Boyfriend (45m) and I (51f) splitting up and cannot agree on how to handle the house we own together (in South Carolina). No cohabitation agreement ☹ Feel like I’m being taken advantage of.
This may be long so forgive me but I’m in a heartbreaking situation and feel like I might be being taken advantage of. ANY sound advice will be greatly appreciated…
About 2+ years ago, my husband of 13 years had an affair and literally never came home from work one day and left me with only my small monthly disability income, a house payment, and my 75 yr old ill father to care for all alone. My income wasn’t even enough to pay my monthly rent let alone anything else. But the courts helped me out and order him to help me financially for 1 year thank God. Some time after all of that, I met my current boyfriend and after we had been dating a few short months (3 months), my father passed away leaving me with a decent inheritance. Fast forward a few more months later, my bf and I decide to live together so he moves into my house with me. A few more months later, we decide to buy a house together. We talk about a cohab agreement and he even draws one up himself but we never sign it or bring it up again (so dumb, I know).
So we find a house we love and we’re going thru all the things we need to do in order to finalize the loan. The lender says my bf needs to clear all balances on his credit cards which wasn’t very much, just under $1,000 I think, so I pay that for him. Then, I put a grand total of $79,000 down on the house ($69k down pymt and about $10k closing costs). I also paid all $2500 for both of our moving expenses. I paid another $2,800 at closing for some household items we bought from the sellers (i.e. washer/dryer, living room furniture, etc). Then, 3 days after closing, the entire HVAC system in the new house has to be replaced so I paid $5,800 for that. My bf signed for the mortgage, I’m not on the mortgage. I AM on the deed/title though. I made sure of that at least.
So, in summary, I paid $80k to get this house, $2800 at closing for house items, and an additional $5800 for immediate HVAC repairs and my BF invested $0 of his money towards a down payment and $0 of his money for closing and $0 for the HVAC. However, he has paid about 80% of the household bills for the last 7 months and I pay 20%. This is because he literally makes 7 times more per month than I do. It has cost him about $8,000 total just for my portion of the bills that he has paid for me. So, he has contributed $8,000 towards my part of the bills. I think it’s only fair to also mention that I have spent nearly $15,000 on his car repairs, rent for his old apartment, clothing, electronics, etc. These were mostly gifts and I do not expect money back for them at all. The reason I mention them is because he acts like I still “owe” him for something all the time or that all that money I spent on him meant nothing to him. I spent all of that on him and supported us for the 4 months that he was unemployed after abruptly losing his job before we bought the house. He got another job 4 months after he got fired obviously and it was then that we bought the house together.
Now that we are splitting, he has made me 2 different “offers”. The first offer he made me was to agree to sell the house and I give him “something” for the $8k he lost by paying 80% of the bills these last 7 months and I walk away with my down payment which would be $61k after giving him the $8k he wants back and me having to eat the $10k I paid for the closing costs when we bought it. Remember, all of this money of mine is inheritance money given to me by my deceased father. I will be losing $18k if I agree to this and it doesn’t even take into account what I paid for the HVAC and the additional $15k I spent on him voluntarily (I know, stupid). Also, he refuses to pay the closing costs all himself when we sell. Wants me to pay all or half of them even though I’ve already paid ALL of it myself when we bought the house.
The 2nd offer he made me is that I move out and he stays in the house for 2 years and pays the mortgage and bills for it of course and tries to save up some money to move out and get his own place and we sell the house in 2 years. Then in 2 years, when we sell, I get my down payment back in the amount of $70k. I don’t like this offer either cuz if I move out, I don’t want to wait 2 years to get my $70k and I’m no longer living here and able to monitor my investment (the house) to make sure it’s being taken care of and not losing value or etc. I told him it’s my money and I shouldn’t have to wait 2 years to get it. I didn’t hesitate to put that money down so we could get the house so why should I go without it for 2 years for someone I’m not even going to be with anymore.
He claims that he shouldn’t have to walk away with “nothing” from this house. And I told him he doesn’t have to and that he can have 100% of any equity that has accumulated since we bought it and that I just want my $70k down payment back. He says that’s not fair cuz I walk away with 70k and he only walks away with 7 months of equity which will only be like not even $1,000. I explained to him that it is not my fault that he did not put any money down on the house. It was my inheritance money that went into it. He says it still isn’t fair. Am I missing something here? He put zero money into getting the house when we bought it. The only equity that has accumulated is from the mortgage payments we have made since closing and I said he can have 100% of it. All I want is the 70k I put down. I will be eating the 10k in closing costs and $6k for the HVAC (and thousands more from other household purchases, new $1600 refrigerator, etc).
All I’m asking is that we sell the house and walk away with whatever money we each put in. He has threatened more than once to never give me my money upon sale of the house and said he would even sit in jail for it and doesn’t care. I’m at a loss. This is NOT the person I fell in love with nor was this type of behavior even present.
What do you think is truly “fair” in my situation for dividing up this equity if we split? I’m just beyond devastated and I feel used…..
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/RealEstate/comments/1bcu9tz/boyfriend_45m_and_i_51f_splitting_up_and_cannot/
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