Buying with boyfriend- but I'm putting up the deposit

Demonlawyer

Buy as tenants in common then get a deed of trust drawn up by your solicitor too. They should offer it within their services and make a point of putting in writing how you want to own the place and check before you sign that it is right.

hobo28

I have a tenants in common arrangement and its a percentage of the property. There's no provision for any lump sum put in. What we did was we both put money in and we've split it according to the percentages of the lump sum. If that makes sense!?!?

I've no idea if you can write an agreement to protect the lump sum you are putting down. A quick visit to a solicitor should be able to tell you that.

hobo28

Sisyphus wrote:

As I said there are 2 ways of looking at it.
Call me a romantic fool, I would have been happy to, and did, give every penny I owned to my partner without counting. For me a partnership is total trust, otherwise it's not worth it. A pre-nuptial is just an agreement on a future divorce - self fulfilling imho. If it works for you fine.

romantic fool.

Sorry couldn't resist. Yes whilst a relationship is going well then thats all fine and well.

Sometimes though, you don't realise until its too late. For me the dividing line is marriage. Living together is like a trial IMO and there's no harm in looking after yourself still. Once you get married then I would look at it your way and be against protecting "what's his and hers"

Lucy_Lastic

You need to protect your investment, see your solicitor.
I was a romantic fool years ago and ended up involved in a costly court case as my Ex wanted a 50/50 split of the equity. Fortunately I had kept all the paperwork and the judge awarded 80/20 in my favour, but it cost us both dearly.
(Well worth it in my case, just to see his face!)

Worried

Perhaps I shouldn't have asked the 'is it fair on my partner' question, as all I really wanted is some advice about what options are available to us to make this sort of arrangement. Thank you to everyone who posted helpful comments on how to go about this!

roswell

easy option would be just get a 100 % mortgage and keep your money safe.

Ali120604

If you are contributing equally to the mortgage repayments (assuming it's a repayment mortgage) I would argue that you are entitled to your inititial deposit plus a growth factor (ie the percentage increase in the property selling value and the purchase price) and the rest of the equity is split equally.

Having said that, you are giving your partner a platform in which to grow his money - without you and your deposit he would not have a house and would not be earning money but spending it. This means the above is more than fair.

jsabine

My ex and I went through this a while ago ...

When we bought, she put in £10k and I put in £5k, with a £70k mortgage. The solicitor sorted everything out, so I don't know the workings, but we agreed on a 55/45% split (I imagine it was seen as her having £45k of the property and me £40k - though this would be closer to 53/47%).

When we split up, we had the place valued, took the mortgage repayment figure off this, and split the balance 55/45% - she bought me out, so I got a nice cheque.

All very amicable - we had it in writing exactly how any split would be done, so couldn't argue over that. We had issues over the valuation at first (asked a spread of estate agents, but had too much variation, so ended up paying a surveyor), but it was all calm enough that I didn't even bother instructing a solicitor - hers did all the work.

After that experience, I certainly wouldn't buy with anyone else without agreeing beforehand exactly how any split should be done. It saved us a whole lot of grief ...

galileo

Speak to your solicitor - he/she will be able to advise on a simple formal declaration of trust deed which will protect your interest in the property should things go wrong.