Mortgage payments with unequal deposits

anonymous10 · 20 June 2018 at 8:06AM

Hi there. My partner and I have bought a house and we've made unequal deposits (one 80%, one 20%). A legal document has been written up to protect each person's deposit. What are people's views on how we should treat the mortgage payments? As I have paid 80%, should I pay 80% of the mortgage too? Or should I actually pay less as I've put more into the deposit? Then again, should it be 50/50? I know there's no "right" answer to this as it depends on the relationship, the individual, and other circumstances, but I would be grateful for people's opinions.

julicorn · 20 June 2018 at 8:24AM

Depends on if you're talking about wanting to protect the money you're putting in, or generally interested in how others handle this.
We both pay roughly the same proportion of our income, so because I earn quite a lot more, I also pay quite a bit more. I'm not worried about the difference though, or about protecting my money - it's just wait works for us.

jennhg88 · 20 June 2018 at 8:34AM

We earn roughly the same and split the mortgage payment down the middle. He put in all the deposit.

foxy-stoat · 20 June 2018 at 9:20AM

If you both earn about the same, keep it simple and pay 50/50 for everything - if you note the deposit difference then it would be easy to work out if you ever need to sell if you split.

anonymous10 · 21 June 2018 at 12:44PM

Thank you for your replies, if anyone has any other thoughts please feel free to post

lee111s · 21 June 2018 at 1:23PM

I put in 55k, my partner around 3k (we have a deed of trust for this, at my partners request, not mine).

I earn double what ny partner earns, so I put double what she puts into the joint account.

It!!!8217;s not always about equals. If it!!!8217;s someone you love and you!!!8217;re both happy with whatever way you do it, that!!!8217;s what matters. It doesn!!!8217;t have to be 50/50 for everything.

We have a joint account for bills and then the rest of our money is our money, we don!!!8217;t pool it all together like some couple do.

For me, I wouldn!!!8217;t be comfortable with her having say £600 a month after bills, and me having over £1700. It!!!8217;s worked for us for years.

Do what works for you.

studentguy · 25 June 2018 at 6:17PM

The way we're planning on doing it is I've worked out what we need to cover bills, mortgage and an emergency fund, which comes out of a joint account, and we both put in the same proportion of our income into that account - around 70% IIRC. So I will end up putting more into that account than her in purely cash terms - but this way it seems fairer so we both end up with the same % of money each that's ours.

lazareth1 · 26 June 2018 at 2:32PM

I earn 50% more than my partner when it comes to wages but we decided way before our joint mortgage that we would just pool all our money together for anything related to living costs.

This meant that our mortgage is 50/50 but in reality it's 75/25. This doesn't bother me, she works just as hard as I do probably more! The other plus side she'll be more inclined to look after the house as she has a higher stake in it

CathyJ_2 · 26 June 2018 at 4:27PM

My partner and myself are in an extremely similar with our mortgage deposits, his was about 10% mine 90%. The legal document I believe means if you were to sale the house you would get 80% of the value.

You've paid extra to get the home, which has been legal secured for you to come out on top to be honest. Paying less would mean in the event you sale or split up, you get 80% plus get to benefit from the lower contribution to the home.
Paying more in my view is equally as bad as you are just paying more of your own money in, for something that's technically joint.

I always think if you're happy to do 50/50 on all household bills then do as you jointly entered a legal contract together to purchase a home so it's both peoples responsibly to make sure the household runs.

However if you earn 50k and your partner earns 25k and struggles to maintain 50/50 there's no harm in tweaking it a little so you both find it financially beneficial ie, both have £400 pm to live off after you've paid for everything so one isn't always relying on the other for meals out etc, or however you deem fair.

Myself and my partner personally half everything even though he gets paid probably a third more than me a year.

getmore4less · 27 June 2018 at 8:36AM

anonymous10 wrote: »

Hi there. My partner and I have bought a house and we've made unequal deposits (one 80%, one 20%). A legal document has been written up to protect each person's deposit. What are people's views on how we should treat the mortgage payments? As I have paid 80%, should I pay 80% of the mortgage too? Or should I actually pay less as I've put more into the deposit? Then again, should it be 50/50? I know there's no "right" answer to this as it depends on the relationship, the individual, and other circumstances, but I would be grateful for people's opinions.

What does that document say about the rest of the finances and how you split on sale, bit late but it might need changing

There are 2 basic ways to do this.

Get the deposit back and split 50:50
if you pay mortgage 50:50 this is equivalent to a interest free loan of 1/2 the deposit

equitable shares

this is where you own based on the money you put in and the debt you service.

eq, if the 80:20 deposits were 40% of the value and you pay the mortgage 50:50
the split is
0.8*0.4 + 0.5*0.6 = 62%
0.2*0.4 + 0.5*0.6 = 32%

you can play around with the splits

If your document says own 80:20 to make that correct with a 80:20 deposit you need to pay the mortgage 80:20 as well.

firstbuyer · 27 June 2018 at 9:15AM

You and your partner need to be having this conversation really...

If you're committed together then why does it matter who pays more / pays less etc - should you both not just be contributing what you can to cover the bills?

Mortgage payments with unequal deposits

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