(no subject)

[bolson]

my recent poll, while full of other fascinating info, primarily fascinates me around the issues of live-in special others. I drew up the poll after thinking, 'What if I buy a house/condo, and then find a girlfriend who wants to move in?'

It was once the situation where my girlfriend wrote me a medium check and I wrote the landlord a big check. "Splitting rent with a live-in SO is fine"
Maybe it'll be OK if I remember that for the most part I won't really (right away) own the place and it's really the same sequence: she writes me a check, I write the bank a big check.

Maybe some of the potential for weirdness comes from the 'sweetheart deal'. How much discount do I give my theoretical SO-renter? Somewhere between 0 and 100%, most likely. I guess that is just another one of those relationship things that would have to be negotiated and there isn't so much a general purpose right answer. Why is everything one of those things?

Comments

[catya.livejournal.com]

What we did at homeport was base the split on income. (both the split of the mortgage and therefore the ownership percentage)

[queen-of-wands.livejournal.com]

Yeah, when soong and I moved in together, he paid more for rent than I did but his income was higher than mine, and both of us paid less than we had been in our previous apartments. So I think we were both winning.

[clara-girl.livejournal.com]

i think evrey relationship is different, so there's no way to create a "what-if" for a potential future relationship...

buy what you want, where you want it. how do you know that you'll meet someone who will want to live in the neighborhood you buy a house in anyway?

to answer your questions though: i think co-owning a house with friends is more risky than renting with strangers (because you put a friendship on the line, potentially) though i know people who have done it very well.

what if you date someone who becomes unemployed? would you carry her financially for a while? what if you meet someone with a kid?

i mean... few things are certain in this life. work with what you know, and make some provisions for "what if" but i'm not sure you can decide NOW how you'll handle a potential future relationship as the role of 'landlord.'

[clara-girl.livejournal.com]

also: just because you buy something, doesn't mean you can't sell it :).

[devreux.livejournal.com]

Very true.

I don't mean to discourage you from buying a house. Far from it! I think you should go for it, if/when you find the house that's right. But the discussion has turned towards live-in SO's, and really all my giant long two-part reply is about is the difference between you and your SO getting a house together, and you getting a house and hypothetically adding a SO to the household at a later date. The latter situation can be a lot more complicated. Yes, possibly even to the point of having to sell your(singular) house so that you(plural) can buy a different one and make a fresh start together. But there are an awful lot of variables. :-P

Don't shy away from buying a house because of what-ifs. Just remember that they're there.

[clara-girl.livejournal.com]

i absolutely agree with what you have to say below.

i could be wrong, but i see soong making large decisions, and incorporating a hypothetical situation ("if i start dating someone, who then wants to date long-term, who then wants to move into my home, who also happens to want to live in the neighborhood i live in.") that's a lot of Ifs.

devreux, you do a wonderful job of describing the equality needed (both emotional and financial) for live-in SOs. well done :)

Part I

[devreux.livejournal.com]

Oh, with longer to think about my relevant experiences and opinions, I can expound at even greater length on this subject!

I find it interesting that 100% of responders to your poll (as I type this) think that sharing rent with a live-in SO is fine, but half of them think "owning and renting to a live-in SO," i.e. sharing homeowning expenses with a live-in SO, is weird.

I still don't get it. It's okay to ask your live-in SO to share housing costs when you are renting a place, but once one of you buys a home the other is suddenly exempt from any housing costs?? To me, such a suggestion is positively ludicrous. Housing costs are housing costs; paying a lease vs. paying a mortgage is just two names for the same basic expense. (I'm ignoring the legal ramifications of actually owning real estate here -- just from a financial point of view, it's still money that you have to pay in order to have a place to live.)

Although there's the entirely other issue of what happens when one person owns a home and, later in the game, a SO joins the picture. I've been the Johnny-come-lately SO to a person who already owned a home, so I can speak at least from personal experience. Your mileage may vary, of course ...

