Should I lend my boyfriend money?

[DAISYBELLAxx]

My boyfriend and I have been together for 3 years and we are currently in the process of buying a house together (should be moving in anytime in the next month or so!)

We currently both live in his flat.

I have 100K in savings and he has 80K equity in his house. We are both putting down £35,000 each as a deposit and it is costing is around £6,000 each to move (solicitors and stamp duty).

My boyfriend has always loved motorbikes, but he had to sell his in order to help with moving into his flat 5 years ago. He was planning on buying a bike out of his equity when we had exchanged and completed on the house. However, his dream bike has come along (his friend owns a bike shop and has given my boyfriend first refusal, plus knocked £500 off the asking price).

I have offered to lend my boyfriend the money for the bike (£6,500) until his equity is released from the flat. We have both been very clear that this is ofcourse a loan and I trust him to pay me back.

It is no skin off my nose as my money will just be sitting there and I do not plan to spend it.

However, I can't help but feel a bit wobbly about lending this much. I have sat on my savings for years. I trust my boyfriend and it brings me joy to see him happy , but I still feel strange about it.

Is it normal to be feeling like this? Is it unreasonable?

Don't do it.
You are not his mum to buy him toys.

When he can afford it he can discuss with you how to spend additional family money.
One thing is buying a home together, another is spending significant amount of money you don't even have on a hobby.
Ask yourself how happy arr you with his spending once baby arrives.
Who will cover your maternity? Pension?
A bike bloke?
Unless he is earning higer tier of 6 figures, a 6k toy is over the top.

@brunettenorthern91 thank you for this. You make some really valid points. My 100K came from a previous house renovation with my ex partner, of which I spent more on and had to take him to court to get my money back. I've been burnt once before, and will not be again!

I think this is also contributing to my hesitation as it was quite a traumatic experience!!

“who am I to tell him he can't do his passion.”

fair enough, but are you happy to fund it?

Sometimes, as grown ups we have to tell ourselves “would be nice but can’t afford it/other priorities” etc etc

like a PP said, buying a bike he doesn’t have the money for, when you are mid house purchase - frivolous.

Exactly why are you enabling it when there are ways he could solve it himself?

I personally wouldn’t , I have money from a house sale and when I got with my Dp made it clear it would never be lent or dipped into and is locked away for now, but it’s my money and it will stay that way. I have lent him from my salary when he was mid job change and I did have to ask for it back, which gave me a different view on things.
I think he should save and fund it himself, it’s a slippery slope if you start doing it now. So for me regardless of buying a home together it’s a no.

as @brunettenorthern91 has pointed out, bf will only have 12.5 left, say the renovations end up being 20,000 more than you think right now, that would bring him down to £2.500

You will be the one expected to pay out for anything else.

i would go as far as suggesting why buy this house, can you not buy somewhere that doesn't need £40,000 spending on it

or is it because you both want to buy a doer upper and will be selling it once done ?

I'm feeling a bit uncomfortable reading that you're going to leave him essentially your life savings (instead of family, friends?) but that you're having a bit of a wobble over the motorbike loan. Is there something in the back of your head about him that's making you not absolutely certain about him?

No need to answer that - I just wanted to prompt some (uncomfortable!) thinking.

Now, if either my other half or I die, we'll have the same setup. But: we've been together 7 years, will eventually get married one day (not young, no child pressure) and we've moved 4 times together in 4 years, and also been through the painful death of my mother and the family fallout afterwards, on both family sides. I'm not saying my relationship is better than yours or owt - just illustrating that we've had a lot of crap thrown at us and know we're rock solid. There's no family we would want to have our money, and most of our friends are pretty well off. We've also had screaming matches over and over and over again that would make a sailor blush (coming to terms with conflicting types of autism, as it turns out), but he says things like 'we should get married, because that will protect you if you ever want to leave me and want half of the house' and 'we should get married because if we don't my mum will get my state pension' (and he does NOT want that). Not exactly a conventional relationship, ha! But we're under no illusions on where we both stand re: our future. That's the point I was trying to illustrate.

So... that's my two penny's worth. Reading 'tenants in common/leave equity to each other' made me do a little wince for some reason.

I think, especially given what you've said about you sending a higher bills contribution and him always sending the extra back, that if you lending him this money was your suggestion not his, if he's either suggested or is at least happy to get something in writing that it's a loan-I'd be okay with doing this here

IMO if he was trying to take advantage of you, he would've happily taken your higher bill contributions for a start (especially when you sent it feeling it was fair) and the fact he didn't is a green flag for him trying to be a good guy.

I agree.

Get a legal loan agreement for all of it, otherwise you have no protection.

