Overpayers beware!!!

jonnydoe

Interesting (and mildly depressing) post I must say, thanks to all! You've put me off marriage for life now! lol

jobbingmusician

Let's forget about the romance stuff (actually I am appalled by the 'his and mine' analysis). On the mathematical side, I have a question for the OP.

You are overpaying in order to pay the mortgage off in 5 years' time. Atm, your husband is paying half of the mortgage. If your finances are very separate, as they seem to be, will he continue to make these mortgage payments, to YOU, in 5 years' time when the mortgage has been paid off due to your overpayments?

trackaccessgirl

Interesting thread. When I read the original post I did think "My goodness woman- you shouldn't be married, it doesn't sound like love". I am a realist though and I agree a little with the poster bl2 upon reading more. UNTIL you have kids. Pre-kids, if one partner is a hopeless spender and the other saves and is sensible and practical, why should the saver end up losing money and the spender gaining.
My boyfriend is hopeless with money, he's 3k in debt and I just switched it to an m and s 0% interest card (balance transfers only) and he's managed to !!!!!! that up by spending on the card (the 0% DOES NOT appy to new purchases). I could easily wipe out his debt with my savings but I wouldn't even consider it...no way and I wouldn't expect him to do that for me. I've seen how he is with money and if he listened to my advice he'd be debt free in 6 months.
I'm not worried bout the future with him as we each own our own properties and his has trebled in value so on selling would wipe out his debt no prob. If we buy together and split up then I would not want to take more money than I was entitled to (he would put in alot more than me). However if we had kids it would be another story.
BUT Bl2, it was just the manner in which the original post was worded and written, it comes across very strongly and most people who are married own a house together, so some might presume it was a tactical decision by you to cut him out, whereas as you later disclose it was his choice. I do think that some things you have highlighted were lead someone to question whether it will work, even down to him refusing to put his name on the house.
But as has been stated, even if the money was sitting in a savings account 1)he could still claim, 2)it would be up to you to prove to a judge that you put in more and he has been spending recklessly.
So I still think you are better off 1)making your overpayments 2)keeping up the communication to try to ensure your marriage does work.

Rimo2021

When you marry someone you 'take them on' totally. Financially, physically and emotionally.

You see your earnings as yours but in fact they belong to you both. The fact that your husband seems to have no say on how the money is spent is not ideal.

Consider the situation that one partner works and earns the money while the other stays home and does the parenting, housework, maintenance etc etc as well as supporting the salaried partner emotionally (note the word salaried not working as both partners are working).
Would you say the money and the assets bought with that money belong to the salaried partner only? I wouldn't. I would say that each partner contributed 50% of the 'work' and the name on the payslip is irrelevant.

If you became ill would that be your problem because it is your body that has 'failed' or would it be both your problem because you have taken each other 'in sickness and in health' ?

I know your situation is not the same as the above but I think you need to get your head around the fact that divorce courts now consider other contributions to a relationship as equal to financial contributions. If your partner is not contributing 50% to your relationship (and I don't mean 50% financially) then you should address this problem and tell him your concerns. If you can't sort out your relationship to the point where you feel you are both contributing equally in whatever way then maybe you do need to consider separating sooner rather than later so that you are no longer supporting someone who is not 'pulling their weight'.

Bil2

I've decided that I'm going to withdraw MY overpayments.

If I save the money, he may be able to claim 50% IF we were to divorce, but at least I would be able to pay him off in cash rather than risking the forced sale of my home or an extended mortgage (my LTV will be pushed to the max when I withdraw MY overpayments because I'm withdrawing MY deposit too).

That's it.

For the rose-tinted amongst you, may you continue to have perfect partners and never for a single day forget how lucky you are.

Bil2

Old_No.7

Gosh, this is an interesting thread! Do i get this right: you'd rather pay lots of interest to the bank than run the risk of having to pay (probably a similar amount) to your husband in the eventuality that you guys split up. Which might never happen. I don't think I would chose to do it like that, but I sympathise with your situation: when 2 people have opposing ideas on financial matters it can make living together very hard (isn't money matters one of the main points of arguments in most marriages? maybe the way you do it avoids arguments to an extend?). It doesn't mean you love him any less: it's hard enough to find someone who ticks all the boxes romantically, sexually, etc AND has the same attitude to money. It probably comes last on many people's wishlist for a potential partner...

But people can change: as they say on the debt-free wannabe board, your husband probably hasn't had his lightbulb moment yet, and you have. Who knows, he might come round to your way of thinking eventually. My older sister completely changed her money habits (but it took a good few years and many many arguments) and came round to her husband's penny-pinching way of living: she outdoes him now! Whereas my younger sister and her husband have always agreed on money: spend as much as you can as fast as you can. They are now hugely in debt, but don't have a problem with it (never any arguments but they've divorced now anyway, and split the debt: shows you can never tell what will happen). My BF and I are buying together, and in the year of saving up for that have found out that (luckily) we share views on money, but I could have easily ended up with an overspender or a penny pincher and either option would have been very difficult to live with for me. You still love the person though, so what can you do?

You're right to think it all through carefully: it's just a different approach than others might have, and that might make it hard for them to understand. Do whatever works for you. I wouldn't take the comments on the state of your marriage too seriously: no one but the 2 people in it really know what is going on, but people love to speculate (I know I do, haha!).

tawnyowls

ceegee wrote:

You thank God, yet you do not accept that marriage is "until death us do part".