Psychologically speaking, there's a big difference between a couple buying (or even renting) a residence together and a couple where one has owned or rented a property for some time and the other moves in. (At least there is for me.)

Basically: When the two of you create a household together, there's a feeling of equal (emotional, if not also financial) investment and ownership. Yes, even when you're renting. You arrange the furniture, which is a mix of his and hers, together; you buy new furniture together; you decorate together. You decide which artwork gets hung up, and which is banished forevermore, together. Both parties have equal "say" in decisions about the new household. (Or at least the option for an equal say. Some guys really don't care what color the kitchen appliances are, and the decision is left up to the female -- but if the male had an opinion, he could voice it and his opinion would be respected and considered. Or should be if the relationship is good and respectful. But I digress.)

When one partner already owns a home, it's much harder. (soong, since you're male I'll say "he".) He's already bought the furniture he needs for the home, already arranged things, already decorated. He has to, if he lives in the place by himself for any length of time ... he can't just say "Oh, well, I'm not going to bother to buy a couch because I might attract an SO someday who will want to move in with me and then we can just use a couch that she hypothetically has."

And so when the partner moves in (or thinks about moving in) she's not getting a chance to build a new household/life together with her SO. She gets to move into someone else's house. Her furniture? Probably all being sold or, at best, put into storage. Her decor items? Ditto. She may be offered a room that will be "her" room, with her books, artwork, hobby things and computer, but the rest of the house is "his", not "theirs." Will the homeowner be willing to rearrange the whole house because the new partner thinks that maybe the guest room and the library ought to be swapped and that the furniture in the dining room looks terrible together and impedes the flow of traffic? Maybe ... but maybe not. For two people to build a new level of relationship/new life/new household together in a space where one of those people has been living, alone, for some time is very difficult. If both parties went into it with eyes open, and if the homeowner actively worked to "restart" his household, fully incorporating his new SO, her opinions and her things, from the ground up, so to speak, it might succeed. (In every area you, the owner, have to actively change the space from "mine" to "ours" -- and the new partner has to also believe that the space has been transformed from "yours" to "ours.") But I can only imagine it would be a challenge.

(Continued)

Re: Part I

[cos]

I find it interesting that 100% of responders to your poll (as I type this) think that sharing rent with a live-in SO is fine, but half of them think "owning and renting to a live-in SO," i.e. sharing homeowning expenses with a live-in SO, is weird.

Those are not parallel situations at all.

I said that sharing rent with a live-in SO is fine, and that co-owning with a live-in SO is fine. Those are parallel situations, and the latter is the one I'd call "sharing homeowning expenses with". The one in the middle, owning and renting to a live-in SO, is sharing homeowning expenses plus the added factor of you owning the place, and your SO renting from you. For that, I voted both "fine" and "weird". I think it can be fine, but it definitely adds an element of potential weirdness and power imbalance that you have to deal with.

Re: Part I

[devreux.livejournal.com]

Ah! Perhaps I am interpreting things a little differently than some. Might explain some of the disagreement I've had with others' responses. No offense, I hope?

My interpretations:

Sharing rent with a live-in SO = both of you are named on the lease.

Owning and renting to a live-in SO = only you are named on the mortgage but the SO pays an appropriate portion of the housing costs. No "profit" or other "added factors" contribute to the calculation of the "appropriate portion." Legally binding documents not expected.

Owning and renting to friends = only you are named on the mortgage but the friend(s) pay(s) an appropriate portion of the housing costs. I don't expect any profit or other "added factors" to contribute to the calculation of the "appropriate portion." Legally binding documents may or may not be signed.

Owning and renting to random people = only you are named on the mortgage. You charge rent as you determine to be appropriate (based on the unit, the local rental market, the size of your mortgage, taxes, &c) and the "random people" enter a legally binding lease.

Hmm, I guess I'm applying "renting" rather differently in each case here.

Co-owning with = all co-owners are named on the mortgage.

