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Has anyone bought a house with their fiance before getting married? Were both of you on the mortgage or just one of you? We are looking into this now, but I'm wondering if it would be better to just wait until we're married in April. However, the timing now is better and I know a lot of people have done this. Thoughts???
From personal experience I would NEVER put anyones name on a house that I was not married to. Even after we are married FH's name will not be on the house. When we move we will go to a lawyer and have something set up that I will get x amount more then him from the sale of the house if we should seperate.
And a good friend of mine went thru a break up with her now x-FI he NEVER paid anything on the house not even any utility bills and they (her and her parents) ended up just paying him $4500 and giving him back the ring so he would sign off because it was cheaper then taking him to court.
FI and I bought a house together in May 2009, two months after we got engaged. The timing was right for us because we already lived together, both had stable jobs and wanted to own a home. We are both listed as owners of the home on our mortgage as well. To me, it made sense to buy the home when we did and not wait until we got married.
I am not sure if this was helpful, but my basic view is that buying a house together before marriage was fine because we were committed to eachother and were in a financial situation where we could comfotably pay a mortgage together.
We are getting married in June and are planning on purchasing a house in January. The mortgage will be in my name but my FI will be on the deed to the house. I am not worried about purchasing before we are married because in my eyes we have already committed ourselves to each other. What are a few months anyway? We are purchasing a house that requires only one income so if either of us loses a job or decides to stay at home with our kids; we could still afford our bills/ mortgage. I want to be able to have a house and get everything painted, fixed, moved in, etc. before our wedding. We to come back from the honeymoon to "Our" house and not have to worry about finding something and moving afterwards. Also, we have decided that I will live in the hose until we are married (his is because my parents said if we live together before we are married they would not pay for the wedding). What are your hesitations about purchasing before marriage?
I bought before we were married, and I am the only one on this mortgage. Obviously, for our new house, we're both on it.
FI bought our house, but due to my crappy credit, only he is on the mortgage, after the wedding (when i get my credit back up) we will add my name to the deed and mortgage as well.
We bought our house together about 6 months after getting engaged and about 3-4 months before the wedding. Both of our names are on the mortgage. It's really not difficult at all to put both of you on there. Our lawyer even told me that I don't have to change my name on it after the wedding. He said my maiden name will still be valid, so it's really not necessary to change.
I know that some people hear horror stories about other people's relationships, but I know my fiance deeply and I know his family and their values. He's not the kind of person who is capable of that level of deceit.
We bought before the wedding for several reasons:
1. The lease on my almost-hubby's apartment runs out the day before our wedding (which is Saturday!)
2. Almost-hubby didn't want to renew his lease on his apartment because they were raising his rent by almost $300 a month. And his new rent would have been $10 more a month than we are paying on our mortgage right now.
3. We wanted to get in on the first-time homebuyer's credit.
Only you know your relationship well enough to know if you are ready for that step. If it's the right time for you, go for it!
i own my place and bought before FI was in the picture, so of course i'm the only one on the mortgage. he's moved into my place for now and after we decide to move on (which is hopefully sooner rather than later, but selling is not easy right now), we'll both be on the next mortgage.
My bf and I (yup, not engaged yet) just bought a house together in May. Everyone can give you their opinion and tell you "horror stories" but really its a very personal decision and only you two know what is the best decision for you. It can get messy, but so can divorce so who knows.
I know we will get married in the future and we didn't see any point in only having one name on the mortgage.
We bought a house before we were married (but after we were engaged) and we are both on the mortgage. I know that it is a risk (isn't everything a risk?), particularly bc my MOH bought a dress with her ex-fi before they broke up and it was kind of a mess for her. But, it made sense for us. We couldn't wait until after we were married because of the housing credit thing, and WE picked the house. Not just one of us.
I guess I did put down the down payment so I could've asked for just my name to be put on the mortgage, but I couldn't have gotten the house without him probably. I actually make more than him, but I'm "self employed" and I don't have a long enough history of employment. argh. So basically my income kind of didn't count. They approved us based just on FI's salary.
