OH inheriting house

ViktorOnopko · 6 September 2017 at 8:55AM

Hi all,

I wanted to split this out from my other thread on inheritance.

I've been with my OH for almost 10 years, we're happily unmarried and have no kids. We've always rented. Financial situation to date has been mixed, OH earns ~21k p/a whilst I'm on £59k p/a. She had no savings whilst I have around £37k in the bank (in part due to a recent redundancy).

Her mum passed away at the start of August, no father or siblings so estate passes to OH which includes the house.

The house is with ~£380k with approx £35k to pay off the mortgage. We plan to move in to the house because a) it's nice and in an area which is seeing good house price increase b) OH wants to and c) we can pay off mortgage and live mortgage free. She is 28, I'm 36.

I'd always thought we'd buy together. No we'll live in what is her house which I have no ownership rights too.

We've discussed this a bit but aren't sure what our options are.

Would I benefit from paying off a large slice of the outstanding mortgage? This would give me a small % of ownership plus would maybe be better than the current 1.5% savings I've got the money in.

Would we be better off using her cash inheritance (£250-300k) to pay off the mortgage and I use my savings plus extra income to work together on furnishing the house?

We plan to empty it and redecorate before moving in. We want to make it our home and see it as somewhere we'll live for a few years whilst we make it nicer and see the value grow. After that? Who knows, it depends how much we enjoy the house and how the location works for us.

I don't really want to feel like a lodger but realise that I cannot do much that would make it feel as much my house as my OH.

Advice welcome.

xylophone · 6 September 2017 at 9:06AM

Had you looked into obtaining a mortgage so that you can purchase a 50% interest in the house?

Malthusian · 6 September 2017 at 9:24AM

You could always get married. Unless she's afraid you're a gold digger playing a very long game.

george4064 · 6 September 2017 at 9:42AM

When I first read this I thought it said 'We are unhappily married'!!!!!

:rotfl:

Glad to find out that is not the case!

phillw · 6 September 2017 at 10:21AM

ViktorOnopko wrote: »

I'd always thought we'd buy together. No we'll live in what is her house which I have no ownership rights too.

We've discussed this a bit but aren't sure what our options are.

Would I benefit from paying off a large slice of the outstanding mortgage? This would give me a small % of ownership plus would maybe be better than the current 1.5% savings I've got the money in.

She has a house, you earn a lot more than her.

If you both still want to keep finances separate then you should put your money into another property and rent it out, pay half the bills and some money towards rent, forget all the "but you earn more than me" arguments and go dutch for everything. She pays the outstanding mortgage on her own.

Or get married, 50:50 split on all income and assets.

Everything else is complicated and runs the risk of her pulling the "whats yours is mine, whats mine is mine".

macman · 6 September 2017 at 10:22AM

Whatever else you do, you should get your wills sorted out, if you haven't already. Should your partner pre-decease you, the estate will pass down under the intestacy rules and you may find yourself homeless.
You are doubtless aware of this, but it's worth emphasising.

C_Mababejive · 6 September 2017 at 10:29AM

Of course you know this but do not put any money into that house without having your interest in it registered !

A good solution would be to tidy up the house then next spring, put it on the market. OH can rake off the proceeds and then you can both jointly buy a property elsewhere,,,case closed,happy days.

Audaxer · 6 September 2017 at 1:15PM

C_Mababejive wrote: »

Of course you know this but do not put any money into that house without having your interest in it registered !

A good solution would be to tidy up the house then next spring, put it on the market. OH can rake off the proceeds and then you can both jointly buy a property elsewhere,,,case closed,happy days.

Presumably they would have to take out a joint mortgage to do this, whereas now they have a mortgage-free property. If she did sell the inherited property, she would then have to decide how to invest the proceeds of the property as well as her substantial cash inheritance. I think it would be better to have a mortgage-free property, however if they do want to buy a new property jointly, another option could be for the OH to rent out her inherited property. She could then pay half the mortgage from her rental income and he could pay the other half from his salary.

le_loup · 6 September 2017 at 1:45PM

What problems younger people give themselves by refusing to get married.

es5595 · 6 September 2017 at 1:48PM

You seem surprised that she doesn't want to put a house, (that on her current salary she has little chance of ever affording) in joint names with you. Is she the one who doesn't want to get married or have you persuaded her there's no reason to?

You say you've been together ten years, you earn three times what she does, and you've got savings but she's got nothing. Are those savings in joint names? Maybe if they were before she suddenly got this windfall she'd be much more prepared to share the windfall.

From what you've said she doesn't sound like she's in a financially outstanding position and maybe your prior behaviour towards money/shared savings/looking after each other in the future/etc has understandably made her very reticent to share her windfall.

I had a partner who made a lot out of how much more he earned, how he'd got savings, his previous failed marriage meant he didn't want to marry again etc which I went along with for a while until I realised that he was, possibly unintentionally, looking after his own interests and feathering his nest with no care for mine. And that's not what a partnership/relationship is about.

ViktorOnopko · 6 September 2017 at 2:03PM

es5595 wrote: »

You seem surprised that she doesn't want to put a house, (that on her current salary she has little chance of ever affording) in joint names with you. Is she the one who doesn't want to get married or have you persuaded her there's no reason to?

You say you've been together ten years, you earn three times what she does, and you've got savings but she's got nothing. Are those savings in joint names? Maybe if they were before she suddenly got this windfall she'd be much more prepared to share the windfall.

From what you've said she doesn't sound like she's in a financially outstanding position and maybe your prior behaviour towards money/shared savings/looking after each other in the future/etc has understandably made her very reticent to share her windfall.

I had a partner who made a lot out of how much more he earned, how he'd got savings, his previous failed marriage meant he didn't want to marry again etc which I went along with for a while until I realised that he was, possibly unintentionally, looking after his own interests and feathering his nest with no care for mine. And that's not what a partnership/relationship is about.

Hi there - I think you've misunderstood. There's no issue here, I haven't asked her for our names to be put jointly on the house so that's not the context of the question.

We've had separate bank accounts but have always split purchases in proportion to earnings for things like bills, rent etc.

This is more a - what are the options in this situation. OH raised it with me rather than vice versa in a "What could we do to give you some ownership of this house?". On my part, it just felt a little strange in that it would be me living in her house.

Thanks to others for the advice/input.

OH inheriting house

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