Not that you're likely to care very much, cos, but soong might find my definitions useful in the context of my other responses. ^_^

nonsequitur

[cos]

Completely unrelated to this discussion: How is it that you know both andymeg and soong, but we have nobody else in common? That's one of the least-likely friend intersections I could think of.

Re: nonsequitur

[devreux.livejournal.com]

I know andymeg via foxxydancr (IIRC, they went to high school together); we met in person in Pittsburgh through SCA-related activities, more or less.

I know soong because I met him at a party hosted by blk here in Pittsburgh (they're both Carnegie Mellon alumni); I know blk only rather peripherally mostly through grouchyoldcoot, who used to be a regular rock-climbing partner of mine before I turned lame and stopped climbing and who I also know through the SCA. :-P

Hey, soong! A childhood friend of mine went to high school with you! Angie Funk, moved out there in the summer of 1992. She would have been in the class below you, so you probably have no idea who she was. ^_^ I visited a few times. Life is strange.

Re: nonsequitur

[soong.livejournal.com]

I took Angie Funk to the homecoming dance my sophomore / her frosh year and we dated in a cute little high school way for two months after that. We were in the band together and both played clarinet.

Re: nonsequitur

[devreux.livejournal.com]

WELL A WHOLE BUNCH OF EXPLETIVES HERE!!!

I am officially terrified.

My world is collapsing into a black hole it's so damn tiny.

Did you ever stay in touch with her? I've always regretted that we fell out of contact after high school.

Damn, now I'm going to have to go back and look in old letters/emails and see if she mentioned you or not, since honestly it's been ages since I looked at any of those ...

Re: nonsequitur

[cos]

Ahah! Both Pittsburgh connections, but I didn't even remember Andrea was from there - if I had, it would've made more sense :) For three years she was my then-girlfriend's housemate - their last two years in college and then for a year after college when they and one of their friends got a place together. College was in Vermont, place after college was in Maine, and then she went to another part of Vermont, so I totally think of her as a northern New England girl and forget she wasn't one before I knew her. I don't know any of her pre-college friends, though, despite visiting her place 2+ weekends a month for three years :)

Part II

[devreux.livejournal.com]

(Continued)

(For the record, I never moved in with my homeowning SO, for just these reasons. I was not just going to subjugate myself and "move into D.'s life/house/&c" as if I was some minor household appliance - a new microwave, perhaps - being replaced while the rest of his life continued unchanged. However, my current SO and I moved into a nice apartment together and it's been great. Building a joint household together has been an amazing experience.)

Hmm ... in this kind of situation, where the home is "your" home and the SO is just a new phenomenon in your life, I can see why people would think it weird to ask a SO-who-moves-into-the-house-you've-been-paying-for-all-by-yourself to start defraying your housing costs.

But inviting the SO to live with you for free has its pitfalls, too. Are you encouraging dependency? Maybe. Can it cause trouble if you break up but can't get your (newly former) lover-who-has-been-transformed-overnight-into-a-freeloader to either start paying rent or move out? The potential exists. Is it balanced to create a "partnership" wherein the partners don't have equal/equitable (financial) stakes? I guess that will vary from couple to couple; some might think it's fine and can consider themselves equal when only one makes significant financial contributions to the household, but for others it might engender unwanted feelings of superior/inferior roles.

Wow, I don't want to sound like so much of a downer. I know you've been looking to buy a home. I know you'd love to find a SO. I know the home might happen first. I don't want to say that it (buying a home and then getting an SO who later moves in) can't work out. But I'd like for you to hear my experiences and opinions on the matter, since I've been the SO you start seeing after you buy a home. Because I think there are some serious issues you have to keep in mind when this happens.

You know, I'd love to hear experiences and opinions from someone who's moved into a home a SO already owned, and it worked out ...

(Aside: I agree with catya about splitting based on income. It's very fair.)

Re: Part II

[soong.livejournal.com]

Thank-you for all this, and I should re-read it and post a considered response when I'm not at work.