Other people have addressed the risk of breaking up, etc., but something else to consider is what if one of you dies? If you're buying a home together, make sure the other person has life insurance, investments you can access, or something like that so that you can keep paying the mortgage. Check with the laws of your state to make sure that if one of you dies the other person automatically gets the rest of the house. Because even if you're totally confident about your relationship, just consider what would happen if your BF/FI died. Could you make the mortgage payments by yourself? If he doesn't have a will (and you're not married), chances are that his money would go to his parents. Will they be willing to give you the money to keep making the mortgage payments? Or would you be forced to sell the house?
Definitely not a happy subject, but you MUST think about stuff like that if you're buying property with someone you're not married to.
We own a house together, and have since last November. Our situation was similar to CorgiTales, but it was my income that got us the loan. Both of our names are on the mortgage, and it was the right decision for us.
I think this decision is one that can only be made within your own relationship. We got some flack from our families about buying a house together, but it was the right decision. Of course, my sister and her fiance bought a house together, and then called off the wedding and had to wade through the murkiness of what happens to the house.
Whatever you decide, I wish you the best of luck!
I purchased our house before we were married. We lived together in it for 3 years, greatest decision ever.
In the process of changing my name now, and trying to decide if I change my name and add him to the mortgage? His name doesn't need to be on there, since now, technically half of it is his... but I'm thinking it might help boost his credit score!
Well, I would prefer to have his name on there because I can't really afford the house if we aren't in it together. However, he just graduated from law school and won't be employed until January (has an offer, job lined up). Also, he has a bunch of student loans and I have (slightly) better credit. So, at first we thought it makes sense for just me to get the mortgage, with the intent to be that we both pay for it, of course. But, in thinking more, I feel like I woudn't want to be 'stuck' w/ this house if for some reason things don't work out... I hate to say it like that, because I'm definitely not thinking that way, but it is a 'what if' concern. Sorry to tell my life story, but any additional thoughts/ advice would be great :) :)
Is it riskier to have him on it or NOT have him on it??
@missjyc: is it possible to add a name to the mortgage and deed after the fact? I'm not sure what all is involved in that
We're also like Corgi.
We are both on the mortgage. HE had the downpayment and perfect credit and I had the income history with good but not his level of credit... it was either go in on it together, or not at all. When we did this, we had been together 3+ years, engaged for 6-7 months.
The timing worked for us. We found an awesome home with really great instant equity (foreclosure) and got the 8k tax credit and an unheard of interest rate. We've been fixing it up, and by the time we're married it will really be "our" home. Our mortgage is also hundreds less than renting would be, so we're also in turn "saving" money....
As far as I understand, there is a fee to add and or change a name (that's why I'm thinking of doing both at the same time) - but maybe some banker bees could weight in here.
I def. took into condsideration the "what if it doesn't work out".. we made sure that the house we bought was something that I could afford alone, if my then boyfriend wasn't around. I made sure that the mortagage payment was not higher than the rent I was paying at the time. Otherwise you always run the risk of being stuck with a house that you can't afford - and I didn't want to deal with that.
Yes, my FI and I purchased our home together the month after we got engaged. My FI had already owned his own home, and we wanted to move into a larger house that we could grow into, so we put his old house on the market in a couple weeks after we got engaged Aug/09 and it sold in less than a week.
We are both on the mortgage, but FI put the entire down payment down (equity from his old house) and he pays the mortgage. I pay the bills, so it works out nicely for us based on our incomes.
I agree with some of the others, it's a personal choice between the couple. If you don't feel comfortable buying a home together before you get married, it's completely your choice!! I have a friend who just got married who wishes they bought a house before they got married, just so they wouldn't have to worry about it, but that was just her thoughts.
Good luck!
@Ella1978: We asked about changing names (i.e. when i become Mrs. His Last Name) and the fee was pretty nominal. Especially in light of how much money we're saving and saved with the tax credit. It was def. under $200 but I want to say it was something easy like $30 or $60 or something... I could be totally wrong though, it was a while ago :-)
We built a home two years ago (a year before getting engaged). We are both on title and on the mortgage. We put equal amounts into the house and if anything were to happen and we were to split we would divide the proceeds from the sale of the house equally as joint tenants/owners.
We have life insurance that covers the cost of the house so that if something were to happen to either of us, the survivor would be able to pay off the mortgage.
