Girlfriend wants to move in, how much should she pay?

Eomer_sl said:

It has nothing to do with women being taken care of, for fuck's sake. It's incredibly simple. If you are both paying "half of everything" (including maintenance) and the relationship ends, she will have paid the same amount as you did and yet will have nothing to show for it while you have all the equity gained when she walks out the door. That is fundamentally unfair, and in fact is not "half" at all. She's been paying for half, and yet walks away with nothing while you have the equity.

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I really don't get this. The mortgage has nothing to do with your relationship with her. If the house is underwater when you break up, would you argue that she owes you money? Of course not. Why would she be entitled to equity without sharing the risk?

Maybe other people look at this differently than me, but I viewed "half" as a sort of baseline, you take that and negotiate from it based on what she can realistically afford or whatever other factors need to be addressed, and come to some kind of number. That number is her share of expenses, doesn't matter what it goes to, if this dude uses it to pay part of the mortgage or buy groceries or sex change slush fund or whatever. His agreement with the bank to finance this house has nothing to do with his agreement with his girlfriend to share expenses related to living together.

For your other theoretical, yeah, if I owned a place outright and I actually cared enough about a girl to move in with her, all I would expect was to split the utilities and expenses. Why not?

Eomer_sl said:

That's a negotiated, arms length lease you have with your tenants. You're charging them rent, you're not charging them a portion of your mortgage. If your mortgage skyrockets or nosedives because of a big change in interest rates, it's not like you are directly applying the difference to their lease without them having the opportunity to say "fuck you, I'm moving somewhere else then." It's an entirely different situation than having a girlfriend move in. Your tenants do not give a single fuck about whether or not you have a mortgage on the place or own it outright. All they care about is what the lease rate or rent is, your underlying financial situation has no bearing on them.

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She shouldn't care whether I have a mortgage on the place or own it outright either. You touched on this later and it's actually my view as well, the mortgage payment shouldn't even really factor into it. It should be fair market value in your area for similar living conditions which is very easy to check on the HUD website. There is no real difference between living with a friend, living with a girlfriend, or charging tenants as far as money should be concerned from a purely objective standpoint. Obviously it's impossible to keep emotions out of it but I don't think a girlfriend should get any specialty treatment, but I'm a hard case on this subject after being fucked over twice by two previous gf's.

Eomer_sl said:

Actually, this was never really brought up or discussed to any great extent. Again, I would think that if you want things to be fair and or equitable, then either she pays what a market lease rate would be for the space (or half of it) and none of the maintenance and doesn't receive any equity, or you go balls deep and have her pay half the mortgage, half the maintenance, and she gets half the equity generated while she's living there.

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I Agree.

Eomer_sl said:

It has nothing to do with women being taken care of, for fuck's sake. It's incredibly simple. If you are both paying "half of everything" (including maintenance) and the relationship ends, she will have paid the same amount as you did and yet will have nothing to show for it while you have all the equity gained when she walks out the door. That is fundamentally unfair, and in fact is not "half" at all. She's been paying for half, and yet walks away with nothing while you have the equity.

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I don't understand this at all. How is she walking away with nothing? She'd be walking out of any rental situation with "nothing", why should I feel bad for someone who paid for a place to live, eat and sleep... you know... like pretty much every other normal, responsible adult on earth? She's paying a fair price for a place to live.

Eomer_sl said:

Let's look at it another way. Pretend that you own your place outright, with no mortgage. Would it be "fair" for her to live with you rent free, just paying for half of the utilities and other monthly expenses? Personally, I don't think so. In that situation, she should still be paying whatever the rent for an equivalent space would be to you, because you've spent hundreds of thousands buying that home in the first place. Otherwise you're subsidizing her cost of living (and that's totally fine if you want to do that, but it is also fundamentally not fair or equitable).

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You're kind of flip-flopping here. Yes, she should still pay you're right. But how could you take your stance on half isn't fair unless she gets equity while saying she should pay if you own outright because you shouldn't be subsidizing her cost of living. Charging her anything less than fair market value for a place is subsidizing her cost of living and that is almost always going to be MORE than half a mortgage because landlords aren't in the habit of operating at a loss. I know I'm sure not.

Eomer_sl said:

I guess what I'm getting at is that there are two ways of treating this, one is either as a couple (whether legally married, common law, or just shacked up) that splits everything halfways including mortgage, maintenance and equity, or as a landlord/lessee where she pays an appropriate rent (regardless of what your mortgage is or isn't) and share of monthly expenses. Mixing the two together just doesn't make sense to me.

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Why are these the only two options? Why the fuck should I treat my relationship with a girlfriend who is about to move the same as if I am married? If you went to a car dealer with a girlfriend who just moved in with you, would you co-sign her lease and help her with down payment and monthly payments after that? I mean, sure there are guys who would and actually do but Jesus Christ I never would. However, I would do that with my wife.

I own a house, pay a mortgage for the first two years before I got married I ran the place like this.

I payed all the bills. I rented rooms for 400$/room. my bills were like 900 for mortgage (mixed with insurance) and maybe 300 ish in other bills. except for summer. ac bill went up a bunch.

anyway, rent her a room, don't split the cost of the whole house. that makes her a renter clearly. even if she sleeps in your bed, she can also have her own personal space etc.

on a side note, dunno if you can everywhere, but I was able to label 'common use area' upgrades as tax deductible based on what percentage of the bedroom dwellers used them. I painted the livingroom, kitchen, dining room, basement,etc. all those supplies were 75% tax deductible due to me renting 3/4 bedrooms. this included a toilet, shower upgrades and all kinds of shit. business expenses yo.

