
Acquisition of real estate by life partners
Code: OBMA00065
Question
Hello, my girlfriend and I want to buy a house. We will use part of the money for the purchase from our own funds (part from me, part from her), the rest will be paid from a loan. How should we determine our shares in the property to make it fair? If we happen to split up in the future, so that no one gets hurt.
The answer
To answer this question, you need to know not only the amount of your investment, but also, for example, how you will repay the loan (whether you plan to make the loan repayments in equal parts), whether you will both be included in the loan agreement as co-borrowers or whether only one of you will take out the loan and the other will act as guarantor, for example. In addition, you must also take into account, for example, what you yourself consider to be "fair". Several other factors play a role here, e.g.:
- Whether you want to consider investments and joint property only from the point of view of money (including whether you want to consider the time value of the money invested),
- whether you want to take into account any maternity/paternity/parental leave and its impact on any inequalities in loan repayments,
- how you intend to dispose of the property after separation (sale only or possibly one of you keeping the property and paying off the other partner).
The answers to these questions tend to vary somewhat from case to case. The right relationship to such an investment therefore requires further investigation and answers to the questions raised. We therefore recommend that you contact our office to arrange a personal consultation. Alternatively, you can also contact another professional who can support you in dealing with such a life situation.
For those interested in additional information on this answer, we offer special pricing conditions. So if you have a similar problem or are unsure about the timeliness of the answer, please do not hesitate to contact us. A small investment in preventive counseling can sometimes reduce the cost of fixing the problem significantly.