We bought a place before getting married or engaged last summer. We are both on the mortgage. We discussed whether we want to get engaged or get a place that year, and decided our money is better spent on the down payment, especially with the mortgage rates being so low last year. So really, we were engaged "in our mind" by the time we bought a place, just no ring.
It was a great decision for us because we knew we wanted to get married and we wanted to buy a place, and it was just a matter of figuring out the best timing & financial aspects.
I think buying a place together is the bigger decision in terms of commitment than marriage (second only to having kids), and you should absolutely think it through. However, to me personally, if I am engaged, I have made the commitment to be together, and that should be enough assurance to buy. If I wasn't sure enough to buy a place together, I certainly wouldn't be sure enough to be getting married.
We built a house a few months after getting engaged so we would still qualify for the first time homebuyers credit. The house is complete now, and my fiance is living there. My name is also on the mortgage, but his is the primary name. We pool our money for payments and house related expenses, but I won't be living there until after the wedding.
The setup has worked well for us, and we have had no problems.
Best of luck!
FI and i just bought a house and close July 30 :) Right now it's only in his name. For some reason they told him to put his name on the mortgage and we'll add mine later. So we just went with that. Looking back, we should have put both our name on it so we wouldnt have to mess with changing it later.
We bought a house together in Nov. '09. As it was my SO's income that secured/approved the mortgage, my name is not on the mortgage/title deed. I personally have no problem with this, as it was not a house that I would have bought myself (were I the one with financial heft), nor do I have any concern that I'll be out on the curb because my name is not on the title.
We have a very non-traditional relationship dynamic, so while this situation is acceptable & works for us YMMV.
We plan on selling when our 5 year term is up, so I doubt we will bother with the legal hurdles to change the title.
@MelanieAnne:Those are very good points.
I agree with many others that it is a personal choice. I believe that if you are ready to make that commitment, and I assume you are if you are getting married, then go for it.
we bought our house last april, before we were even engaged. i am not on the loan anly because he got a VA loan, which in order for me to be on the loan we had to be married. we didn't get engaged until the end of july and had live in our house for over a year before we got married. we didn't need my income to qualify for the amount we wanted so it didn't matter anyways! i paid the down payment thought because i had the money saved.. he's not very good at saving!
We bought a house last December before we were engaged. Our names are both on the house and we both put in as much as we could towards the downpayment.
We knew we would be getting engaged before the year had ended and that we would get married in 2010. We figured it would be better to start looking sooner as the search still took us a good four months before we bought our house. I had no doubt that Mr. Purple would stick to his word about getting engaged and married. He knew i was very serious and so was he.
The night that we purchased our house, was the night we also got engaged! :-)
Well my husband bought our house before we were engaged, but he put the contract in like 2 weeks before he proposed last July, and it was going to be our house. We paid cash for it, but didn't close on the house until 2 months later in September. We got a mortgage in April of this year to cover our monstrous tax bill, and I had to be on the mortgage because my credit is better than his, but in all reality we were both going to be on the mortgage as co-owners anyway.
I think that if you buy your house and set up some rules you shouldn't have a problem. Both names should be on the mortgage and you should have a joint bank account that goes toward paying the mortgage and all household bills. Each of you should decide before you buy how much you can contribute to this shared bank account. And you should probably practice making mortgage payments. If you pay $700 in rent each month, and your mortgage would be $1300 you should start putting away that extra $600 before the house is bought, so that you know your finances can handle it.
@Ms. Purple: lol, that's what i had hoped for.. the romantic open the door and have a nice dinner in our empty house, followed by a will you marry me on the back porch... but that was not what happened! lol
@brittanymichelle: unfortunately our engagement was not as romantic as what you were imagining. it was more like 10pm at night and our offer was accepted and signed. We were at his apartment and he turned and said "well i guess there's only one thing left to do, which is get married." and then he search for the ring in his pocket and asked me to marry him.
Very suprising for me, but yeah walking through the door in and asking in our house would be much cooler. but we also didn't close until two months later, so i would have hated to wait that long.
FH brought a house for us. We close next week. 
