Buying a house - first steps

[Epimer]

@meowington

Things change but equity will always be equity

[hip_young_gunslinger]

If my wife and I ever got round to buying a house, we’d only be able to entirely because of her personal savings and stock she’s acquired through her job. I’d have zero imput outside the very small portion of my salary she saves each month.

If we broke up years down the line would I expect to take half of the value of the home that she essentially bought? I mean, I don’t think I’d really deserve it, even though we’d enter into the purchase as a partnership.

[NickDS]

I guess if say one person owned a property already and the other didn’t but sold it and used that to buy a house together I can see them wanting to protect that investment as if they did split up then they will have lost a lot. Of course if you’re talking about raising kids and putting careers on hold or paying in equally it’s all a bit different. Gonna depend on circumstances really.

[GEOFF]

Haha I didn’t ACTUALLY say that! In any case we’ll be going in as joint tenants when we buy so my participation in this debate is moot tbh!

[meowington]

Isn’t it different if you’re married anyway?

That’s why us unmarried bitches got to protect our shitttt.

[hip_young_gunslinger]

Yeah probably, but that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily fair (also complicated by the fact we have a kid too).

[Epimer]

My other angle on this is that we’re both pretty au fait with putting legal agreements into place for work stuff, and appreciate that having them in place just means that you’ve got a fallback in place if a relationship - any relationship - breaks down.

Or in other words, a contract tells you what to do if you can’t otherwise come to an agreement between yourselves. It’s just there if you need it.

[TheWza]

Investment

Not even “house”.

It’s fucked up that it can’t just be called a home, and that’s that.

What a world at live in.

[hip_young_gunslinger]

This reminds me, when I was last with my parents my dad insisted on having a deep conversation about preparing their will, and how I felt about a three-way split (I have two brothers), given that they’ve already invested a lot of money in a business that my brother co-runs and will presumably take over in future. Shit is complicated (obviously I said I didn’t care and didn’t expect anything at all, it’s all theirs to do what they like with, but it’s easy to see how this stuff ends up fucking off a lot of people).

[TheWza]

So… with this investment… which is special and separate from a bunch of other stuff that people contribute to a relationship… when one partner puts a disproportionate amount of effort into some decorating or DIY, thus increasing the value of the special asset, is the ownership split renegotiated to reflect that person’s contribution to the investment?

No joke. I’m absolutely intrigued by this other world that exists that I know nothing about.

[Epimer]

Pay the help to do it, obviously.

[hip_young_gunslinger]

You’ve surely read about high profile divorce cases. It all depends on how much you want to fight and how good your legal representation is, but everything is up for grabs.

[Raanraals]

I think once you’re in co-occupation/ownership, it makes sense that all money spent on your lives and home together going forward is for both of your benefit, whoever provides it. I’m not convinced about splitting your contributions on the way in equally, though. What if one partner puts in, say, £100,000 and the other nothing? If they split up after a few years, I can’t see how it’s fair for the latter effectively to get a £50,000 windfall.

[GEOFF]

No joke. I’m absolutely intrigued by this other world that exists that I know nothing about.

Stop feigning ignorance and just say “I believe I have superior moral judgement on this matter”. Would save time.

[plasticniki]

which is special and separate from a bunch of other stuff that people contribute to a relationship

When Mike and I were chatting about this he basically said that how is it any different from splitting the cost of a dinner or a holiday or whatever?

(Except in those situations you’d probably split it 50:50, but because this is a much bigger purchase, it might make sense for some to split it according to how much cash you put in originally)

I think personally, our finances have been so intertwined for years - I have zero concept of us having separate money. We have no separate bank accounts, even though we earn quite different amounts. We have individual savings accounts cos the ones we have won’t let you have them jointly, but whatever’s in them is “our” money. It wouldn’t even occur to me that what I’m earning is “mine” and what he’s earning is “his”, it’s just all ours.

That’s just how we work I guess.

[Matt_was_taken]

what would happen if you wanted to spend £2000 on a modular synth/new bike?

[plasticniki]

I’d say “hey I wanna buy a new bike, we can afford it” and he’d say “cool” and then I’d buy it.

[meowington]

There was a story recently of a boyfriend winning a payout after he did extensive renovation work on his girlfriends flat. I can’t find the story tho.

[safebruv]

[NickDS]

Is this cos I said investment in my post? I should have said ‘cash’. Once the home has been sold the first person in my hypothetical scenario now doesn’t have enough cash to buy another home like the one they had before the relationship.

The rest was a bunch of caveats and a dunno basically.