Buying with partner, significantly different amounts !!

Nine_Lives

Jonesy_McJones wrote: »

Sorry OP - slight tangent - can I just ask, what if one is married without children - is it the child(ren) that changes things, or the marriage or both?

I wonder this too

grifferz

nirish wrote: »

Can anyone explain to me any options or what the protocol is for defining how much of a house is owned by each partner when buying a house together.

Kynthia is spot on about you buying the place as tenants in common (not as joint tenants) and then having a deed of trust to lay out exactly who owns what percentage, who paid what deposit, who will make what amount of mortgage payments, etc. etc.

You can go into little detail or a lot of detail, whatever you feel you need to be comfortable.

As tenants in common, if one of you should die then their share of the property passes to whoever is nominated in their will, or according to the laws of intestacy. This is in contrast to joint tenants where the other tenant would get the property. So this may also make it more important for you to have a will, if simply passing to your legal next of kin is not what you want.

A practitioner in family law can draw up the deed of trust for you; the solicitor that is doing your conveyancing can probably provide this service or recommend someone who can.

Other than this all I can say is, if there is a dramatic imbalance between what one of you is going to contribute to the purchase then I would urge you not to ignore this and do not pay attention to people who say that it's somehow unromantic or distrusting to not just have a 50/50 split. A lot can change over the course of several decades and a house purchase is a commitment on that scale.

My mother bought a property with her partner, where she put up the entirety of the deposit and made the entirety of the mortgage payments for 15 years. At the time her solicitor advised her to do it as tenants in common with a deed of trust but she insisted on joint tenancy. 15 years later after an acrimonious split he made a claim on half of the house value and even after negotiation still walked away with a 5 figure payout.

DippityDooDah

I am in the process of buying a house with my partner and we were asked by the solicitor about 2 aspects of the deal. (this is Scotland so not sure if different for E &W). I have detailed the 2 issues below, I think if you speak to your solicitor they should be able to guide you easily through this.

ONE: Survivorship or no survivorship? The title to the property can be prepared in such a manner that where Person A dies, the title would automatically transfer to Person B without any further formalities being required.
Benefits of survivorship: if Person A dies there is no need to obtain probate in respect of their half share of the property because it automatically transfers to Person B. This is cheaper, quicker and less troublesome than having to obtain probate. It is like having a Will that automatically deals with the property.
Downsides of survivorship: (1) there are circumstances where there could be tax implications on death particularly if the owners of the property have considerable assets (in excess of the amount of assets over which inheritance tax is payable); (2) If Person A and Person B decide to separate or split up, the existence of the survivorship clause could mean that in the event of the untimely death of Person A, shortly after the separation or split up, the property transfers automatically to Person B probably against the wishes of Person A.


2. Equal or unequal division? The title to the property can be prepared in such a manner that Person A and Person B each own half the property. This is the usual position but it is possible to hold the title in different proportions. This can be important where Person A (particularly where the parties are not married or in a Civil Partnership) has contributed a materially larger proportion of the price of the property. The issue can be relevant if person A and Person B later split up or separate.