Adding boyfriend to my existing mortgage or sell and buy fresh together?

WoodyLJ77

Good morning,

I would really appreciate some advice / opinions of others on here.

To cut a very long story short, my divorce completed last year, and as part of the divorce settlement I had the mortgage and deeds fully transferred into my name.
I am happy to say that despite a very tough 2017, I met someone new and we have been happily living together for the last 8 months and dated a few months prior to that.

Our current arrangement is that I am not charging him rent, but he pays £202 a month, which is exactly 50% of the bills and he certainly makes the majority of the payments for evenings out for us both.
I didn't want to officially charge him rent when he moved in as I was cautious about the legal implications of claiming any kind of ownership if things had not worked out, but 8 months on of living together things are going well and despite all the trauma surrounding the reasons for me filing for divorce I can actually see a very nice future with this man, who has been incredibly good to me since the day we met.

We have recently been discussing our options. Now that the dust has settled on my divorce, I am beginning to feel differently about staying in my home as it still looks and feels the same as when I was married, but it ticks all our boxes in what we are looking for in a property, and if I was to sell and move elsewhere we would ultimately get less for our money, in comparison to what we have now.

So our options that we are considering are:

1. To stay in the property that we currently live in (the mortgage is solely in my name and so to are the Deeds). My parter would officially start paying half of the mortgage on top of the 50% of the bills that he currently pays for. My re-mortgage is due November 2019 and at that point I would add him onto the Mortgage and Deeds (it seems silly adding him right now, as I understand there could be additional fees, but I am happy to find out exactly how much as if it;s not too high we would consider it now instead of waiting till November 2019), but before so, I would get a Deed of Trust drawn up which clearly states how much I have put into the property and how much it was worth at that time, to protect myself, to which he has agreed to and says makes complete sense.

I had a Deed of Trust Drawn up before my marriage and it saved me when it came to the divorce as I was fully protect. I definitely recommend this to anyone who is a situation where they are contributing an awful lot more to a property financially.

My reasons for considering adding him to the mortgage, is by doing so, I was thinking that we could borrow more, as his salary would then be taken into consideration and we could make the internal changes to the house, so that it doesn't look the same as it currently does.
These are changes we can make together and agree on together, so it feels like a fresh start for both of us, yet retaining all the important things we want from a home.

2. Or the second option is to simply sell my current place and start on a new page, looking for a place together. Obviously having a Deed of Trust drawn up for any new property, as I would be putting in roughly £350K more upfront than my partner, due to the equity in the house.

We have begun looking at properties (based on some rough calculations), however our current search brings back nothing like this current home we are in. The properties are generally smaller, with work needing to be done. Then having the consideration that there would be stamp duty to pay, this does feel like throwing money away. But ultimately we would be starting a fresh together in a property that is new to us both.

I was just wondering if anyone else had been in the same situation? Or even if you haven't just had any thoughts on this.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read my post.

[Deleted User]

My first thoughts are that 8 months is not long enough to guarantee a future with this man.


Personally if I had come out a divorce the very last thing I would be doing is considering giving / sharing my assets to a relative unknown person.


IMO if you want roots with him then sell up and each put a deposit into a new shared home and go on equal footing as if you are any other couple.


I would be very wary of buying with someone who cannot financially contribute the same especially after a short period of time.


As unpalatable as it is there are people, male and female who prey on those with better finances than there own

pinkshoes

3. Keep the current arrangement for at least another 12 months.

You are still in the honeymoon period in this relationship and would be foolish to mix the finances up at this point.

tacpot12

While I agree with BBH123 about buying with someone who cannot contribute equally, I think that you will better of staying in your current home. Providing that you have a new deed of trust.

I would suggest you make only changes to your property that add value to it, rather than changing it for changes sake. If this leaves you with excess funds, invest your spare cash in your name. If things work out, and I hope they do, you can use the investments at a later time to benefit you both.

Best wishes

Mojisola

pinkshoes wrote: »

3. Keep the current for at least another 12 months.

You are still in the honeymoon period in this relationship and would be foolish to mix the finances up at this point.

I agree with pinkshoes - keep the current arrangement but suggest he puts what will be his half of the mortgage payment into a savings account - you will be able to see that he is committed and he will get used to having less spending money. He will also have a lump sum to add to any other money he can put towards a new mortgage.

[Deleted User]

I agree about seeing if he can afford the mortgage but what about OP's £350k equity, she can't afford to lose that if it goes pearshaped.
Maybe I am cynical but I would hive that off separately and if he kicks off you know he was a wrong one.

Pixie5740

BBH123 wrote: »

I agree about seeing if he can afford the mortgage but what about OP's £350k equity, she can't afford to lose that if it goes pearshaped.
Maybe I am cynical but I would hive that off separately and if he kicks off you know he was a wrong one.

Further down the line if the OP wants to go down the route of jointly owning this property or another with her boyfriend then they can have a Declaration of Trust drawn up and own the property as Tenants in Common.

Mojisola

WoodyLJ77 wrote: »

he certainly makes the majority of the payments for evenings out for us both.

If he does start putting away his share of the mortgage money, make sure you start sharing the costs of your evenings out.

PasturesNew

"Two Christmases" - you've not yet survived two Christmases together without killing each other.

That should be the minimum determiner in whether somebody's a "keeper" or just passing through.

If you're going to be together forever, then waiting doesn't hurt; if he turns out to be a dud you'll be glad you waited.

missile

Stay with option 1

Get a bank loan for any internal modifications.

selhurst_sound

I've just been through a situation that isn't entirely dissimilar. I was living in a house jointly owned with my ex. My new partner and I bought out the ex last year, with my new partner investing equity from her own house sale to support this.


The previous comments re the best/fairest thing to do financially are one thing - and what we did certainly made the most financial sense at the time - however, the "human emotion" element shouldn't be forgotten. My partner has found it hard living in a house that I bought with an ex - no matter the circumstances, or any changes you make together going forwards, it will still be a big brick reminder of a past life with somewhere else. We're now looking to buy somewhere new together anyway (upsizing, so its still all good!), but in hindsight we should have just done that last year.


But everyone thinks and feels differently!