Yeah listen to the people with no horse in the race here.

my husband is SUPER generous. He got help to buy his first house from his parents and made £60K profit from it. He bought me a stunning (STUNNINGGGGG) engagement ring with about 25% of that and a trip to Dubai 👀🥹

I saved by myself all my own deposit for our house while living with him (so sadly no growth, just hard earned cash!) and my half towards renovations (which were double what we though to just furnish a new build!!), legal fees etc. I have a good job, have just paid for us to go on a luxury holiday in July and have just treated him to some Tom Ford aftershave etc, so we BOTH spend money and while he doesn’t regret the splurge on getting engaged, BUT he has mentioned in passing recently “well if I hadn’t spent all that money on the ring or the holiday I’d have money to go towards our holiday”. It comes from guilt and I’d never even asked him for an expensive ring, I actually saw a vintage one just like mine for £2.5K and I loved, but he went off and got a bespoke one made. 🤷🏻‍♀️😂

my entire point being - we are literally best friends and this man is my soulmate, I trust him with my life AND my money and we’re both on good incomes, but money and who has it can come up in strange ways when one person seems to have more than the other and you feel owed something.

How is it easier to pay tens of thousands in interest more than you need to over the lifetime of the mortgage?

All you need is a simple declaration of trust which states your deposit is ringfenced then everything after that is 50/50. Any solicitor can do this for you, cost is minimal.

Put the numbers into a mortgage calculator and you'll be shocked at the difference.

Your BF doesn't sound financially literate, which is worrying.

I think your dynamic sounds amazing firstly but I’d just say:

If they broke up, the house would get sold 50:50 and she’d need to also enforce the loan agreement for the £6.5K. She’s said she’s had this with an ex and had to take him to court (as a lawyer myself, what a waste of money!!)

The other circumstance is if one of them dies. In that circumstance, her boyfriend and her have chosen that they’d be happy for the other to get the entire property, likely to avoid family kicking the remaining partner out to get their inheritance. For the loan, they could formally agree it comes out the estate if not paid back. Again, she could face objections from his family. (If she gets the house, she may decide to not chase that debt)

The final option is that she loans him this money in good faith she will be returned £6.5K back, but they stay together and “life gets in the way”. He feels skint from home renovations and with less money left in savings than she has so “why is she chasing it from him when she has money still”. Or he doesn’t want to pay back all in cash and just covers her payment for things and tries best to keep track but she’d really rather have her cash back towards the house renovations. I hope they stay together forever and have a long and happy life, but she’s been here before and would be naive to do it twice. He sounds like a nice guy and I’m sure would pay her back, but in my view, now is not the time to spend £6.5K on a bike when you have renovations of “potentially” £20K each to fund, which could be a lot more and you’ll be sat staring at his heart bike wishing you could sell it for your plumbing! 😂

He’s fallen on his feet with you hasn’t he?

I would lend it to him

So you are putting £20K more into the house and lending him £6,500 for a motorbike, but he hasn’t even bought you a ring and proposed marriage. No. You’ve lived together long enough to know whether this is a serious lifelong commitment suitable for raising a family. If it is, I’d want the engagement and wedding date first, the house second and the motorbike only when he can afford it. Putting the motorbike at the top of the list opens the door to him expecting to put his needs first.

Hang on I changed my mind I’ve just read your previous posts

I had to borrow from a trust in mine and my sisters names. I had a lawyer draw up an agreement and how much interest I would pay. Lend him the money but get it in writing.

Can you get a simple contract in place? Doesn’t have to be formal with solicitors involved etc but if you both sign it etc gives you both something to fall back on in case anything happens?

I did this with my husband when he lent me money to buy a car. Yes we’re married but our finances are very much separate as that’s what works for us 😊 (been married over 10 years)

I would be very careful taking out a new credit card whilst in the process of buying a house.

I have a blanket rule that I don’t give men money.

If he needs to borrow the money from you then he cannot afford it.

Life insurance with riding expensive powerful bikes as a hobby? Aye.

This is a valid question with the risk that comes with riding motorcycles.

You are not his bank.

This!

"Buying a bike is not really a priority or a necessity when you’re in the process of buying a house."

@DAISYBELLAxx

I agree with this. Why is he even thinking of buying a £6,500 toy when you're buying a house together? Are you buying yourself an expensive new toy too? No, didn't think so.

You've already said the house needs work doing. Your £40,000 will go nowhere. Renovations always end up costing more than you think. Then you find something else needs doing or you need a new boiler, a new washing machine; it goes on.

And how will you feel if you keep having to dig into your savings because he has blown his?

Nope. Tell him to shelve the bike for now. He needs to concentrate on the house.