question:- I'm mortgage free. should my girlfriend pay me rent ?

[Deleted User]

Sav wrote: »

Put your property up for rent and buy somewhere else together. That way you share a mortgage and build a life together as a partnership. But have the extra rental income that you can do with as you wish.

I was going to suggest the same thing - that way you both start from the same point.

live_wire_2

I can see your dilemma! i do think perhaps u should charge your girlfriend sumthing, however think of this? for example your girlfriend lives with you for the next 5 years lets say and u suddenly split up. What does your girlfriend get out of it? if u had a mortgage together and both paid then spilt up, u both would split the profit. I would not be happy with walking away with nothing after paying money for those years. I have a friend who has her mortgage and has been paying it for 10 years. A year ago her boyfriend moved in and he pays to cover cost of food and bills, around £80 per week, altho he eats that much. Then he might pay for nights out. The reason why she does this is because she doesnt want him contributing towards the mortgage that she has worked hard for, plus she has just had to pay her ex partner out of £20 grand. i suggest u think hard about it and perhaps not take rent but see it as charging her on a weekly basis for living there, covering costs of bills and food.Hope this makes sense. Good luck:)

No_Future

I'd be happy to split bills, food etc if I was the woman in that situation.

If my bf suggested I pay him rent for a property he already owns, I'd be out of there! I couldn't believe the question being posed.

Also, they are not married so the GF pays rent for x years and if they split up she leaves with nothing, despite having paid ''rent'' all those years

No_Future

epm-84 wrote: »

Because it's legal and usual practice to ask for rent off someone living in a house you own, it isn't legal and usual practice for her to be a prostitute.

Selling sex is not illegal

SKIPPY

No_Future wrote: »

I'd be happy to split bills, food etc if I was the woman in that situation.

If my bf suggested I pay him rent for a property he already owns, I'd be out of there! I couldn't believe the question being posed.

Also, they are not married so the GF pays rent for x years and if they split up she leaves with nothing, despite having paid ''rent'' all those years

I too agree that you should split bills, food etc. The rent is a tricky one, although you could look at it as a way of saving together and if anything did go wrong split it.

As No future said if GF paid rent and you split up she would leave with nothing despite having paid rent all those years - if you rented a property and then moved on you would still leave with nothing as the house wouldn't belong to you - it's rented! Although there is the contents, furniture etc to think about!

gitw

erm, what a tight-wad ;0)

firstly there are the legal implications -accept rent without a tenancy agreement and you have a sitting tenant and which has it's own complications. if you do have a tenancy agreement then you would have to give notice to quit if things went wrong, that could lead to an uncomfortable situation. also tenants rights regarding repairs and looking after the property to consider

but in all honesty - if you 'love' this person then why on earth do you want to make a profit from the relationship - thats called a business arrangement - if you are moving in together them presumably it is because you forsee spending the rest of your lives togehter (and if not why are you letting her move in) so anything you do should be for both of your futures - claming rent of your partner is for your future only...

you should be splitting all household outgoings down the middle - that is fair. and perhaps you could both agree to put a certain amount of money, perhaps equivalent to what you both would have had to pay in rent, into a joint account to be used for 'future' things i.e holidays, babies etc

personally I wouldnt take the rent - I had a situation with my ex of several years who refused to move out of my rented property because he had paid a contribution to it - never again

scrabbly

I think you are getting bogged down with all the negative replies. Why, if your girlfriend is working, should she not make a contribution to the household?
It used to be called "housekeeping".
Since it looks likely that one of you will have to move - why not both start afresh with a joint mortgage etc. and go from there? You can pay your mortgage costs from your original property being rented out. Then you will both be living in the "real world" and it will be completely fair to you both.

justwondering25 wrote: »

Okay , so should my girlfriend pay rent ?

we've had a debate about this tonight, she seems to think that I'm profiting from the situation ! , basically to put some figures into this, similar property to rent 600-650 , propery value 140k , I said I would not expect half of what the property would rent for , but I said how about let's prentend half the value was in the bank in a high interest account at say 4% , work out the interest and divide by 12 = 250 a month ( plus half of bills) , she still seems to think I'm profiting ! to me it seems fair , she does except that she should pay something , but has yet to come up with the figure she has in mind.

considering I had to work hard to pay off the mortgage , what should I do ?

she also posed the question , what if we where married with 2 children would you I still expect her to pay , after a short thought I said Yes !

well am I been a right old meanie or am I using plain old common sense !

like they say love don't pay the rent , not even on a paid for house etc ! I.M.H.O

_____________________________________________

Insert by Martin

Thanks to justwondering for allowing us to use this as a Money Moral Dilemma - not an easy one - both sides have a lot to go for it. I'm glad to see a question like this - too many move in without considering the financial implications of a relationship and often its one of the biggest causes of it going wrong - plaudits to just wondering for thinking of it.

