Ownership percentage after marriage

Scythi

Hi all,

Me and my partner are buying a house, however, I will be putting 40% up front from my house sale which we currently live in (100% my house), the remaining 60% will be joint mortgage, so I would own 70% and my partner would own 30%, when we marry will this just plain and simple turn into us both owning 50%?
What would happen if years and years down the line we divorced (hopefully not!!), would I still get 70% or would it result in selling the house, paying the mortgage and the surplus being split 50% each?

princeofpounds

No. You would remain with the ownership structure that you started with.

However, the house would also become a marital asset. In the event of a divorce, a court would consider all the marital assets as part of a financial settlement, and order a split. 

The starting point for that settlement would be 50/50. However, it can be more complicated in various ways e.g.:
- if it is a short marriage (usually defined as under 2 years) then the court may decide the fairest thing is to return everyone to the rough starting point where they came into the marriage.
- if there are children then the court may prioritise them in various ways, for example insisting the a parent with primary custody can remain in the property until they reach their majority. 

Marvel1

If you want your 70%, don't get married and split up.

pinkteapot

Getting married doesn't 'do' anything in this regard.

What's important is the form of ownership your solicitor sets up for you. You'll be asked to choose between: 

1. Joint Tenants - no ownership percentage is specified. You each jointly own the house and proceeds from sale just go to both of you to sort out. If one of your dies, the other automatically owns the whole house. 
2. Tenants in Common - a deed will be drawn up specifying what percentage you each own and what happens on sale. If one of you dies, that person's share will go to whoever is the beneficiary of their estate in their will. So, if owning this way, it's even more important than usual to have a will as if you die intestate your share will go to all sorts of random relatives. 

You choose the form of ownership when you buy the property. Getting married won't change it. You can choose to change the type of ownership at any time. More info here: 

https://www.gov.uk/joint-property-ownership

I don't know what happens if it's owned as Tenants in Common with unequal shares but it becomes a marital asset... princeofpounds?

TBagpuss

It would be sensible to get a pre-nip before you marry in order to explicitly state that you both intend to continue to hold the property in unequal shares after marriage and in the event of a divorce.
However, the longer the marriage, the less weight will be given to any prenup or to the declaration of trust.

at the time of any divorce, if you couldn’t come to an agreement, a court would look at the overall situation- all the assets and debts, your respective incomes  your needs  the needs of any children etc, and come up with a fair settlement- which might be 50/50 or an unequal split.

princeofpounds

pinkteapot said:

I don't know what happens if it's owned as Tenants in Common with unequal shares but it becomes a marital asset... princeofpounds?

It's just as I said earlier - the ownership structure remains the same, but in the event of a divorce it is a marital asset (Along with almost anything else either of you might own) and gets considered along with everything else in the financial settlement, which is typically (but not always) targeting a 50/50 split.

So in the simplest case if all you own is the equity in the property, 70/30, then the property will be sold and the proceeds split 50/50. Or someone raises a mortgage to buy out the 50% beneficial interest the other party now has.

It's no different to money in your own bank account. You own it, your spouse does not. But in the event of a divorce, they have a right to half of it, crudely speaking.

As bagpuss says, you can try a pre-nup. The status of these is rather woolly in UK law; courts can take account of them but they don't have to follow them if they think it's unfair, and they have a pretty bleeding-heart approach to fairness a lot of the time. Personally I don't think it's worth bothering unless the wealth of the parties is evidently very uneven - have a child, downgrade careers or stay married for a decent length of time and I'm not sure a court would be too interested in enforcing it. 

[Deleted User]

A pre nup is only really worth much for shortish marriages without children. Once children are born the pre nup is pretty much out of the window. 

Similarly a longish married with no children tends to make the pre nup redundant again 

ratechaser

I must be getting old because I really despair of posts like this. Whatever happened to 'for better for worse' etc.

God, I've turned into my grandparents. And probably moved to Tunbridge Wells... 

Petriix

Why are you getting married? Genuine question!

Scythi

Petriix said:

Why are you getting married? Genuine question!

I don’t really know how to answer this other than we want to?

why?

AnotherJoe

Scythi said:

Petriix said:

Why are you getting married? Genuine question!

I don’t really know how to answer this other than we want to?

why?

.... because when you do, the assumption should be (??)/certainly used to be, everything is 50/50 from that point on (because otherwise why bother), and if you dont want that during your marriage, then that logically leads to the question  "why are you getting married if you dont want to share things equally".