Looking to buy property with Partner - advice needed!

zzzLazyDaisy

So you are planning to use both your salary levels to obtain a mortgage that she will be solely responsible for paying (which she presumably wouldn't be entitled to if she applied on her own?).

You need to take legal advice about holding the property as tenant in common, and working out what shares you/she will hold. For example if you pay all the deposit and she pays all the mortgage, at the start you will have more equity in the property than her, but as time goes on over the life of the mortgage she will have paid in more than you. How will you deal with this?

Also you need to look at your employer's scheme which will almost certainly include a clause that the loan is to purchase a residential property (if you are not going to live there, it is not your primary residence and may breach the mortgage conditions).

Also, when you sell, you will be liable for CGT on any gains as this will not be your primary residence.

mcdonger

Not to belittle some of the responses as any input is welcome, but it would be appreciated if feedback could be constructive, even if negative, not just what come across as snide sarcastic remarks (sorry if that is not the intention, but that is how they read to me). Many thanks to the majority of the responses though, they have been really enlightening.

An initial idea is that we would purchase a property together on a joint mortgage with both of our names on the deed and with my partner's parents fronting most of the deposit at this time. My partner would then move in and solely cover the mortgage repayments and further down the line (all being well, 2-3 months after the purchase was completed), I would then also move into the property and we would split all repayments equally between the 2 of us, possibly with a view to me repaying half of the deposit and covering off an equal amount of mortgage repayments as my partner has made, so we are then equal equity holders in the property.

My thinking is that the joint income mortgage would enable us to obtain a larger property. Granted this would have implications in any arrangements drawn up as I would have significantly lower equity(?) in any agreements drawn up initially.

Maybe this is not feasible or even possible within the law, maybe the whole thought process is just a fantasy - this is why I'm asking for advice as I am really unsure, and any constructive input (positive or negative) is, as I said, greatly appreciated.

Thankyou.

zzzLazyDaisy

mcdonger wrote: »

An initial idea is that we would purchase a property together on a joint mortgage with both of our names on the deed and with my partner's parents fronting most of the deposit at this time.

Would this deposit be a loan or a gift?

In any case it would have to be declared to the lender and many will not lend under these circumstances, so you would need to check this out with your employer (the solicitor must obtain documentary evidence from you as to where the deposit came from, so it is not possible to get round this).

BitterAndTwisted

Softly, softly, catchee monkey.

I know that you don't want or need any relationship advice but I think the most sensible plan of action would be for your partner to take out a tenancy for six months while you both iron out all of the possible outcomes that buying a property together could entail. This really isn't something that should be entered into with time-constraints attached.

Both of you sit down, think of every single possible outcome together and see if you can agree on what would be fair to each of you. If you can't see eye-to-eye when just sitting there with a sheet of paper between you, you should know whether this is going to be sensible long-term plan or not.

My own feeling is that buying property or having children together when not married is the best way of finding out that you've made a really foolish decision very quickly.

Also, very different attitudes to money, and most particularly debt, is the one thing that causes relationships to fail when there's no infidelity involved. Some of these different attitudes do not reveal themselves in the first flush of being totally loved-up and optimistic about the future.

Please feel free to call me a wet-blanket or Eeyore.

sonastin

Forgive me if I'm misunderstanding but, beyond bumping your partners salary figure to get it multiplied up to a higher mortgage amount, what is your involvement in this purchase? If you aren't putting down much (if any deposit) and you aren't paying off the mortgage then you are risking quite a lot without any apparent reason. If your partner can't afford the property alone, counting your salary in order to borrow more could potentially be interpreted as mortgage fraud.

In the grand scheme of things, 2-3 months isn't a massive amount of time. If you are planning on moving in anyway in 2-3 months, why not just do it now? If you are tied into a tenancy where you are living at the moment, how about your partner comes to live with you at your current place. Those 2-3 months that you spend looking for the place to buy together will give you quite a lot of insight into what living together will actually be like and you'll have a better idea of whether you are really ready for a financial commitment of that sort.

2 more queries which I hope are constructive:
1) has your partner actually received an eviction notice from her LL? i.e. does she necessarily need to move out imminently or could she just roll onto a periodic tenancy which gives you a bit longer to decide what you want to do. Or is it just that she isn't happy in the current place and would prefer to move on?
and
2) how quickly does she need to move if she does need to? and if you haven't even started looking for a property yet, can you be sure that you'll a) find something suitable and affordable and b) be in a position to complete on the purchase before the deadline of moving out? Sometimes it takes months to find a place you want to buy. On average it takes 8-12 weeks to complete a purchase but it can be many months. My own purchase took 9 months in the end and the estate agent told me she'd had one roll over the year mark. If you partner is going to be out on the streets in a few weeks, she might need to end up in a rental and/or your place before she buys anyway which defeats the whole object of your plan...