[devreux.livejournal.com]

Owning and renting to a live-in SO is fine/weird

Maybe it'll be OK if I remember that for the most part I won't really (right away) own the place and it's really the same sequence: she writes me a check, I write the bank a big check.

In other replies I've discussed the difference between being a landlord to your live-in SO, up to and including the SO signing a lease, and "renting" to your SO in the casual fashion of holding the mortgage yourself and entering a flexible oral agreement in which your SO defrays an appropriate portion of your (joint, since you both share the household!) housing costs. The former is excessively/unecessarily/inappropriately formal in a relationship that already assumes a significant level of commitment and trust; however, the latter is (in my opinion) eminently reasonable and appropriate. In any case I think the intent is the same, even if the wording and the nuts and bolts of the arrangement may vary.

Wow, I am getting verbose. ^_^

Anyway, you said "I won't really (right away) own the place ... I write the bank a big check." Others have also brought up the idea of being a "landlord" to your "SO-renter." Don't think of it that way. You're not "charging rent" to your SO with the intent of making a profit or anything. And as you own more of the home, and the expenses decrease, I'd expect the cost to both you and your live-in SO to decrease proportionally. It's like going dutch. You don't say "My SO always chips in $20 for dinner no matter where we go," do you? No. If you go out for sushi, you both pay more than if you go to DQ for hot dogs. Seems sensible to me! :-)

[soong.livejournal.com]

eminently sensible!

I think the cost-sharing cooperative frame holds a lot of potential good over the landlord-tennant transaction model.

[devreux.livejournal.com]

And apparently I engendered confusion by assuming that you wanted consistent language within the poll and, for that reason only, used "Owning and renting to X" in all cases. I read your consistent language and applied a slightly different concept to each iteration, all of which (in my interpretation) boil down to you being the only name on the mortgage while others defray the housing costs as appropriate, with the formality of the arrangement varying on a sliding scale depending on the closeness of the pre-existing relationship between the mortgage-holder and the non-mortgage-holders.

When I first responded to the poll, I didn't seriously consider that you would make a live-in SO sign a lease and pay "rent" as determined based on the prices in your local for-profit rental market! That would be weird, and probably bad.

[songblaze.livejournal.com]

I mentioned this elsewhere, but as a law student...actually having the SO sign a lease protects both parties financially.

If the SO has been paying you and you don't have a written lease, they can be on the hook for the mortgage in some states - this is a MUST to check first!

On the flip side, in the same states they can also be held to own a portion of the house - in some states half, in some states a percentage based on what they were paying vs the mortgage payments.

I know some people react badly to the idea of signing a lease with their SO, because it's formal and whatnot, but legally speaking it protects both of you!

[r-transpose-p.livejournal.com]

This is kinda along the lines of what I was thinking.

I was also thinking "Hey, if its really long term, and she pays what effectively amounts to part of the mortgage, why shouldn't she own part of the house"?

[flexagon]

I agree. But the answer, of course, would be "because her name's not on the mortgage; she's been paying rent to soong instead of interest and capital on the loan to the bank." That said, if they then marry the house would probably become joint property anyway (it would in MA).

There are plenty of loving couples who would be willing to do the formal things to protect each other from each other. I'm in one... we split everything 50/50 because neither of us ever got over the typical 5-year-old's idea of what "fair" is. It works for us. ^_^

Anyway, I don't think soong should refrain from buying a house just because he might want to live with a SO someday. Houses can be sold, rented out to others (maybe he'll like her house better), or refinanced to put both names on the mortgage. There are a million ways "out" if the situation becomes weird-but-not-fine.

[elusiveat.livejournal.com]

How much discount do I give my theoretical SO-renter?

None.

[devreux.livejournal.com]

I don't suggest giving a discount based on sex. :-P

But there are ways besides the financial to contribute to a household, and ways besides 50/50 to split the costs. Primarily, there's splitting the housing costs based on income (already mentioned). But what about intangibles? In my current situation my live-in SO and I have comparable incomes. We split the rent 50/50. But he's fine with putting more money into the utilities because I put more time into the household (chores, maintenance, errands, &c). It works for us.

