Need help/advice regarding house deed

susancs

I must admit I do see both sides of this. I have been married for years and jointly own our house and we both are on the mortgage and contributed towards it.

On the other hand one friend of mine, was advised in a similar fashion to you by her family, as she sold her house and used all the equity from it as a deposit towards the purchase of a house with her husband to be. She had the view that you have to have full trust in your partner and you do not consider going into a marriage anticipating divorce etc, which I totally appreciated. A few years down the line, she found out he was cheating on her and the relationship ended (not married). He was meant to pay the bills and she paid the mortgage and food bills. When he left, it was with council tax and utlility bills not paid for months (hidden letters) and she had to sell the house for which he received half (her substancial deposit was not protected). She now lives in rented accomodation and says she has little hope of getting back on the property market. Her family were actually very good and helped her financially after the split.

I also wonder if there is more to this, as your wife to be appears not to be working and you mention you plan to have children in a few years, so don't seem to have any now, and that she will work part time before you have children, so wonder why she is not working full time and saving towards your new home. Is this why your family have reservations too, in that they see you working hard and her contributing little?

ecgirl07

Protect your deposit in the short term and in a few years when you remortgage do it in both names.

paddy's_mum

You'd better hope that she sees her first child as a jointly owned asset or you and your family are going to be wading through the family courts on a different matter altogether!

Homeownertobe

paddy's_mum wrote: »

You'd better hope that she sees her first child as a jointly owned asset or you and your family are going to be wading through the family courts on a different matter altogether!

Using a child as a weapon, what a lovely threat.

cadon

Given you're already married, I think the ship has sailed to separate out assets!

Whether or not she's named on the deeds, she'll have a claim. So if you are legally allowed to add her (speak to your bank/mortgage broker), you may as well for a quiet life. The courts will treat her as being on the deeds regardless, so why upset your wife?

bubbs

limitless888 wrote: »

Hi Guys,

I would like some advice regarding putting my future wife's name on a house deed.
I am in the process of buying a house currently and it is my intention to put my wife's name and myself on the house deed.
The problem is my family is opposing this idea simply because I will be contributing to all the deposit. ( I have saved for a quite a while for this whilst living at home with the parents ).
I am the main income earner between us and I believe she will help me to her best of her ability with some of the mortgage payments.
My theory is that I love her dearly and it doesn't really matter however from a rational point of view my family thinks it's wise not to as to protect myself from the circumstances of breaking up.
I feel it is wrong to think like this as love should not be like this.

What do you guys think?
Am I being really stupid here, I feel like I am doing the right thing but at the same time my family does have a point.

cadon wrote: »

Given you're already married, I think the ship has sailed to separate out assets!

Whether or not she's named on the deeds, she'll have a claim. So if you are legally allowed to add her (speak to your bank/mortgage broker), you may as well for a quiet life. The courts will treat her as being on the deeds regardless, so why upset your wife?

They are not married but will be living together

cadon

Ah, many thanks bubbs, the OP went on to call her his wife, and I missed that.

OP, when you say future wife, is a marriage imminent in the next couple of weeks or so or just that you see her as wife material?

TBagpuss

OP - Set aside what your family are saying for a second - this is something you and your fiancee need to address.

Think, and discuss with your fiancee, what you each expect and understand about how the financial side of your marriage will work. Think about different scenarios.
- What would each of you expect to see happen if things went wrong and your marriage were to beak down in the early years?
- What would each of you expect to see happen until such time as you start a family? Even if you have different incomes, how will share your income, will you each have any separate 'personal' income?

There are no right or wrong answers, but you need to be able to talk to each other and to listen to the other's point of view.

One option would be to have a Pre-Nuptial agreement. You could agree that this would be valid for a limited period (for instance, to say that you will review the agreement after 5 years, and that it would ,apse after that if not extended or updated)

Another would be to have the property in joint names but with a declaration of trust to provide for you to get your deposit back in the event of any split (you would need to ensure that the deed explicitly recorded that you intended this to remain in place even after your marriage.

If you want to have the house in joint names and with no deed or agreement then be aware that if things were to go wrong, then the staring assumption would be that you were equal owners.

The key is to have a proper discussion with your fiancee and make sure that you and she are both comfortable with whatever you agree on.

Don't be pushed into agreeing with something you are not happy with, simply to avoid an argument. Equally, don't be pressured by your parents or other family members into something you don't feel is right for you.