Cohabitation Agrement Advice

SilverSix

Evening All,

Later this year my girlfriend and I plan to purchase a property together and I'd be keen to hear of peoples experiences with cohabitation agreements.

I will be seeking my own legal advice, at this stage I have a few questions regarding their scope and what's possible.

The deposit equity split is 85/15% in my favour and we've agreed to split the mortgage payments 70/30 as I am the higher earner. I expect I will end up paying the majority share on most things during our time there and naturally I am keen to protect my interests.

• As we are unmarried I expect all existing assets; cars, savings, pension do not need to be in scope of a CA?

• Is it good practice to keep record of any major development or improvements, furniture or anything bought jointly, or individually, as an appendix presuming such an index forms part of the original CA and is signed by both parties with sufficient witnesses? Or is best practice to update the CA periodically?

• In the not too distant future she will receive a large inheritance enabling her even up on our original deposit contribution. We've yet to discuss this but I would like to true-up at this point, Transfer of Equity and potential Stamp Duty aside, can this be written in to a CA or would this need to come under a different legal agreement?

These are all questions I will ask my own solicitor but if anyone here has any experience they could share in the meantime I'd be grateful.

Thanks.

Keep_pedalling

For the property you need to own as tenants in common with a deed of trust drawn up to show how ownership is divided.

Brie

what I'm hearing is that you and your soon to be other half (in whatever sense) have talked this through.  And that's the most important thing.  I would suggest that she has her own solicitor to look after her interests and you further discuss things like how much per month is going into a joint account to pay for the shared bills.  

Bigphil1474

I think you might complicate things with the mortgage payment split. If the deposit is split 85/15, I'd go same with mortgage so that even if she doesn't level up, you always retain 85%. Otherwise you will retain 85% of deposit, but only 70% of any new equity - equity goes up partly due to mortgage being paid off but partly due to your initial investment. One for the lawyers maybe,

My partner and I are going 50/50 but that's on the basis that I will pay 100% of the mortgage to make up for the lower deposit contribution I am making, and being the main earner. Technically it's a bit risky as I could run off without paying the mortgage, but we are both happy with the arrangement, and we've been together 30 years - we've lived in her property for that time, but now we're moving on up.

In terms of assets, we haven't included them in our agreement. Don't think it's worth doing - more for if you get married.

In terms of future purchases, I don't think I'll want to include anything like furniture etc. unless it's expensive stuff - we'll just split the cost as best we can. I would be inclined to if we had an uneven share and did any major works on the property like an extension etc. 

The easiest solution might be to wait for her to receive her inheritance and buy then? (or even get married lol - I'm not recommending that btw )

Albermarle

Is it good practice to keep record of any major development or improvements, furniture or anything bought jointly, or individually, as an appendix presuming such an index forms part of the original CA and is signed by both parties with sufficient witnesses?

It might be good practice legally/financially, but probably not conducive to good relations if with every trip around Furniture Village, DFS etc you have your solicitor following you round ( in spirit if not in body ).