: How to calculate ownership for property with a partner Property value : £484,950 My deposit: £20,000 ( plus additional fees for stamp duty of £11,000 payment from myself) Her deposit: £4,247 Help to buy government

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i would recommend that you establish a landlord/tenant relationship instead of joint ownership (ie 100% ownership stake for one of you vs 0% for the other). it is much cleaner and simpler. basically, one of you can propose a monthly rent amount and the other one can chose to be either renter or landlord. alternatively, you can both write down a secret rental price offer assuming you are the landlord, then pick the landlord who wrote down the smaller rental price.

if neither of you can afford the down payment, then you can consider the renter's contribution an unsecured loan (at an agreed interest rate and payment schedule).
if you must have both names on the financing, then i would recommend you sell the property (or refinance under a single name) as quickly as possible when the relationship ends (if not before), pay the renter back any remaining balance on the loan and leave the landlord with the resulting equity (or debt).

in any case, if you expect the unsecured loan to outlive your relationship, then you are either buying a house you can't afford, or partnering on it with someone you shouldn't.

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To add to ChrisInEdmonton's answer:

Your conveyancing solicitor should be able to advise on the details, but a typical arrangement involves:

Buying as tenants in common (as opposed to joint tenants).
Drawing up a Declaration of Trust, which contains the details of each person's share, and how any proceeds should be divided.
Updating your will, to ensure that (for example) your share of the property goes to your partner if something happens to you (which is especially important if you're not married to each other).

As an alternative to the numbers in Chris' answer, it could be argued that you should first be reimbursed for the fees you paid (accounting for inflation), but that any remaining profits from the property itself should be divided in proportion to your individual investments (so 51.6% to you, and 48.4% to your partner, assuming you contribute to the loans equally).

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I can't quite follow your question, so I'm proceeding under the following assumptions:
- You paid £31,000
- Your partner paid £4,242
- You have at least one mortgage, which you both pay equally.

If the relationship terminates, sell the property. You are reimbursed £31,000 and your partner is reimbursed £4,242. Any remaining proceeds from the sale are split 50-50. If the result is a net loss (i.e. you are underwater on your mortgage), you split the debt 50-50. If you are not both paying the same toward the mortgage, I'd split the profit or loss according to how much you each pay toward the mortgage.

Of course, this is not the only possible way you can split things up. You can use pretty much any way you both think is fair. For example, maybe you should get more benefits from a profit because you contributed more up-front. The key thing, though, is that you must both agree in writing, in advance. This is reasonable; this is what I did, for example.

Note that if the relationship ends, one or the other of you may wish to keep the property. I'd suggest including a clause in your written agreement simply disallowing this; specify criteria to force a sale. But I know lots of people are happy to allow this. They treat that situation as a forced sale from both people to one person. For example, if your partner chooses to stay in the house, he or she must buy the property from you at prevailing market rates.