I would gladly have someone pay half rent before half mortgage. I guess things are different in Canada or are we not talking monthly? Half rent would actually pay for my mortgage if we arent factoring in taxes/insurance.

Khane_sl said:

I don't understand this at all. How is she walking away with nothing? She'd be walking out of any rental situation with "nothing", why should I feel bad for someone who paid for a place to live, eat and sleep... you know... like pretty much every other normal, responsible adult on earth? She's paying a fair price for a place to live.

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Because many people are saying "half the mortgage", not "half the fair market rental value for an equivalent space." The two are not the same thing.

Khane_sl said:

You're kind of flip-flopping here. Yes, she should still pay you're right. But how could you take your stance on half isn't fair unless she gets equity while saying she should pay if you own outright because you shouldn't be subsidizing her cost of living. Charging her anything less than fair market value for a place is subsidizing her cost of living and that is almost always going to be MORE than half a mortgage because landlords aren't in the habit of operating at a loss. I know I'm sure not.

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It's not flip flopping at all. Again, "half the mortgage" is not fair or equitable if she isn't getting half of the equity, and "half of nothing" is not fair if you own the home outright. In the wholly owned home scenario, half should be "half the fair market rental value for an equivalent space", like I said above. Whether that's more or less than what half the mortgage would be is irrelevant. And whether a mortgage would be more or less than rent is dependent on a whole slew of factors, like amortization period, equity, and so on. If you have a 30 year mortgage, yeah it might well be cheaper than rent. If it's 15 years, no way it will be. And again, that's really going to be influenced by the local real estate market. Throughout most of Canada it's very much a renter's market right now because we never had a real estate correction, so home values are way higher than rents. The US is much more balanced, but certain regional markets may not be.

Eomer_sl said:

It's not flip flopping at all. Again, "half the mortgage" is not fair or equitable if she isn't getting half of the equity, and "half of nothing" is not fair if you own the home outright. In the wholly owned home scenario, half should be "half the fair market rental value for an equivalent space", like I said above. Whether that's more or less than what half the mortgage would be is irrelevant. And whether a mortgage would be more or less than rent is dependent on a whole slew of factors, like amortization period, equity, and so on. If you have a 30 year mortgage, yeah it might well be cheaper than rent. If it's 15 years, no way it will be. And again, that's really going to be influenced by the local real estate market. Throughout most of Canada it's very much a renter's market right now because we never had a real estate correction, so home values are way higher than rents. The US is much more balanced, but certain regional markets may not be.

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Good points, and I think we agree. Fair market value is fair and equitable, though sometimes (most of the time actually) it's just way easier to say "half" for the sake of argument.

Yeah, but I'm the master of debating tiny minutae, and I'll be damned if I was letting that shit slide!

In this state, even if you two were married, and she payed half of the mortgage/expenses, she still wouldn't be entitled to any of the equity in your house. This assumes that the house was your separate property before the marriage.

Gadrel_sl said:

the house was your separate property before the marriage.

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yep, my state too. only matters who is on the title. I they sink money into the mortgage, it's just them paying for a roof over their head (which they would do alone anyway. plus no utility sharing saving $$)

Basically buy your house before you get married. It'll be your house (if your state is sane) and you look like a strong self supporting provider, which never hurts with the ladies.

..._sl said:

yep, my state too. only matters who is on the title. I they sink money into the mortgage, it's just them paying for a roof over their head (which they would do alone anyway. plus no utility sharing saving $$)

Basically buy your house before you get married. It'll be your house (if your state is sane) and you look like a strong self supporting provider, which never hurts with the ladies.

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If you are married it no longer matters. Divorce laws are still antiquated and the woman will get half even if (re: especially if) she's a lying, cheating whore with no moral fiber.

Hoss_sl said:

You're debating retardedly. You don't seem to grasp, even though multiple people have said it, that 95%+ of the time, half the mortgage is less than half the fair market value for an equivalent space. And you are arguing that she is somehow entitled to equity for getting the lower amount.

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I have specifically mentioned housing price vs. rent ratios to be a factor worth considering several times, fuck wad.

Khane_sl said:

If you are married it no longer matters. Divorce laws are still antiquated and the woman will get half even if (re: especially if) she's a lying, cheating whore with no moral fiber.

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False. In my state, the one where I practice the law, "The separate property of a spouse is his exclusively. It comprises: property acquired by a spouse prior to the establishment of a community property regime..." La. Civ. Code art. 2341. Property is categorized at the time of acquisition. So if you buy a house while single, then marry, the house remains separate property. Even if the other spouse makes mortgage payments, the house remains the separate property of the first spouse. The other spouse may be able to get reimbursement for 1/2 of the community funds expended to improve the house.

What kind of law do you practice? And what state do you live in, because I need to move to that state if that's true. From everything I've seen women still get to claim practically fucking everything as half their own. And good luck trying to get the kids even if she is a deadbeat mom.

BrotherWu_sl said:

This thread is why Jesus says don't live in sin.

$500 per month, regular home-cooked meals, hummers on demand, call it good.

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So a $500 per month live in hooker that cooks for you. Got it.

Khane_sl said:

What kind of law do you practice? And what state do you live in, because I need to move to that state if that's true. From everything I've seen women still get to claim practically fucking everything as half their own. And good luck trying to get the kids even if she is a deadbeat mom.

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What he describes is the same in Maryland. It varies by state as I understand. The thing is that the vast majority of husbands aren't in that position. They get married and then acquire everything of substance during the course of the marriage.