Thinking About Buying a Home With Your Significant Other?

Are you considering buying a home with your boyfriend or girlfriend? There's a lot more that goes into it than just deciding where to buy and how much to spend.

Hey, I'm Rebecca Larson with Your Home Legal. Check out these three tips before you decide to buy a piece of property with your boyfriend or girlfriend.

Number one: Who pays?

Are you both going to be contributing money to either the down payment or to the monthly carrying costs? Your monthly carrying costs to your mortgage? Your upkeep? Your insurance? Who's going to pay for it? Decide now, and get it in writing who's going to be paying for what and when.

Number two: Decide how you're going to own the property together.

California only has two ways that people who are not married can hold property, and they have very different implications for when you die. If you still own this property with your boyfriend or girlfriend and then you die, you really need to make sure you know who's going to own that property next.

Number three: and this is probably the most important thing you need to know before you buy a property with your boyfriend or girlfriend— is what happens when your relationship goes south?

You need to know how to get out of this property and this relationship without the emotional baggage because things are really great right now. You guys have a future, but they might not always be that way. And if you do some planning now, it will save you a lot of time, a lot of heartaches, and a lot of money.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. There is so much more that's involved in buying real estate, especially when you're buying real estate with a boyfriend or a girlfriend. There are many ways to protect yourself during this process. Make sure that you like, comment, or follow for more information.