linked. If we were to split, I’m not going to be arguing over how much of the deposit I paid versus the cost of a new boiler he paid. It’s our house and our joint investment from 16 years of accumulated financial life together, regardless of who paid for what.

50/50 he’s being ridiculous.

You need enough to buy your own home when you eventually leave him.

You need to ring fence your ( and his deposit) so that is legally yours - assuming you don’t go into negative equity.

Then, assuming bills and mortgage are to be split 50/50 or proportionally based on your incomes, any Additional equity gained whilst you both own the house gets splits equally, 50/50.

If he wants to do a simple % equity split, then you should only be paying that percentage in bills and mortgage IMO.