Cohabitation - 5 Things You Should Know

Are you planning on moving in with someone this year?

There are lots of reasons people hesitate to move in with someone else especially when consideration is given to any legal consequences this might have. If there are assets involved certain rights may be awarded in a cohabiting situation. When you meet someone and fall in love, plans for a future together can quickly to take shape and as they say love is blind. Usually breaking up is the last thing on peoples mind when they are setting up home together. Now it may be the case that the couple lives happily ever after but for some couples things just don’t turn out that way.

There are a few things you should know before taking the first step and moving in with someone or moving someone in to your own home. There are a number of factors to consider but ultimately you want to make the right decisions for you and your partner. You want to make sure that there is no ambiguity and that you both make the right decisions for your future.

1 Deciding Where to Live Can be Difficult

There are a couple of options for couples embarking on their new life together. They may be deciding to buy a house together, perhaps the they both own property and are deciding on moving in to one house and renting the other or maybe they are simply starting out in life and renting their first house together.
If a house is purchased jointly then consideration should be given to a number of factors. How will the deposit be paid, is it joint funds or is one person contributing more than the other? Are both in full-time employment and planning on repaying the mortgage in equal amounts? Generally, the proceeds of the house would be split equally in the future. Perhaps some other agreement has been made between the couple when purchasing a home together. In this case, an agreement should be entered into at the time of purchase.
When a couple are moving into a house solely owned by one either partner, consideration should be given to what contribution will be made by each person to the household costs and good advice would be for the couple to enter into a Cohabitation Agreement.
Renting together can be equally as daunting as in most cases the couple enter into a lease agreement together and if at some point the lease is broken due to a breakdown in the relationship this may have financial implications. Review the lease agreement carefully before signing and ensure both parties are aware of what the agreement entails and what is expected of them.
Now the easy bit is living together!

2 Living Expenses Need To Be Agreed

Your new home together, like every home, will have bills that need to be paid. You will need to decide on how the bills will be paid, perhaps there are other people sharing accommodation and living expenses. How living expenses will be paid should be agreed whether payments are made by direct debit, standing order or another means. Also, the couple will need to agree in who’s name the utility bills will be. Defaulting on utility bills may affect your credit rating if the bill is in your name and not paid on time.

3 Finances Should Be Organised To Suit Both

There’s a couple of ways to approach this and generally couples will decide to do what is best for them. Joint accounts can be very useful for paying household expenses and for budgeting for joint expenses. This works really well when the couple is organised and have control of their finances and expenses. Caution is advised when opening joint accounts as account activity will need to be tracked to ensure there are funds in the account as required and more importantly that the account is operated by both as the couple agreed.
It’s not necessary to setup a joint account, in the absence of a joint account it is useful if the couple agrees who will pay each bill and how the expense payments are shared.
The couple should keep track of payments made.

4 Your Relationship Is Important, Don’t Lose Track

Moving in to your new home with your partner can be a busy time especially with all the decisions you are making together and the considerations for shared responsibility, it’s important not to lose sight of why you have made the decision to move in together. You should make time for each other and have fun, my advice would be to ensure you get all the formalities and agreements out of the way at the beginning so that you can enjoy all your time together.

5 You Need a Plan

Make plans and enjoy planning, you can plan to decorate your home together, plan to have friends over, plan holidays together and make plans for your future together. It is important to consider what might happen in the event of a breakdown in the relationship. If the correct agreements are in place, made with sound legal and financial advice you will ensure that there are no unforeseen consequences if things don’t go to plan further down the line. Seeking legal and financial advice doesn’t need to cost an arm and a leg, inform yourself and make use of the services available to you in your local community.

Thanks for taking an interest in my post!

Author: Elaine McNeill