Practicality verus sentiment

Prudent

Over the years I have received wonderful help, support and advice from the old style board. I have a dilemma running around and around my head and would be very grateful for your input.

The situation is quite complex, but I promise to try and be succinct! In brief:

I own a house and my partner owns a house. For the past 18 months he has lived with me while he (with the help of some friends) has renovated his house. His house is now nearly completed.

My dilemma is that my partner would now like us both to move into his house. He has put a lot into the renovation and has fallen in love with the result. It is a Victorian property with a lovely garden in the same town as my house. The location is not as good as my house and it is a far less practical layout for us. My 'money saving head' & practical head is screaming 'no, no, no'. I do think the renovation is beautiful though.

Linda32

Wow, big steps there. My first thought is can you move into his house and put yours up for rental? so you keep your property but gain an income as well.

Prudent

What to do with my house is a real dilemma. When he began the renovation we never considered that we might both want to live in his house. It was getting renovated for sale or for him to live in. It was a kind of transition into early retirement project.

At that time I had just finished a long slow process of improving my house. I had bought my house 10 years earlier as a single parent to bring up my daughter. Then just before my partner moved in, she suddenly moved four hundred miles away for a job. I then had a three bedroom house just for me! At the time it just felt empty, but now I have also realised it is probably to big for just me as I work full time and have a disability which leaves me very tired. My big worry is that letting the house may just give me an added layer of pressure.

midnightraven3

"The location is not as good as my house and it is a far less practical layout for us."

no brainer
and the fact "his" house is just done, so lovely etc
it should sell no problem

Prudent

midnightraven3 wrote: »

"The location is not as good as my house and it is a far less practical layout for us."

no brainer
and the fact "his" house is just done, so lovely etc
it should sell no problem

This was always my feeling. I never really got involved in the renovation as I simply saw it as a sale project with the option for him to keep if he wanted to at the end. The dilemma really lies in the fact he is so desperate to keep that house and as mine is now too big, my practical side wants to sell it rather than keep it just for me. Yet my practical side also says no to his house.

BookWorm

What about selling both and finding a new place together?

Cannyquine

Why don't you consider selling both houses & buying one between you more suited to your needs?

Prudent

Thank you both. I have suggested that, but he is put off by all the legal costs involved.

marmitepotato

Live in his house for a month, then both of you live in your house for a month. After that make a list of pros and cons of both houses and see which one has more pros. Try and make an unemotional decision on which house to live in....good luck.

Linda32

Prudent wrote: »

My big worry is that letting the house may just give me an added layer of pressure.

So would you consider letting through an agency, thus letting them to the hard work. I realise they would take a fee but you would still get something and still have the house.

[Deleted User]

My DD is a lettings agent and she says that this often crops up when two people own a house each.A good agent will take all the problems away for you and usually have an on-call maintainance chap working for them so any repairs are taken care of.
But as another poster suggested why not try a manth in each and weigh up the pro's and cons.You and your partner are the ones that are more important not bricks and mortar.I would have happily lived in a wigwam with my late OH :).We once lived in a tumbled down cottage on an island off the coast of Essex,it was full of spiders (which I hate ) and the loo was a chemical one (which as a city lass I had never seen before and thought barbaric) but we were very happy there as it was out in the countryside which he loved, and very impractical really.We had a field between us and the sea and winter time was dreadful at times but I would have lived anywhere as long as he was happy.
JackieO
P.S. we must have been very happy as my eldest DD was made there :):)