Girlfriend wants to move in, how much should she pay?

A friend of mine had a similar predicament and I liked his solution. A lady friend of his needed a place to stay for roughly a year. He was paying the mortgage on his house, and he didn't think it fair to have her pay into that. She was simply fine with paying the other bills. He was ecstatic to not pay the cable/heat/electricity/etc every month. She felt like she was actually pulling her own weight and not free loading off his generosity. I know this situation may not work for some areas. Around here, you're lucky to have a pos apartment for $1400/month. For her to pay less than that and have a full house to share, they both benefited I'd say.

Have seen this situation a few times, and actually once myself as the boyfriend moving in to the girlfriend's house since it made more sense at the time. I've usually just seen it as the minimum of "pay what you paid before" or "35-40% of the mortgage payment, which also covers utilities".

If you don't want to propose a number, ask her to propose one that she thinks is far and see what you think of it. Odds are, you'll both be happy as long as both people keep fairness in mind.

What a stupid question. Why are you asking others how you should relate to your girlfriend?

supertouch_sl said:

What a stupid question. Why are you asking others how you should relate to your girlfriend?

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Because people on the outside looking in are usually more objective and he wanted some outside perspective? Pretty normal human behavior.

To the OP, assuming she has a job, I'd say proportionate to your respective incomes, especially since she's coming into a pre-existing house situation. So, if you make 100K and she makes 50K, you pay 2/3 and she pays 1/3. I think that's fair, especially since, if she was single, she might not be paying for an apartment/house that costs that much, but she can't really expect you to leave your place and go to a lesser place (unless you'd want to do that) to make it fairer for her.

It's a lot easier if you both decide to move somewhere together, though I'd still probably pay proportionately since I'd want a higher standard of living than she might be able to afford (assuming I make more than her which I would in most cases).

Gauss_sl said:

So what's the consensus on this? There's a good chance my gf will move in with me in the next year, but I am not looking forward to having a rent conversation. We both earn the same amount, so it's not an ability to pay, but it just seems weird to be living somewhere, affording it fine, and then have your gf move in and then suddenly she should start paying for some of it. It would be much more clear-cut, in my mind, if we moved to a new place.

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Seems entirely reasonable. One of the perks to living together, in my mind, is shared financial responsibility so that the individual load is lessened and each person has more cash to spend on other things. If she wasn't moving in with you, she'd still have to pay rent somewhere so it makes zero sense that she'd pay no rent when she moved in with you. Unless the rent differences are so drastic, both of you should end up having more money at the end of a month.

Well I think we're past that point. Yes, he specifically said she makes almost double what he does but the conversation is more about what to do in general terms and ignoring his particular circumstances now.

Don't know if it has been said before, put all your expenses that related directly to living in the house. Show said list to girlfriend and ask her what she would think is a fair way to split the bottom line.

Still no word from Kramer

My wife already had a home when we started dating, I still lived in an apartment. Once we got engaged I moved in and immediately paid half of everything. Half of mortgage + half of utilities (and I actually paid all of the cable bill, because she didn't have cable, and didn't want cable, that was 100% for me)

But we also make almost the same amount of money, neither of us earns significantly more than the other.

Works great, now that we are married we still basically do the same thing. We have a joint account that we each throw $1000 a month into, and that pays all of our bills & food for the month, and then we each still have our own separate accounts to do with as we please(I spend my extra money on electronics, she spends hers on clothes, everyones happy)

Gauss_sl said:

So what's the consensus on this? There's a good chance my gf will move in with me in the next year, but I am not looking forward to having a rent conversation. We both earn the same amount, so it's not an ability to pay, but it just seems weird to be living somewhere, affording it fine, and then have your gf move in and then suddenly she should start paying for some of it. It would be much more clear-cut, in my mind, if we moved to a new place.

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I think the consensus is "half of everything" is fair, barring extenuating circumstances like wide income disparities. I however still don't agree that paying half the mortgage is "fair", unless the girlfriend will get her share of the equity that she paid for out in the event of a breakup. Nothing to do with legalities or common-law shit, I simply don't think it's fair for two people to be paying "half" of a mortgage, when only one person is entitled to the equity that builds in the home. And I'm shocked at how many people in this thread don't seem to see that. So if there's a mortgage involved, her "half of the rent" should be half of what an equivalent rental would cost. Although depending on the local real estate and rental market, sometimes that might end up in half the rent being more than half the mortgage, although I would think that's fairly rare.

In the end, the most important thing is to have an honest conversation about it so that everything's on the table and there's no hidden resentment.

Eomer half of everything doesn't mean she's actually sending a check in to the mortgage company, it could mean you total up all the bills and she pays half to you in cash. Now is it still fair since she's not getting any of that equity? Well that depends because she's also not taking on any of the risk associated with home owning.

My personal opinion is just give her a couple of the bills to pay every month and call it even but then I'm not really use to short term relationships with completely separate expenses so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

If that's the deal you make, that's the deal you make. If a mortgage payment is late it's not her credit that's going to take the hit. If for whatever reason the mortgage defaults, it's not her that's going to have to declare bankruptcy.

Split the total roughly in half. Not every single item. The mortgage will be a huge chunk of that, and whoever's name is on the bank paper is the one to shoulder that part of the half.

