Moving in with boyfriend

jenpage

I've let my house out and am now living with my boyfriend.
I'm going to start paying half of the mortgage, but before I do, we'd like some sort of legal agreement in place just in case we ever split up. Basically, I think if I've paid off half of the mortgage, I should have some rights to the property, but he has lots of equity so it wouldn't be fair for me to own 50%. Plus, if I've only been here a year or so and we split, it would be difficult to decide how much I should get back.
Any ideas? Does anyone know where we could find an agreement or is it better to go to a solicitor? I got divorced without the assistance of a solicitor so I'm a bit loathe to use one for this! Especially as I hope the agreement will never actually be used!
All advice gratefully received!

Johnhowell

jenpage wrote:

I've let my house out and am now living with my boyfriend.
I'm going to start paying half of the mortgage, but before I do, we'd like some sort of legal agreement in place just in case we ever split up. Basically, I think if I've paid off half of the mortgage, I should have some rights to the property, but he has lots of equity so it wouldn't be fair for me to own 50%. Plus, if I've only been here a year or so and we split, it would be difficult to decide how much I should get back.
Any ideas? Does anyone know where we could find an agreement or is it better to go to a solicitor? I got divorced without the assistance of a solicitor so I'm a bit loathe to use one for this! Especially as I hope the agreement will never actually be used!
All advice gratefully received!

Jen,
I am about to move in with my girlfriend and am considering renting my house to her son and his girlfriend - so would be interested in the suggestions as well.

Question - how have you let your place? Through an agency?

Regards,
John

clutton_2

i would urge you MOST strongly to get a solicitor to draw up an agreement. It will cost a few hundred quid if that - if you do not have an agreement, and stay together for 10-15-20 years and the price of the property has doubled/tripled - you may well be risking losing a huge amount of money if you split up at that point.

amyandoli

how about keeping a record of how much you chip in, then if the time comes you need to get your money back, add interest to the amount. defo get a solicitor

jenpage

Thanks for those suggestions.
I think a solicitor is the way to go.
John, I let the house through an agent. But it depends where your property is. I have a flat in London as well that I let out and this year, for the first time, just put an ad in Loot. I have two very lovely (touch wood!) tenants and felt reassured as I'd chosen them and got their references myself!

Bossyboots

Echo the sentiments here that you should definitely get a solicitor.

I also have to ask whether you obtained a financial consent order from the court when you did your divorce. If not, you are at risk of your ex making a claim against you in the future.

jenpage

Bossyboots, you must be psychic!!!
We are just in the process of doing that.
We know neither of us would ever make a claim, but now both of us are setting up house with someone new, we thought a consent order was the safest way to go!
It's quite a tricky thing to obtain without a solicitor though.
My best friend is a solicitor and has had to help quite a lot.
Thanks for your suggestions!

Aletank

Why don't you keep your house as your own as you are doing (rented out) Move in with your boyfriend and pay towards things abit less ie not the mortgage part of things. That way you've kept your house and security and he has his if anything goes wrong. If things work out and you get married etc well things become equal then and all jointly owned.

chris83_2

If you start paying for half the mortgage so that you get some equity in his house, does that mean that your boyfriend will start getting some of the equity from your house that you are letting out?

If you persuade your boyfriend to do this, you will be in a far better financial position than he is. You will have all of your house and a share in his house for effectively the same amount of money.

Personally i think if you want a share in any future equity in your boyfriends house your boyfriend should get the same out of the house you are lettng out. I think that until you are married you should keep things independent and just pay a low rent to stay in his house. That would be fairer and easier. Otherwise selling both houses and buying a new house together could be another option.

Best of luck in whatever you do.

Acc72

Following on from Chris83........

If your boyfreind agrees to this, then I would suggest you get the property valued now.

Assuming that you both agree with the valuation then get an agreement drawn up by a solicitor.

Eg. if the house is valued at £100k now and you split up in the future when the property was then independantly valued at £110k, then (assuming you have paid 50% of the mortgage in the mean time) your equity would be £5k.

Depends if you think the value will increase or decrease - if the value moves to £90k, your negative equity would also have to be shared.

thesaint

there are other posts with this same problem, I think it was a deed of trust or something like that.

The best thing is to phone a solicitor and tell them your quandry and they will tell you what you need and an approximate fee.

You can then research whether it can be done independantly and for less money. It may be a false economy though.

How it works is, you work out how much your lump sum payment is as a percentage of the value of the house. If you decide to go your seperate ways in days, months or years to come you are entitled to this percentage, whether you have lost or gained money.

You paying half of the mortgage won't increase your share whether it is in 1 or 20 years.