Living costs

[Sunshinewindows]

hello

I’d like some advice please.

my boyfriend moved in 3 months ago, we’ve been dating a year. We both own our houses and he rents out a room in his. we both pay our own bills etc to our own houses that we have separate mortgages on. His is considerably lower than mine but we both earn the same.

the long term plan is to consolidate into one house by pooling equity - even though mine is probably 100k higher.

since he’s fully moved into my house should he be paying rent/bills to me? We share all food costs bits that’s it.

thank you.

Have your bills gone up since he moved in? I’d be shocked if they haven’t.

Yes, he should pay you. He's receiving income from his house and he should pay his way. Is he going to rent his whole place out while he lives at yours?

If you’re going to merge into one house and trial living together the house you’re not in should be rented out in full to cover the costs of the bills he would be paying if living there and then you should be splitting the cost of the house you’re living in together.

That way no one is paying more than the other and everything is being covered.

You should trial this for at least a year before you start looking into selling both houses and buying one together and even then you should be having legal papers drawn up so that both of your deposits you bring to the new property are ring fenced and then if you have to sell you walk away with your original money and then split any profit 50/50