I know it's not what you were asking but the simplest solution would be for one of you to buy the home and the other pay rent. The renter gets to keep the opportunity cost of the money and the owner gets any appreciation and equity gains. It's simple because the renter can move out any time they want and the owner can sell any time they want. You just need to figure out a "fair" rent value. The rent value should be high enough to help contribute to repairs which are paid by the owner.
This is what we are doing now, and had planned to do for awhile longer. But with the big run-up of housing prices lately and some social issues (major increase in urban decay, homeless and crime) BF has decided he'd like to sell asap and move. We would likely move to another HCOL area so buying a place solo would be hard. Plus, I think we both feel more secure owning equally rather then one being a roommate. If that's the case I think we would just opt to rent a place together instead of buy. Which is a good (EASY) option for us short term.
Thanks for the suggestions. Will Google life estates and the tenents in common deeds. Life estates dont sound like anything we would want but holding the deed as joint tenents in common sounds good. