'common law wife' ? ...

james3333

YES, clearly a touchy subject for many. i understand many people having issue with my 'attitude' but having being burned once, i feel i wanted 'the facts' rather than leave it to chance, sorry thats what i thought was the responsible thing to do.
i have worked hard for my property and dont want to loose it through negligence to 'the law'....
i do trust my GF, but as i have mentioned in previous posts it concerns me she has 25k debt which is NOTHING to do with me and i dont want to get pulled into sorting it out!

cheers

JimmyTheWig

The thing is, James, by her moving in with you you become a single unit. Your home becomes the family home. How you choose to split bills and chores will be for the two of you to work out between you. I would like to imagine that you'd do this each according to their ability to pay, but that's up to you.

If you split up a few years down the line I certainly don't think the she should be entitled to half the house. But I don't see why she shouldn't be entitled to half of any increase in value in the house from when she moved in to when she moves out.
I don't see how that is anything but fair.

lilac_lady

The Scottish law regarging common law partners changed in 2006 and "biedy - ins" (sp) have no legal right here either now.

TrickyDicky101

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

But I don't see why she shouldn't be entitled to half of any increase in value in the house from when she moved in to when she moves out.
I don't see how that is anything but fair.

Really? So if James has an ISA with £10,000 sat in it at the point at which this lady moves into his house, any future interest earned on it should be split 50:50 with said lady?

That's something for nothing again which in my opinion is not justified.

James has paid for the asset (his house), has accepted all the risks on said asset and should be entitled to all the rewards flowing from it.

JimmyTheWig

TrickyDicky101 wrote: »

Really? So if James has an ISA with £10,000 sat in it at the point at which this lady moves into his house, any future interest earned on it should be split 50:50 with said lady?

To some extent, yes. They are a unit.
I would say that any interest earned on this ISA counts as James' income. Which, in turn, is the unit's income.
They are (quite sensibly) choosing that this income be saved in the ISA. But for James to say that he is using his income to boost his savings in case they ever split up is just mean.

When my (now) wife moved in with me we pooled our income. I understand that others may not be so sharing and want to keep individual spending money. That's fine. But for one person to build up savings without the other just doesn't seem right to me.

InMyDreams

What an intriguing thread! It’s certainly making me think and question.

For me, the thing that I have been most shocked about is the idea that partners (regardless of marital status) are charging each other ‘rent’, however reduced, to share their houses. I don’t understand this logic at all, especially if the finances are to be kept separate. In cases where this has happened, I totally understand the bitterness that follows any break-up and why both parties can feel ‘stung’.

As for what Jackinbox99 did, charging his girlfriend £400 a month for 4 years (almost £20K in total) and then feeling virtuous because he gave £1.5K back even though ‘technically’ he didn’t have to. Well, I’m appalled. He wasn’t ‘saving’ her £250 a month, she was lining his coffers to the tune of £400 a month! When would he have stopped? When the house was paid off? Despicable.

I understand that in most cases there is a mortgage to be paid, but as soon as you ask for contributions towards that debt (either officially or off-the-record as cash-in-hand, rent or ‘in kind’) then you are acknowledging a joining of finances and there should be some recognition of that in the asset that that debt is secured on. Why should a partner pay your debt if you are keeping finances separate? I’m sure James isn’t expected to pay his girlfriend’s debt. The fact that the one partner’s debt is not secured against an asset any more is irrelevant. The fact that the one partner is making use of the other’s ‘asset’ is also irrelevant if it’s not costing the later anything extra to have them there too.

If James had an ISA with £10,000 sat in it, I would most certainly not expect him to try to make any *extra* money out of his girlfriend because of it. In the same way don’t charge rent on the house you are living in anyway. At least not over and above just the extra it costs you to have that other person there (eg food, the extra council tax (not half) the small increase in utilities…).

As for whether any of the ‘interest’ of the ISA or gain/loss of house value since moving in should be split 50:50, well I guess that all depends. Every case is different. There is no black and white. But money (or lack of) isn’t the only thing that each partner will bring to the relationship. Are you a unit or not? Are you on equal terms or not? If not, how long will the superiority over her last? Surely at some point you will have to pool and accept that in the event of a split things will have to be worked out as best as possible at the time. In what way were you ‘stung’ before?

What if the relationship lasts 1 year? If you think that’s tricky, what if the relationship lasts 30 years, two more children, mortgage and 25K debt both paid off, one of you sacrifices a career to care either for children or ailing parents or even the ailing other… and then you split up? How can you even begin to tot up the relative costs of who brought what to the relationship both initially and over the 30 years? Should you have kept everything separate for 30 years and paid each other in money for respective inputs?

sophievenusdoom

james3333 wrote: »

YES, clearly a touchy subject for many. i understand many people having issue with my 'attitude' but having being burned once, i feel i wanted 'the facts' rather than leave it to chance, sorry thats what i thought was the responsible thing to do.
i have worked hard for my property and dont want to loose it through negligence to 'the law'....
i do trust my GF, but as i have mentioned in previous posts it concerns me she has 25k debt which is NOTHING to do with me and i dont want to get pulled into sorting it out!

cheers

In the link that the other poster put on here, you addressed her as your new gf a month ago, yet you are already talking of moving her in...maybe a little more time in your relationship is needed before making such a huge decision?

sophievenusdoom

TrickyDicky101 wrote: »

Really? So if James has an ISA with £10,000 sat in it at the point at which this lady moves into his house, any future interest earned on it should be split 50:50 with said lady?

That's something for nothing again which in my opinion is not justified.

James has paid for the asset (his house), has accepted all the risks on said asset and should be entitled to all the rewards flowing from it.

I think what the other poster was saying that in her paying the bills, he is saving money which he is spending on whatever he chooses. If the mortgage payments increase, he will be able to cover those payments a lot easier because she is paying her share as well (although not necesarily to the mortgage directly), so why shouldn't she be entitled to at least SOME of the profits of a house that she has paid into for the last "X" amount of years??

sophievenusdoom

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

To some extent, yes. They are a unit.
I would say that any interest earned on this ISA counts as James' income. Which, in turn, is the unit's income.
They are (quite sensibly) choosing that this income be saved in the ISA. But for James to say that he is using his income to boost his savings in case they ever split up is just mean.

When my (now) wife moved in with me we pooled our income. I understand that others may not be so sharing and want to keep individual spending money. That's fine. But for one person to build up savings without the other just doesn't seem right to me.

My partner and I are the same - I pay the mortgage, and he pays the bills. I wouldn't dream of saying to him "I pay the mortgage, therefore it is MY house and you have no entitlement to it" if the unthinkable were to happen!!

Mike.ftb

I may find myself in the same position as the OP at some point in the future as i am hoping to buy my first house sometime next year, i have also wondered about the common law wife issue as i am single at the moment but may end up in a relationship after purchasing a house.

I have a friend who is currently in a similar situation to the OP and the arrangement that he and his girlfriend have in place seems to be working very well for the both of them, my friend already had a house with a mortgage and an estimated 30% equity when he met his girlfriend (girlfriend was renting a flat) so what they decided to do was for her to move into his house but only contribute towards any bills that have increased due to her moving in with him ie food,electric,gas,water and suchlike. This is on the understanding that his girlfriend now saves the money that she was paying in rent so that at some point in the future she would have a similar amount of money saved as my friend has in equity in his house, when that time comes he is planning on selling his house so that they can then purchase a home together using the equity from his house and the savings that his girlfriend should have.

They are both realistic in knowing that things might not work out between them but like the agreement because if they should split up then neither of them lose anything, hes aware that her living with him rent free could be seen as her making a "profit" because if they did split up she would walk away with probably a large amount of money in savings due to living rent free for x number of years, but most importantly he wouldnt be losing money, (depending on which way you look at things).

As i said before they both like the agreement because they know at some point in the future (all being well) they will own a home together. Granted the OPs situation is a bit different due to his girlfriend having outstanding debt but i just thought id let the OP know how another couple in a similar situation to them went about things without having to involve solicitors or ending up living in such a way that one half of a couple is paying rent to the other half which obviously can be an awkward situation to be in for some people.