For most of us, the promise of meeting someone compatible and falling in love is a major life goal.
Once you’re there, what comes next? Co-habitation of course, and eventually owning a home together.
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What comes after that? Well, ideally, a happy life together. But if things turn sour, you’ll have some tough decisions on your hands.
If you haven’t bought a house, things are easier.
When a relationship begins, each partner will have their own stuff: their own home, their own possessions, and their own lives. If you break up during these early days, divvying up your stuff is simple.
Once you’ve been together awhile, things change.
Even if you aren’t living together yet, it can get harder to determine what belongs to who. Those DVD box sets because you both wanted to get into HBO’s prestige programming: who do they belong to?
This step is huge.
Prior to buying a home, but after going long-term for awhile, comes living together. At this point, you’ll be buying stuff for your new home and the question of who owns what becomes really murky.
It sucks to break up with someone you live with.
The emotional turmoil is a given. But in practical terms, it’s a real headache to a) separate possessions, and b) make fair decisions on who takes the stuff that you’ve co-owned during your relationship.
Eventually…home ownership.
Functionally, it isn’t any different from renting an apartment together. But owning a home together means you’ve pooled your money and really gone for it. Breaking up at this point is a sticky situation.
Lots of unmarried couples are buying homes together.
More than ever before , in fact. So what exactly happens when it’s splitsville for you and the other person paying for your mortgage? Could one of you straight-up lose your investment?
The elephant in the room must be addressed.
So you’re in love and the two of you want to buy a house. That’s great, but you absolutely have to have a conversation about a potential breakup. It isn’t fun, it isn’t easy, but when you’re plunking down six figures together, it’s a conversation that needs to be had.
You can schedule this talk.
Both of you know it won’t be fun, but it’s best to get it out of the way. Figure out your individual financial situations, develop a gameplan for budgeting and paying the mortgage, and most crucially, figure out a plan for what happens should you break up.
It’s normal to have lots of conversations at this time anyway.
Even if breaking up is far from your mind, you’ll still have plenty to talk about: how big of a house do you want? What amenities are important to you? Home ownership tends to start with tough questions.
Budget, budget, budget.
Yes, you’re plunking down a bunch of cash for a house. But you’ll have repairs (your landlord won’t do them for you now!) and utility bills. You and your partner will need to figure out a gameplan for this stuff.
What if you do, indeed, break up?
Again, have a plan: if you split everything 50/50, consider selling the house and splitting things evenly. If it wasn’t an easy split, the conversation is more difficult — but you need to figure out a plan.
Home ownership is complicated.
It involves big money and big decisions, so plan ahead. No one wants to break up and no one wants to give up their dream home — but life happens, and it’s always best to be prepared.
