Tax implication on gift to help us with a house deposit..

Kynthia

debzebhinds wrote: »

I see, thanks for that info.

In terms of the marriage, we have discussed the risks and what we would do financially if we did split, but my point is - why is that any different to if you were married? We both plan to put in equal amounts for the deposit, and if we were ever to split, profit (or debt) would be equally divided. We have been together for 9 years, which is longer than some marriages and plan to start a family once we have settled in our first home.

If you're married then divorce laws dictate the split of assets should you split acrimoniously and there's no guarantee that any written agreement or trust deed would be followed. If you aren't married then one of you will need to sue the other if you can't come to a mutual agreement but a trust deed will be followed if you have one. When suing it usually comes down to provable contributions and if you weren't paying equally and directly to the mortgage then you might not get half. This becomes even more risky when children come along as should one of the couple earn less to look after them it's not valued like with divorce, so they'll be contributing less to the mortgage and get less. There's more risk when the couple don't own jointly, but you are avoiding this pitfall.