this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2025
60 points (98.4% liked)
Asklemmy
45238 readers
862 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- !lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
When my wife (at the time girlfriend) moved in, we split the interest portion of the mortgage payment 50/50. Principle was 100% me. Utilities food and supplies were evenly split. Every bolted down upgrade I paid for 100%, but we decided to split paint since it mattered more to her.
The idea was if she bolted, I would mostly be left with what I paid for. If we got married (we did), we’d combine finances and it wouldn’t matter anyway.
that still means she helped pay off the mortgage, and she should accordingly own a part of the house even if she "bolted"
The logic is that she didn't pay any equity into the house. That makes the situation similar to two people sharing the monthly rent on a rented apartment except they're paying a bank and not the landlord.
it's the cost of purchasing a house. Two people paying a landlord is more similar to having two girlfriends who pay off the mortgage. This is more like one person sharing the cost of the loan on a house they won't get to keep.
Ok, but like it also doesn’t seem fair for the non-owner romantic partner to just get free rent, no?
If the owner sells the property, they will not get back any of the money spent on interest. Thats the point. The assumption is that the principal is the best representation of the portion that the property owner gets to keep.
well to me it doesn't seem fair for the non-owner to help pay off the house and the other getting to own all of it.
The price for owning that house is not just the loan but the interest as well. A home is more than a financial investment, but a necessity. Imagine buying a car that you let your SO use but insisting that she pay a quarter of the cost because the car loses half its value as soon as you drive it off the lot and it's only fair that she pay half of that money thats "lost" but then keeping all the money once you sell the car to yourself
A car loses its value when you drive it off the lot because it’s a depreciating asset. That money doesn’t go to the bank or the owner. It just vanishes.
Besides, if your partner only helped pay the interest portion of the auto loan (which is what I’m proposing), the depreciating value of the car would be fully felt by you when you sell the car. They would just be out a few months of interest regardless of the sustained value of the car.
Homes typically increase in value or at least hold value. When you sell your home, you won’t get back any of the money you gave to the bank as interest, but in theory everything else including your down payment will be returned to you.
So to me it makes sense that while a partner is living with you and if they are committed to helping pay for utilities and whatnot, they can also contribute to the cost of living at the home. I believe helping to pay the interest is a fair and equitable way to do that.
I mean when you’re renting a place you’re more than likely helping the owner pay off their loan anyway. It’s just another step removed.
and your partner would get nothing if she "bolted" even though she paid money so you could have it
and you think thats fair??? "It's a bit like I'm the landlord and my partner is the tenant" is the argument I'm trying to make
Yea I like this.