Some advice please on next move!

nick1977

Hi all

A bit of history before we start. My Partner and I currently live separately - she rents a 2 bed place with her 7 yr old daughter, and I have a mortgage on a 1 bed maisonette that I owner occupy.
We decided that as her contract was due for renewal that we would look to move in together (share a rented house) at the end of May so I have obtained a consent to lease for my place, and she gave notice that she would be ending the tenancy agreement.
However today she has just heard that they have an announcement on restructuring at work on Wednesday and we're worried she is going to lose her job.

Now the question is, what is the better course of action to follow? My job is relatively secure (no talks of redundancies at all) and I can expect to be earn about £28k (gross) next tax year.

So should we:

a) Go ahead and move in together
b) Try to etxend her rental agreement, and stay in separate houses

My heart obviously wants option a, so I need someone to tell me what the "head" decision is!

The estimate for my rental yield is that I should make £130pcm more in rent than my mortgage currently is . Other halfs rent is currently £700pcm and the places we are looking at are around £900pcm

I suppose it really comes down to what benefit entitlements there are? Our overheads would obviously be lower by living together, but if my Partner was out of work whilst living alone with her daughter, I would presume her benefit entitlement would be higher.

Anyone got any useful tips, or an idea what our benefit entitlement would be in each case? My Partner would be actively looking for work if she did lose her job.

Many thanks for any advice
Nick

Oldernotwiser

Why don't you move in together in her 2 bed place and put off looking for something bigger/better until she gets another job? That's £200 per month better off for a start.

nick1977

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

Why don't you move in together in her 2 bed place and put off looking for something bigger/better until she gets another job? That's £200 per month better off for a start.

Was thinking about this, but her place is a small 2 bed flat that is crammed already, without considering all of my stuff! It just hasn't got the space unfortunately, otherwise we would've probably taken that as an option even before the threat of job loss.

Thanks for the suggestion though
Nick

Oldernotwiser

nick1977 wrote: »

Was thinking about this, but her place is a small 2 bed flat that is crammed already, without considering all of my stuff! It just hasn't got the space unfortunately, otherwise we would've probably taken that as an option even before the threat of job loss.

Thanks for the suggestion though
Nick

Might be cheaper to put your stuff in storage rather than pay the extra rent; just a thought.