How hard is it going to be for us to get a mortgage for a triad relationship, and what can we do to improve the situation?
Financially, my partners and I are in a pretty good place. But we have a few bits of complexity which might make banks wary.
Firstly, we're in a polyamorous triad, which means there are three of us.
Two of us (me and partner 1) will be the ones actually buying the house, name on the deeds, getting the mortgage. Partner 2 is disabled an unable to work, and has a pretty shakey credit history, so won't be contributing towards the deposit or mortgage or having any ownership, and she's fine with that (in fact, she's generally the one arguing for that situation while we're going "are you sure?"). We don't have any joint accounts, so partner 2's credit history doesn't directly affect ours.
We're unmarried, and I'm aware from monogamous friends that trying to buy together in a realtionship without being married can make things complicated with lenders (two of us getting married for financial reasons is not something that's going to happen, before anyone suggests it).
Financially, we're in a very strong position (percentages/amounts based on our current "back of the envelope" budget) - the equity in my current house should be about 30% deposit, and partner 1 has savings earmarked for this which would add another 10%, and then I could add another 30% from my longer term investments if needed. Our combined yearly income (pre-tax) is about half the amount we'd be looking to borrow - I've had my job for almost a decade, but partner 1 will likely need to change jobs due to moving to a different city. Both of us have good credit history.
I don't need advice on the interpersonal stuff here, or how we split our finances between ourselves - we've had a lot of full and frank discussions on this, and know what we want to do in various situations, and I work at a law firm so have much better people I can ask about any agreements which would need to be in place. My concern at this point is how much trouble it will be to deal with the banks, when buying as 2 of the 3 members of a triad relationship, with the third also being a resident in the house we'll be buying.
As you'll note from the above numbers, it's likely to be affordable if I buy the property on my own. This is potentially an option if it would be signfiicantly easier than buying together with partner 1, but it's something we'd prefer not to do.
(edit: And yes, we will be talking to a broker when we get further along with our plans. This is just to give us an idea of what's likely to be involved for expectation management)
Posted Aug 7, 2021, 2:44 PM UTC
Ouch
Suggest they go speak to their broker. Cant be asking for help from people below them.