Even though I will be living there alone before the wedding (I had to move out there now because of his job and school, plus we don't want to live together before marriage), I will pay his rent at his apartment and he will pay the mortagage. Everything is in his name at the house (because with FHA loans everything has the be in the owner's name unless we were married), when we marry everything will be for the both of us.
My husband and I bought before we got married. Since we knew we were getting married it wasn't a big deal. We were both on the mortgage and the deed. You just have to decide how you are going to split the interest this year (if you are going to itemize) since you can't file together until you are married.
We just moved into our first house (it's been a little over a month now). We're not married yet, and it was never a question of waiting before we were married, it was more about not expecting to find a house so soon. We're both on the deed and the mortgage. Actually, I had to fight the bank lady about adding me onto the mortgage because she left out my name last minute. She kept saying how it'll be the same after we marry anyway - that may be so, but it just didn't sit right with me knowing I'm on the deed, yet not on the mortgage. I was ready to go to another bank if it wasn't for Fi who stopped me.
We were pre-approved for the loan based on Fi's income alone. I'm new to this country and only work part-time so my income wasn't included into the calculations. If two people are serious about sharing their lives together, I personally don't think it requires a certificate to own a home together. Some people might argue about the finances need to be 50/50. We don't feel that way at all. You're a team now, everything's all shared anyway and if both of you are fine with whatever arrangement you may have, then it works and all's good
What does your Fi think about getting a house now? You should take him to a few open houses and see how he reacts to it.
We bought a house in December- 9 months before our wedding. It was the perfect time to buy so we figured we should go for it. His name is on the mortgage and not mine, since my credit is less than stellar. We will put my name on the deed after we're married in September. We plan on staying here only 2 years, so hopefully my name can be on the new house.
We bought a condo before we were engaged! We had talked about marriage and getting engaged, so although the proposal itself was a surprise, the fact that it was coming was not. Actually, our offer was accepted before we were engaged, but we settled after. I think it still counts! And yes, we're both on the mortgage, and we both contributed to the down payment.
Fiance and I have not bought a house yet, but I would much rather buy a house together and have both of our names on it before getting married. I know some people say to never buy something with someone you're not married to. But come on, we're engaged. We're going to get married. We plan on being together. I would like to think I know the person I'm planning on spending the rest of my life with well enough to know that he wouldn't intentionally screw me over. If there is an inkling in your mind that you may not trust this person enough to purchase a house with them..then maybe you shouldn't get married...
but anyway to answer your question, if the time is right then go for it! think about how nice it will be to be settled in your new home together before the wedding.
I am buying with my Fi as we speak. I am not on the mortgage but will be on the title and deed. It is actually him taking a bit of a leap of faith. I am already on all his finances and I offered to be on the mortgage. My credit score is great, but with such a small income compared to his, it didn't make sense for me to be on the mortgage. With the rates so low, we can't pass this up.
My FH and I made a pretty serious commitment to each other and bought a house 8 months into our relationship. (we've known each other for a very long time and we had previously dated a little before getting into a more serious relationship) My name is on the mortgage and I technically own the house, but we've always considered it to be ours. I did take some comfort in the fact that I was the sole owner should anything go wrong. But now its been two years that we've been living together and we just got engaged in May. We'll get married about 3 years after buying the house and roughly 3 1/2 years after becoming a couple!
we bought a house a year and a half ago and just got angaged in april of this year. however... everything is in my name, the mortgage, the electric, the city utilities, the internet/tv, everything. first of all... fi makes more than me, but at the time we were buying he was on unemployment (he works for a union as an ironworker) anyways... we didnt have a choice of whos name everything would be under, it had to be me... im glad this happened though as i take care of all our finances. fi pays half of everythiing and i just tell him how much every month and then i pay all our bills. this works for us. i personally think buying a house before marriage is a great move! that way youre all set and not so overwhelmed after the marriage. i think you and fi should sit down and talk about who should be on the mortage, if both of you should or just one, who will take care of the finances etc. that way u are both on the same page :)
We bought our house together while we were engaged. We were sick of throwing money away as rent, we found a good house, and that was it.
I can see why some people might be hesitant and wait until after marriage to buy a house together, but it worked out well for us.
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