Er, for whom, exactly? Only if you get married in a Christian church - if you're a member of most other religions you have to promise no such thing, and if you have a civil marriage that particular phraseology is specifically excluded precisely because it is religious and only representative of a small part of the married population. I respect your beliefs, but kindly don't assume that everyone shares them.

tawnyowls

Bil2 wrote:

So my mortgage debt is: £100,000
My savings are: £40,000
Therefore, on paper my assets in savings would be minus £60,000.

No, not necessarily - you're ignoring the equity you have in the house.

Say your house is worth £250,000, and we'll keep the other figs the same.
250,000-100,000 = 150,000; that is what that asset (the house) is worth.
Hence, with your savings, total assets are now 190,000. [This, BTW, would apply even if you withdraw your overpayments and have savings instead, so there really is no point - you're reacting to a situation that might never happen, you'll be losing out on the interest you would have saved if you carry on overpaying, and if you have a mortgage where you can withdraw your overpayment (which presumably you do seeing as you're planning to withdraw the money), why not just to that if the worst comes to the worst, and not before?]

Anyhow, to get back to the above figures, obviously, were it to be a 50:50 split, then you'd have to find 95 grand from somewhere to pay off your OH. As I said, however, that is unlikely to be the case. It would be far more likely that the assets would be split in a ratio dependent on who had contributed more (financially or otherwise). To give you an example, my neighbour owned a house worth £230K with her husband. When they divorced, he was awarded only £45K because she was the main breadwinner and although they contributed equally to the mortgage, she paid all the other bills.

Bil2 wrote:

As my husband has no debts (none which I know about at least anyway), would this mean that he is 'wealthier' than me as far as assets go? Does that mean that I would not have to pay him anything and may even get out of having to pay him half the equity of the property?

If he has debts (or assets) they should be included in the overall reckoning of what joint assets there are, as above (eg his debts of 40K would negate your savings of 40K, therefore assets are £150K).

Bil2 wrote:

This means that I am fully liable for all the mortgage payments- if he refused to pay or simply moved out, there would be nothing I could do about it. In addition to overpayments and basic monthly payments to the mortgage, I also pay for the house contents insurance, the buildings insurance, life insurance and mortgage payment protection insurance. If he were to decide to divorce me, even though I soley am legally responsible for the mortgage (he's signed a Deed of Consent)- he could make a claim on half the equity! T
Bil2

Yes you are, and yes he could, and yes it's not a bit fair. As I said, however, the law is generally not quite such a donkey (can you believe the three-letter equivalent of this was censored?) as that.

Bear in mind, I'm not a lawyer. I don't honestly think you do have much to worry about, but it clearly is bothering you, and a couple of hundred quid spent on getting proper legal advice might be well spent to put your mind at rest.

jackieblue

Bil2 wrote:

That's exactly the way that it SHOULD be- but by law we're married, so the starting point will always be a 50-50 split. Even if my husband didn't want 50% of my assets, he would be legally advised to claim 50% and I don't know whether or not he would succumb to the temptation.

Bil2 - I'm with you and nobody should rely on love and promises (been married 19 years). Could you not become tenants in common with the percentage split based on what additional percentage your overpayments entitle you to. This would change over time obviously but room for some growth could be built into the split. Not sure how viable it is. Years ago I had a friend who paid all the household bills while he paid the mortgage. Guess who the house belonged to when it came to dividing up. Admittedly it was a long time ago and in Belgium, but it definitely wasn't fair and fairness is the most important point - even more important than love and promises as far as I'm concerned.

Bil2

tawnyowls wrote:

No, not necessarily - you're ignoring the equity you have in the house.

Say your house is worth £250,000, and we'll keep the other figs the same.
250,000-100,000 = 150,000; that is what that asset (the house) is worth.
Hence, with your savings, total assets are now 190,000. [This, BTW, would apply even if you withdraw your overpayments and have savings instead, so there really is no point - you're reacting to a situation that might never happen, you'll be losing out on the interest you would have saved if you carry on overpaying, and if you have a mortgage where you can withdraw your overpayment (which presumably you do seeing as you're planning to withdraw the money), why not just to that if the worst comes to the worst, and not before?]

Re-read my post. Ater taking my overpayments out, the mortgage amount will equal the original purchase amount and the worth of the property (it was valued in March when I re-mortgaged) has only raised by £10,000.

Therefore, from the property equity, that would only be £5,000 each.

If my savings are less than my mortgage debt, then I'll be in negative equity. My partner will have more wealth than me as he doesn't have any debts.

I couldn't sleep last night and I spent the whole time going over this in my head.


I genuinely did intend and was fully on track to pay off the mortgage in 5 years time. If my OH gets his act together (i.e. agrees to join the morgage in a fair and legally binding Tenants in Common agreement), then I'll simply put the money back into the mortgage (despite my quips about going on a spending spree, I will keep the money in a high interest- 4.50%- easy access savings account).

The ball's in his court. Everything's been explained to him, but he doen't want to know. He's actually sulking because his mortgage payments will rise when I take the overpayments out! (his rise is only £35 per month before any of you get too outraged- we will both be paying exactly the same amount 50-50).

Bil2