Paying more than girlfriend into mortgage dilema

harrpau7

Hello,

Within the next 6 months I am going to get a mortgage (hopefully) with my girlfriend. I earn a lot more than my girlfriend and I want to get it paid off as quick as possible. Each month I am able to save about £500 and I want to use the vast majority of that to overpay on the mortgage (as much as I am allowed to) and eventually pay the mortgage off. However I want to know if I should cover myself against this in the unlikely event me and my girlfriend go our separate ways (I know I will receive some replies condemning me to hell for even suggesting such a thing).

I will be putting at least a £20,000 deposit down which my girlfriend is happy with me to have back if we go our separate ways and that will be written into the contract. I however want the mortgage paid off ASAP, doing some very rough sums on the above amount I am able to save each month to pay off early I would save about £35,000 in interest alone and pay the mortgage off at least ten years early, so it seems a good idea. But I want to cover myself against that too in case we go our separate ways, I wouldn't want to pay thousands extra off the mortgage for nothing if the worst should happen.

By posting this I know there will be contrasting personal views on this but I want to protect myself at the end of the day. If I was to pay an extra 30, 40 50 grand or so off the mortgage, am I not entitled to get that back IF the worst happened?

Thank you for reading what is a sensitive and touchy area at the moment.

CLAPTON

will you gf be paying half the normal mortgage payment ?

harrpau7

CLAPTON wrote: »

will you gf be paying half the normal mortgage payment ?

Yes she will, just she doesn't earn as much as me to save extra.

When I brought it up she said that if that happened she wouldn't feel like it was her house, that she would be a tennant and that if got back every penny I paid in she wouldn't have anything if the worst happened, felt dead guilty.

webinteractions

If Kids/Marriage an option then i'd suggest not worrying about keeping tabs of individual payments into the mortgage each month.

She will not be able to work when she is looking after your children, are you going to keep tabs of each month she doesn't pay into the mortgage too?

dreamdreamer

harrpau7 wrote: »

When I brought it up she said that if that happened she wouldn't feel like it was her house, that she would be a tennant and that if got back every penny I paid in she wouldn't have anything if the worst happened, felt dead guilty.

So what does she want to see happen? Is she saying that even if you make overpayments she wants half of all the equity in the event of a break up? Or does she have an alternative idea?

I have no idea how easy it would be in terms of contracts/law to write something in to the effect that any overpayments made are deducted along with the deposit before any remaining equity is split. Hopefully someone will come along to advise soon!

Just spitballing though, what happens if your girlfriends earnings go up and she also wants to overpay? You'd have to change the agreement. What happens when you have kids and she goes part time and you're paying all/most of the mortgage. What happens if you get married? At some point this "I want what I put in" mentality becomes very, very complicated.

Don't get me wrong, I think you're totally right to want to protect your assets at the moment and I wouldn't have a problem if my OH wanted to do this (we're not married, no kids), but you do have to consider where you'll be in 5,10,15 years time and why a long term contract like this might make your GF feel vulnerable.

It's not as financially sensible but perhaps you need to find a less controversial place for that £500 a month. Put it in savings account or something and then if/when you and your GF find yourself in the position of marriage/kids/she's earning better, you can make a lump sum overpayment then.

CLAPTON

a possible way forward might be

- each gets any deposit they put in

- each gets any overpayments they pay in (overpayments always pay off the capital)

- then any equity left is divided into equal shares; in practice this means the gf will benefit from your overpayment indirectly as the overall interest will be less but it is reasonably simple and is reasonably fair


-of course you may be in negative equity then it would be fair to apply the same logic but each pay equally.

harrpau7

webinteractions wrote: »

If Kids/Marriage an option then i'd suggest not worrying about keeping tabs of individual payments into the mortgage each month.

She will not be able to work when she is looking after your children, are you going to keep tabs of each month she doesn't pay into the mortgage too?

We aren't having kids, marriage will happen in the future though. As we aren't having kids thats why I wanna pay it off ASAP, I am 30 and she is 33, being mortgage free in 15 years seems very appealing to me.

dreamdreamer wrote: »

So what does she want to see happen? Is she saying that even if you make overpayments she wants half of all the equity in the event of a break up? Or does she have an alternative idea?

I have no idea how easy it would be in terms of contracts/law to write something in to the effect that any overpayments made are deducted along with the deposit before any remaining equity is split. Hopefully someone will come along to advise soon!

Just spitballing though, what happens if your girlfriends earnings go up and she also wants to overpay? You'd have to change the agreement. What happens when you have kids and she goes part time and you're paying all/most of the mortgage. What happens if you get married? At some point this "I want what I put in" mentality becomes very, very complicated.

Don't get me wrong, I think you're totally right to want to protect your assets at the moment and I wouldn't have a problem if my OH wanted to do this (we're not married, no kids), but you do have to consider where you'll be in 5,10,15 years time and why a long term contract like this might make your GF feel vulnerable.

It's not as financially sensible but perhaps you need to find a less controversial place for that £500 a month. Put it in savings account or something and then if/when you and your GF find yourself in the position of marriage/kids/she's earning better, you can make a lump sum overpayment then.

I think she wants an equal split if I make overpayments because its my choice to make overpayments, she says it's not fair as she can't do that. No kids now or ever, will get married one day though.

CLAPTON wrote: »

a possible way forward might be

- each gets any deposit they put in

- each gets any overpayments they pay in (overpayments always pay off the capital)

- then any equity left is divided into equal shares; in practice this means the gf will benefit from your overpayment indirectly as the overall interest will be less but it is reasonably simple and is reasonably fair


-of course you may be in negative equity then it would be fair to apply the same logic but each pay equally.

That's what I wanted to do, I also said if I overpay each year our monthly payments would be reduced so she could save that money herself in her own savings account.

Okydoky25

I (we) didn't want kids when we got together. 7 years later we have 2. I am a SAHM after giving up a very good well paid job and he pays all the bills.

Funny where life takes you.

CLAPTON

I can't see the point of reducing the monthly payments as the objective is to pay the mortgage off as asap.

Does she understand that my plan would be of direct benefit to her, as she benefits from paying less interest overall and finishing the mortgage much earlier than would be the case.

harrpau7

CLAPTON wrote: »

I can't see the point of reducing the monthly payments as the objective is to pay the mortgage off as asap.

Does she understand that my plan would be of direct benefit to her, as she benefits from paying less interest overall and finishing the mortgage much earlier than would be the case.

Not sure, I tried explaining to her that we could pay the mortgage off ten odd years early, then if the house was sold all the profit would be ours to split. So even if the £20,000 deposit I made and then the extra £40,000 came to me first, the rest would be be split evenly and no one would need to be paid anything back.

harrpau7

Okydoky25 wrote: »

I (we) didn't want kids when we got together. 7 years later we have 2. I am a SAHM after giving up a very good well paid job and he pays all the bills.

Funny where life takes you.

I know, but we are both 100% we don't want kids, and precautions are taken (without getting too personal).