grillSplitting the rent.
The fact that he lied about owning property is gross, but if he had told her, why wouldn’t she contribute to the monthly bills? She is occupying space.
Again not telling her is shady but if she could make an informed decision, paying rent to live in a house isn’t crazy, even if one person is accruing long term value from the spend.
If it were me I’d obv tell her day 1, then offer a generous rent rate. The house is being worn down by 2, but you are gaining long term value (paying principle on the mortgage). She can’t expect to live rent free, but you can’t expect her to share the mortgage burden equally.
Because when they break up she has nothing and he has her money in the form of equity. Splitting consumption bills is obviously good, but splitting a mortgage where one party gets it all is far less cut and dry.
Not to say that the deception is shitty, but she’d be in the same situation as if she rented a place. It’s a little out there to expect equity when all you did was cohabitate for a period, it’s the exact same thing as renting a room or something.
The difference is a rental agreement and generally people in relationships aren’t expected to be in a landlord tenant situation. If this was just your friend then sure
Well hang on, here’s a scenario for you: Say I own a 2 bedroom condo, and have a roommate that I charge rent. One day, I meet a girl and we start dating. At some point, said roommate moves out, and it just happens that my gf and I are at the point where she moves in, and said 2nd room gets turned into a office or guest room, because obviously we’re going to share the master. She pays me rent for living with me (might even be a lower amount for whatever reason). After two years, we decide to break it off since it isn’t working between us and she moves out. Do you think I should be expected to pay her out a slice of equity? How is that any different than a roommate renting a room from a financial standpoint?
Not the OP, but in Canada at least, I think you would legally be expected to because common law is (as far as I’m aware) very nearly marriage and is entirely implied by time living together in a conjugal relationship. It might be provincial to determine the actual property laws, though.
I don’t have a firm opinion here, but I think the key difference in your case is that a conjugal relationship has some expectation of… Oh I don’t know, mutuality? A landlord tenant relationship is a lease agreement. If your roommate didn’t sign any kind of lease agreement, they might have a legal case to just not pay you and suffer no consequences (I don’t know), but they’re not in a conjugal relationship, so there’s also no implication of shared ownership.
Without signing lease agreement and being in a conjugal relationship, I think there is a pretty fair case that expecting shared ownership is a fair assumption.
That all said, it’s also really up to the individuals to figure that out early, and the deception in the meme suggests that the agency to have that discussion wasn’t available, and that’s really the part I find problematic here.