sharing ownership and living without a relationship. Rules for this?

shabbytat

I have a house which i want to sell in order to free up some money for myself. I put it on the market with an estate agent, and a potential buyer was found who would buy my house as soon as theirs was sold, though they had not yet any offers for their house.

This interested buyer turns out to be an old girlfriend from 30 years ago, when we were young.

I spoke with her on the phone. She's ok. There is no relationship going to occur at all, but we got on, everything amicable, for there never was a reason to not be on good terms as we were only young when we knew eachother for a short while.

anyway, as we are both single and not really that bothered about relationships, I reckon we could share a house, my house.

two rooms in my house I never use at all, so she could have those. The idea would be to regard it as like flats where each has their own privacy (never go in eachother's private space), we basically just share a kitchen, bathroom and back yard, and I suppose the electricity and gas bills, but not food, etc. This way we would both have somewhere to live and not have to have all our money tied up in owning two houses when we only need one.

Can this be done? Does it have a name to it which i can research? It is co-ownership co-habitation, but not co-habitation in the sense of a relationship or a right to eachothers private rooms.

Of course co-habitation where there is a relationship is one thing, but what when there isn't a relationship, surely there should be very different rules about this, as it is simply two people sharing a house for the only reason of using living accommodation efficiently: she owns half, I own half, she has her rooms, I have my rooms, do our own cooking, washing, food purchase. Pretty much like students share a house, but in this case we wouldn't even share a living room, just bathroom and kitchen.

Does anyone have any thoughts about this, please?

tea_lover

If she's looking to buy a house on her own, why on earth would she change her plans to buy half of a house with an ex from years ago?

Alikay

I can't imagine why you'd think this was a good idea. What if one of you met someone? Or one of you died, or lost your job so couldn't pay the mortgage? I guess there must be a reason for you needing to "free up some money for yourself" as you put it, but wouldn't it be better to just downsize?

Fluff15

tea_lover wrote: »

If she's looking to buy a house on her own, why on earth would she change her plans to buy half of a house with an ex from years ago?

Exactly - she's looking for a whole house, not half. Clearly the whole house to her is within budget, if she wanted less she would buy somewhere less. Why have your intentions changed from selling your whole house to wanting to share with your ex? Seems suspect to me.

Either sell the whole house, or get some lodgers. The suggestion to your ex of going halves would seem extremely weird and I wouldn't even bother asking.

Justicia

Life =/= Friends

suejb2

If you hadn't known the buyer would you have contemplated this idea?

Serendipitious

Maybe she'll want to buy it and offer you two rooms in her house.

There used to be something called 'mates mortages' a few years ago but I don't know if they still exist.

But basically, it would be like renting a place with a friend, only much harder to get out of later, and mostly the only way for one person to get out of such an arrangement is for the place to be sold, which leaves each of you back where you were to start with. And presumably you each have furniture and white goods. To say nothing of highly individual lifestyles which may not suit house-sharing scenarios. It's also extremely difficult to share a bathroom and a kitchen after having a house to yourself.

I had lodgers for many years with no problems whatsoever. Much easier than the joint purchase I made with someone later.