Everyone will come to a different agreement. :-)

[elusiveat.livejournal.com]

I'm operating under the assumption that since the question only specifies SO-renters, it's an SO-specific discount.

So I stick by none.

There are of course plenty of ways to work out finances, but I don't think SOs are entitled to any more discount than anybody else. If it's an SO that you're having a child with and they'll be the primary care-giver, that's a different story.

[shoebox-bird.livejournal.com]

I wasn't really sure how to respond to your poll. Nothing is "weird" persay; every situation is different. I've been in situations where living with friends worked great, and situations where it was mediocre at best. Never lived with strangers before. (Aside from my freshman year roommate). Have lived with two SOs, and never had any problems or weirdness. When I was a student, SO #1 paid most of the bills. A few years later he lost his job and I paid most of the bills. It balanced out just fine. You just have to go with the flow. :)

If you really want to buy a place, just make sure you can afford it on your own in the present. (Either through your own income or your income + roommates). Then cross the SO bridge when you come to it. Personally, I tend to be pretty conservative financially and wouldn't buy a place I couldn't afford to cover each month -- roommates, the economy, and job status is too unpredictable IMO.

[r-transpose-p.livejournal.com]

Hey, if you have a live in girlfriend, and she pays you rent so you can pay your mortgage, does that mean she can claim ownership of part of this house?

If you let her live there for free, same question?

I am not a lawyer, so I don't know the answers.

In traditional marriages, I am pretty sure that it usually works out that both of you end up owning the house you live in. Again, not only am I not a lawyer, I am also not a divorce lawyer from the 1950s. Plus, this must vary by state.

[songblaze.livejournal.com]

Complicated, varies by state, but in general - marital home is treated as joint property.

This means, among other things, that if one spouse has a debt - say my law partnership were to go belly up in a big way, and I was married - the house is protected until from debt collection until it is sold in most states. However, once it's sold, the creditors could come after up to half of the proceeds. It also gets in to a lot of interesting quirks that accompany concurrant ownership, because each person owns the house entirely, but not to the exclusion of the other. Concurrant ownership is iiiiiiinteresting.


On to non-marital:
If she pays, it's complicated. Frankly, it's far, FAR simpler if you actually articulate whether or not someone is paying rent or paying towards the mortgage. If they are living with you and paying you, in the absence of a written agreement, it varies from state to state whether the assumption is rent or mortgage. As I recall, the default in most states is that they're paying mortgage. I frankly haven't got enough interest in property law to learn beyond that, really.

If she lives there for free, then she does not have a claim on the house UNLESS you're in a common-law state and stay living together past the common law term without an agreement preceeding it (which effectively acts like a prenuptual agreement in a marriage). If it's a common law state and you don't have an agreement like that, it's usually 50/50.

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

It depends on the relationship, but I think it's very important to work these issues out before moving in together. If you have a lot of trouble working it out, I'd say don't move in together. Why rush into such a thing?

My personal values at this point are such that if I don't feel committed enough to be willing to share ownership with an SO, I won't move in with them. And of course if you're married, there's no question, since you're both owners.

[kerya.livejournal.com]

Buy the place now, worry about the girlfriend later, or you'll end up either not buying or buying suboptimally in order to accommodate someone you haven't even met yet.

I've lived with both friends and strangers and it's worked out both awesomely and terribly. I don't see a correlation between a preexisting friendship and how well you are as roommates... and in fact I think strangers is perhaps better in that if it doesn't work out you don't strain an old friendship, and if it does work out you not only win one new friend, you get to meet all of their friends too.

[songblaze.livejournal.com]

Seconded on the friends vs strangers things for roommates. Some of my dearest friends, I could not stand to live with. They would drive me abso-fucking-lutely nuts. Some of the roommates I got on with just fine weren't particularly friends when we were living together, just people who occupied the same space in a way that didn't annoy either of us.