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Just thought it would be interesting to hear all the different ideas on this. In my case, I own the home, she was a renter. We both live comfortably, but on tight budgets. I won't share our solution to the question, but will just say we are both coming out ahead by living together. (EDIT: Should say "won't share until it's been discussed first.)
I know there are lots of different ideas on this, and that it's very situational. Just wondering what people's thoughts are?
Let her live there for free, cause (you know) lovey dovey and all that?
She pays some rent to offset mortgage?
What about repairs and maintenance?
Food bills?
etc.
Theoretically, it is pretty complex. Homeowner benefiting by building equity, but also having to pay all the upkeep. (Not complaining at all, just laying out the thoughts).
What if 'new roomie' has children, pets, destructive hobbies that might cause extra maintenance?
Currently I'm very happy with our situation. Mostly just curious to hear others' thoughts on it, either hypothetically, or real life experience. (I'm going to do my best to sit back and read rather than address every point that comes out of this.)
Just thought it would be interesting to hear all the different ideas on this. In my case, I own the home, she was a renter. We both live comfortably, but on tight budgets. I won't share our solution to the question, but will just say we are both coming out ahead by living together.
I know there are lots of different ideas on this, and that it's very situational. Just wondering what people's thoughts are?
Let her live there for free, cause (you know) lovey dovey and all that?
She pays some rent to offset mortgage?
What about repairs and maintenance?
Food bills?
etc.
Theoretically, it is pretty complex. Homeowner benefiting by building equity, but also having to pay all the upkeep. (Not complaining at all, just laying out the thoughts).
What if 'new roomie' has children, pets, destructive hobbies that might cause extra maintenance?
Currently I'm very happy with our situation. Mostly just curious to hear others' thoughts on it, either hypothetically, or real life experience. (I'm going to do my best to sit back and read rather than address every point that comes out of this.)
You're asking a question that you aren't willing to answer???
I have gone through this in the past, and currently am. The way I work it is she pays ALL the utilities and all of the "eat-in" food and I pay the mortgage, insurance, taxes. It works out very much in her favor considering she is not paying rent.
For me, electricity use jumped quite a bit and water use doubled.
Real estate is an interesting topic. I have become aware, in recent years, that in some locations when you rent to a person/family OR allow someone to live in your house - whether or not it's rent free - you MAY be letting yourself in for a long, expensive, drawn out court case in order to get that person to eventually move out. As ridiculous as it may seem, that is the case. For this reason I would never rent part or all of my house to anyone without specifically consulting an attorney and having something in writing that is iron clad.
Just make sure you pay all bills regarding upkeep/taxes/insurance/utilities. Its not her house and she may not care whether the mortgage gets paid as much as you. If she walks out and leaves you with a bunch of late payments on utilities, its no problem for her. Charging rent is a great idea. Make sure she pays for all the TP. Your usage will go WAY up.
I think, if it's your place, it's reasonable for you to keep the mortgage, and for everything else to be split 50/50. Once (if) you're married, then you split the mortgage as well.
Quote:
Originally Posted by augiedogie
Make sure she pays for all the TP. Your usage will go WAY up.
In my experience (I've lived with 3 different men, one was a husband when I was younger, though, and 2 were boyfriends), I've never made enough money to be able to split rent 50/50 (I have credit cards I'm paying off, student loans, etc.), so I haven't been made to pay rent, although I do pay for 50%-75% of the utility bills, all of the groceries, and I try to pay 50/50 when we go out (men don't always want the woman paying, though), plus I do most of the cooking and I clean as well.
If someone isn't paying rent, then they absolutely should be "earning their keep" by doing at least 50% of the household chores.
Just thought it would be interesting to hear all the different ideas on this. In my case, I own the home, she was a renter. We both live comfortably, but on tight budgets. I won't share our solution to the question, but will just say we are both coming out ahead by living together. (EDIT: Should say "won't share until it's been discussed first.)
I know there are lots of different ideas on this, and that it's very situational. Just wondering what people's thoughts are?
Let her live there for free, cause (you know) lovey dovey and all that? She pays some rent to offset mortgage? What about repairs and maintenance? Food bills? etc.
Theoretically, it is pretty complex. Homeowner benefiting by building equity, but also having to pay all the upkeep. (Not complaining at all, just laying out the thoughts).
What if 'new roomie' has children, pets, destructive hobbies that might cause extra maintenance?
Currently I'm very happy with our situation. Mostly just curious to hear others' thoughts on it, either hypothetically, or real life experience. (I'm going to do my best to sit back and read rather than address every point that comes out of this.)
When I was 30, I moved in with my then-boyfriend, at his request. The first two and a half years of our relationship, we lived in rentals. His initial idea, in the lovey-dovey phase, was that I would not pay rent. I was not okay with that. The agreement we arrived at was a 60-40 split of rent and utilities. I paid the smaller proportion of the rent at his insistence, because that split, he felt, fairly reflected our income discrepancies. He did not feel that, since I was making a lower wage working in human services than he was working in a corporate setting, that a 50-50 split was fair. I was more than willing to go straight down the middle, as I had been paying 100% of everything for myself for years, but ended up compromising. We weren't responsible for repairs and maintenance, as renters, and we split food costs, but kind of haphazardly. He tended to always pick up the bill when we dined out, and I picked up the grocery bills. It more or less evened out.
The last three years of our relationship, we lived in a house he had chosen to purchase, and purchased on his own. I continued to pay 40% of the mortgage payment and utilities each month...basically paying rent to him as the landlord. The few repairs that came up, he paid for, since he owned the home. General maintenance, we fairly casually split. I would buy something for the house if it was needed, or he would. But I never owned the home, was never on the deed/mortgage, which was an intentional thing on both of our parts.
We never combined assets/bank accounts, always kept those separate.
In the end, five years in, I got dumped and kicked out, and took some flak from people, since I'd "been paying for his house, and had nothing to show for it," intimating that he'd been taking advantage of me in that way, and had me living there just to help him pay his mortgage. But I looked at it as, I would have been renting somewhere, anyway, and the proportion of his mortgage/the utilities that I was paying didn't eclipse what I would have sought to pay in rent myself, if living on my own, so it really made no difference. I never wanted to own a home, and I never wanted to own a home with him. Even though in the honeymoon phase, his idea was very much the "You don't need to pay, AT ALL," and then, "You can pay some, but not half," I think by the end, he had resentment about that choice that he'd pushed so hard for, but overall, he was a largely unhappy person, and that was just one thing of many. He had significant buyer's remorse about a lot of things.
I'm now married, my husband purchased his home almost ten years before we even met, and all expenses come out of our joint accounts. We only lived together for five months prior to marrying, and in that time, we were engaged, and combined things in preparation for marriage. I didn't pay him "rent" in those five months, because it was already "our" money, versus his money and my money. I would never have done this arrangement with somebody I wasn't marrying, though.
In my experience (I've lived with 3 different men, one was a husband when I was younger, though, and 2 were boyfriends), I've never made enough money to be able to split rent 50/50 (I have credit cards I'm paying off, student loans, etc.), so I haven't been made to pay rent, although I do pay for 50%-75% of the utility bills, all of the groceries, and I try to pay 50/50 when we go out (men don't always want the woman paying, though), plus I do most of the cooking and I clean as well.
If someone isn't paying rent, then they absolutely should be "earning their keep" by doing at least 50% of the household chores.
Just out of curiosity, if you could not afford to split rent 50/50 when you moved in with your SO, how the heck were you living before you moved in with them? Were you homeless?
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