Splitting renovation and maintenance costs

raniafarai

My partner and I bought a property together. I've paid 75% of the deposit and he paid 25% of it. Our monthly instalments are arranged accordingly as well.
Before we got in the house there was a lot of work that needed to be carried out. Full house decoration, we removed the carpets and sanded and polished the wooden floor underneath the carpets, a lot of plastering, we improved the loft bedroom with new insulation and we opened up the space in it.
Now we want to renovate the bathroom and make build in wardrobes. 
Our question is: how we we split the above costs or any similar ones in the future between us? 

getmore4less

Not clear how you have split the costs or how you have decided on ownership/debt split

Do you have it written down properly?

Maybe a trust deed. 

tacpot12

As per getmore4less, it would make sense to have a Deed of Trust that sets out who is entitled to what if/when the property is sold. This is only viable if you already own the property as Tenants-in-Common. 

In the Deed of Trust, which is a legal document, you can record a basis for calculating who is entitled to what percentage of the proceeds of any sale. As you have noticed, calculating who is entitled to what is difficult if different people have contributed different amounts at different times. (Is £1000 spent on the property in 2020 worth the same as £1000 in 2030?). A formula that compensates for this could get very complicated, but if you want to do it, here's how I suggest you do it. 
1. Record how much you each contributed to the purchase of the property in £ and the date of the purchase
2. Bring this amount forward to 2020 using an inflation calculator like this one: Inflation calculator | Bank of England
3. Record how much you each contributed to the renovation of the property in £ and the date when each person contributed the amount.
4. Bring these renovation costs forward to 2020 using the inflation calculator
5. Add up these contributions to give a separate total per person. 

Your data should look something like this: 
A contributed £75,000 to purchase property in 2018, value in 2020 of this contribution is £78,078
B contributed £25,000 to purchase property in 2018, value in 2020 of this contribution is £26,026
A contributed £10,000 to renovate property in 2019, value in 2020 of this contribution is £10,150
B contributed £4,000 to renovate property in 2019, value in 2020 of this contribution is £4,060
Total contributed by A (as of 2020) = £88,228
Total contributed by B (as of 2020) = £30,086

If either of you contributes to the renovation in 2021, just add what you have contributed in 2021 to your totals. 
If either of you contributes to the renovation in, say, 2026, you first need to bring your totals from 2021 to 2025 using the inflation calculator, and then you can add your contributions in 2026 to that total.

The effect of this method is to express your individual contributions in terms of money today. If the property is sold, you can see from the totals who is due what percentage of the sale.

As an example, say the property was sold in 2020. "A" contributed £88,228, and "B" contributed £30,086, so their combined contribution was £118,314 - "A" contributed 74.6% of this total (88,228 / 118,314), and "B" contributed 25.4% (30,086 / 118,314), so the proceeds of the sale should be split on this basis.

You will need a solicitor to convert the above method into text that can go into a Deed of Trust. 

MWT

...or if you are happy to continue the 75/25 split into the future then just do that and that leaves you each with that proportion of the equity at any future date... otherwise you will have to do as suggested above and keep an inflation adjusted running total of the contributions...

getmore4less

Keep is simple,
If the initial work was all done fairly soon after purchase  just treat is as a single pot to buy the place ignore the inflation.

You then have the total to buy the place and can work out the shares of ownership based on the cash in and the amount of mortgage serviced.

It is not just the cash in that decided how much you own

All inputs are at that ownership %, 

you pay the debts down at whatever % that is paid.

Keep the day to day living in the place costs separate.

Often the issue becomes what each can input as earnings or retained cash are not in the right proportions.