Buying a property with partner and protecting your deposit. Yes or no?

I am currently in the situation of buying a house with my fiance.

I have sold my house and have £70K equity. £15K of this will go in stamp duty, estate agents and solicitors fees etc. The remaining £55K will be a deposit on the house. My partner is putting in a deposit of £1K.

My heart says: Own the house 50:50 with him. We're getting married and should share everything.

My head says: Get something legal drawn up to protect the deposit as my money in the event that we ever split.

What do you think?
Head or heart?

i guess the modern ideal is to protect your money with a legal document. i don't know how solid your relationship is, but from what is posted on the boards, i would say you are a very close couple. you've been together for 7 years and if you've survived that long and still love and respect each other, then follow your heart. protecting your deposit with a document, to me, is almost like admitting defeat and almost falling at the first hurdle. you're taking the step of actually getting married at some point and that shows a commitment for the long term.

there may be a point, when, you don't work, say if you do have kids. during that time he will be supporting you, so i think it will even things out a bit. a partnership is give and take and 50/50 will be hard to maintain throughout your life together.

so overall, i say follow your heart.

hope this makes sense, it sort of does in my head, but i do get muddled sometimes.

it really is best if you protect your money

everyone hopes that things wont end or especially wont end badly, but you dont want to be in the poor house if it ends up badly

see my wife's familydoesnt have nearly enuff money as my family so she knows we would crush her in court

H&H,

I think that's great. Thanks for your comments. I knew you would write some common sense.
I was doing the 50:50 until my friend, who is a solicitor, told me to protect my deposit and I got another owenership form and changed it to tennants in common 40:60. I'm not saying that I blame her for my change in decision but it got me thinking, and as a result I did, but I actually feel quite bad about this now. It's almost as if it is jinxing our relationship. I keep thinking - all my friends and family own their properties jointly. OK, people split up, people divorce, but everyone else I know has put their all into it. Perhaps I am not really giving it my everything if I don't...

I respect your viewpoint and this is what I have done: I have signed the form, and so has my fiance, so that I own 60% of the property and he owns 40%. But, I feel bad about this decision because I just feel it is like saying to him "we will split up and I want my money back".

well the great thing about this is that it starts that dialogue that every married couple needs to have, money!

Mmmmmm, that's all transparent really. I know what he earns, he knows what I earn, we both know what the bills are, I pay them and he gives me money. TBH I organise it all as I am better with finance than he is. Having said that I am currently the one who is overdrawn with money on my credit card but that is only because I changed jobs and didn't get paid for 6 weeks and had to pay the mortgage twice on one pay packet!!

Seriosuly though, I'm not a little wifey who has no idea how much anything costs because the man sorts it out. Our incomings and outgoings are not secrets. There aren't any money arguments (other than this ) and this isn 't actually an argument I just feel like I am doing the wrong thing here.

Go with your head. If you go with your heart it will be a source of dissonance for you both.

try choking your fiance until they pass out, then they usually get the message

As we say in America. Cover your ass.

If you do or don't protect yourself and your marriage lasts, it never would have mattered what you did. But if you don't and for some unfortunate reason the marriage fails, you're SOL. I'd protect myself.

What if in protecting her money she causes a rift in her relationship?

Maybe you should ask your husband to be what HE thinks? Not to trap him or anything, but to understand what his pov would be on it. If he doesn't give a shit, well, protect your money or not. But I sort of think that in doing so you COULD set up some unconscious level of expectation that the relationship will fail. I think that to get married you should be willing to TRY to do it all the way. Put the asymmetries aside. Money is just money. Will your life fail if you don't recoup that loss immediately?

Maybe I'm just a romantic...

I think you should give all the money to your fiance and let him look after it so you don't have to worry your pretty little head about it and can go back to cleaning the house and baking cakes.

I'm not sure but it seems that if something were to happen to your fiance and he legally owned half the house, his next of kin (which wouldn't be you if you weren't married) might have legal standing to claim his share.

I don't think any couple ever really regrets NOT sharing assets. I wouldn't even purchase the house with him if I were you, but with legal documents specifying the ownership, I suppose it can work.