If you're planning to kick her to the curb don't give her time put her buttprints on the bed. It's not unfair in the least. Nobody's being taken advantage of. Do you think people mean take every bill that comes due, divide by two, and that's it? Because that would be retarded.

The whole "it's not fair because she's not getting any equity" is a silly argument to make anyway.

1) My tenants pay 2/3 of my multi family mortgage AND they have to live in a first floor apartment and here me walking around, singing in the shower, and puking my guts up when I drink too much. They don't get any equity. Half of a mortgage is almost always going to be cheaper than prevailing rent rates anyway. Half of my mortgage is about $1000 and that's with PMI and escrow (property taxes, insurance and a little extra for those bastards at the bank) included. My tenants pay me $1500/mo and they don't even get the whole house to themselves, they have people living above them! Half of a mortgage is way more than fair.
2) She is only paying half of the mortgage. She doesn't have to worry about anything else the homeowner has to worry about; e.g. Water heater, Roof, Electrical, Furnace, Lawn Care and Landscaping, Snow Removal, etc etc etc.
3) I seriously have to question anyone who thinks half isn't fair. Do you all think women need to be taken care of? Must you protect them from all the bad in this world and make sure they don't have to worry about anything except their makeup and what to make for dinner?

Cad_sl said:

If you charge her rent, she should construe that as a landlord/tenant relationship, should she choose to fuck with you when things go sour.

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Can you explain this a bit more? I assume you're seeking to prevent a putative/common law marriage situation?

Khane_sl said:

1) My tenants pay 2/3 of my multi family mortgage AND they have to live in a first floor apartment and here me walking around, singing in the shower, and puking my guts up when I drink too much. They don't get any equity. Half of a mortgage is almost always going to be cheaper than prevailing rent rates anyway. Half of my mortgage is about $1000 and that's with PMI and escrow (property taxes, insurance and a little extra for those bastards at the bank) included. My tenants pay me $1500/mo and they don't even get the whole house to themselves, they have people living above them! Half of a mortgage is way more than fair.

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That's a negotiated, arms length lease you have with your tenants. You're charging them rent, you're not charging them a portion of your mortgage. If your mortgage skyrockets or nosedives because of a big change in interest rates, it's not like you are directly applying the difference to their lease without them having the opportunity to say "fuck you, I'm moving somewhere else then." It's an entirely different situation than having a girlfriend move in. Your tenants do not give a single fuck about whether or not you have a mortgage on the place or own it outright. All they care about is what the lease rate or rent is, your underlying financial situation has no bearing on them.

Khane_sl said:

2) She is only paying half of the mortgage. She doesn't have to worry about anything else the homeowner has to worry about; e.g. Water heater, Roof, Electrical, Furnace, Lawn Care and Landscaping, Snow Removal, etc etc etc.

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Actually, this was never really brought up or discussed to any great extent. Again, I would think that if you want things to be fair and or equitable, then either she pays what a market lease rate would be for the space (or half of it) and none of the maintenance and doesn't receive any equity, or you go balls deep and have her pay half the mortgage, half the maintenance, and she gets half the equity generated while she's living there.

Khane_sl said:

3) I seriously have to question anyone who thinks half isn't fair. Do you all think women need to be taken care of? Must you protect them from all the bad in this world and make sure they don't have to worry about anything except their makeup and what to make for dinner?

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It has nothing to do with women being taken care of, for fuck's sake. It's incredibly simple. If you are both paying "half of everything" (including maintenance) and the relationship ends, she will have paid the same amount as you did and yet will have nothing to show for it while you have all the equity gained when she walks out the door. That is fundamentally unfair, and in fact is not "half" at all. She's been paying for half, and yet walks away with nothing while you have the equity.

Let's look at it another way. Pretend that you own your place outright, with no mortgage. Would it be "fair" for her to live with you rent free, just paying for half of the utilities and other monthly expenses? Personally, I don't think so. In that situation, she should still be paying whatever the rent for an equivalent space would be to you, because you've spent hundreds of thousands buying that home in the first place. Otherwise you're subsidizing her cost of living (and that's totally fine if you want to do that, but it is also fundamentally not fair or equitable).

I guess what I'm getting at is that there are two ways of treating this, one is either as a couple (whether legally married, common law, or just shacked up) that splits everything halfways including mortgage, maintenance and equity, or as a landlord/lessee where she pays an appropriate rent (regardless of what your mortgage is or isn't) and share of monthly expenses. Mixing the two together just doesn't make sense to me.

KramerZX10_sl said:

I've looked over the interwebs in search of an answer to this one, but decided to create another account so I can ask this question in disguise.

My girlfriend and I have been getting along great. She has basically moved in and i'm trying to decide what to do with expenses and such.
I own a house with a mortgage and my expenses are around 1800.00 per month when all is said and done. Should she be expected to pay 1/2 of everything? or how does that work? She's not going on my mortgage unless we're married, thats for sure. But should she be responsible for 1/2 the mortgage? I've heard yes to 1/2 of everything, and some have said just 1/2 of the electric and gas bill.

I submit to the great ReRolled my dilemma.

I doubt this needs a poll, but would like some advice please.

Thanks!

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Half. I let a GF move in rent free and that was a huge mistake. She sponged off me for two years, and the only way I could get her to leave was to be forcibly removed by the Police. She tried to say it was her house (she really thought she was entitled to rights) but the Police LOL'd when her name wasn't on the title and had to wrestle her.