One note, unlike the theoretical MMDs this is about a real couple, so please be sensitive to that in your answers.

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update for those that may not have time to read the whole thread i posted this on page 13:-

Hi , I'm the original poster , just to make clear a few things for those that have not yet read the whole post.

I live in leeds , i'm self sufficiant , i have ./ soon to of had my own business for 15 profitable years , basically going to adapt my business to be soley internet based , so i'm going to start up a new business and leave the old retail business with my current business partner , the business has no dedt.

I got a ten year mortgage in my early twentys and paid it all off v.quickly , my girlfriend whom i love dealry lives in the west midlands , she does not want to move to leeds (dont blame her lol) because she wants to be close to her family , i visit her every weekend , each way the trip is around 25.00 in diesel etc , no complaints , worth mentioning to show i'm not tight fisted , i owe nobody nothing , no loans , dedts of any kind and i have good savings , one of the many reason i visit her every weekend and not her to me , is that she has 2 lovely cats , that dont take too kindly to travelling 2 hours 15 mins each way , dont blame them.

My girlfriend is currently renting.

I posted this on page 9 :-

Sorry for not logging in for a while ,Ive read through all the comments , ideas and sugguestions and ive put thought into the ideas offered and picked out the best bits for the solution, thank you all , i'm glad to let you all know that me and my girlfriend have pretty much come to a happy and what appears to the two of us to be a amicable agreement in principle.

Basically :-

i would buy a cheaper investment property down in the west midlands (rent my place in leeds also), with a good sized deposit , she would not pay me rent , but based on the market value of the property to rent in its area for e.g 500 , she would put away in a joint account 250.00 each month , this would after say a 2-3 year period give us a deposit for another place , i would then rent out my investment property and we would use the rent/us fund deposit for a joint mortgage , if we did split in the period before we bought a place , then the money would be divided equally among us , which is kinda fair , my girlfriend would not leave with nothing and i would perhaps not feel aggrieved at how the not paying rent idea worked out.

Bills would be 50/50 and my girlfriend would (hope not if things went wrong) have a claim on my property etc. , which she clearly has stated to me she would not want to take anything of mine anyway.

The joint fund can also be used for emergency repairs etc , but with the investment property been mine , i would not expect any of are joint rent/saving funds to go into the doing up of the place.

if when we choose to buy are first joint property , the potential theoretical joint sum after 3 years would be a quiet healthy £9000 (plus interest) we could then if we choose to add equal extra amounts to the £9000 to up are deposit to suit are needs .

We feel this is win win situation for us both , my girlfriend is not stuck in a rent trap and i feel the money is going towards are future for the greater good of us.

I love my Girlfriend , But i feel it is best to sort out the business side of any relationship, business or private life , not thinking through and discussing the idea of paying some form of rent is perhaps to some a elephant in the room , i dont like the smell of elephant dung ! and i dont want it living with us , If any of you feel this is a perhaps a tad cold to have to broach such a subject then that is your choice. But We felt after talking the situation through for the 2nd time the idea will pay dividends and add strenght to are relationship in the long run and will add a firmer base for us.

In conclusion i cant help but feel ,Life is a buisness , Money is the building bricks , Love is the mortar. IMHO

hayleythedaisy

Glad you got this sorted.
My 2p. If a couple love eachother and want to leave with eachother and there aren't massive pressures to pay money then you pay what you can afford and keep it simple. If she only earnt £600 but half of the bills was £599 would you really leave her with £1 for herself? I'd guess not. If it were me who owned the house I would be be quite happy to say pay a proportion of the bills and we'll both save what we can a month for our next place together.
Money is just another thing in life that some people are blessed to have/earn alot of and some people don't. While I appreciate people work hard for their money if I had a higher earning potential or more invested than my OH I wouldn't expect him to match what I could pay.

bonniemorris

My reply is to give advice to your girlfriend and it would be for her to run as fast as she can, away from you!
In my experience if a man can't share his "wallet" with you he is never going to be generous in the all the other areas that really matter in a relationship!
and yes you are a tight wad!
I hope your house will comfort you when you are alone, because with your attitude to money, you will end up alone.

ducatidemon100

Not much of a dilemma. Maybe she should charge you for sex?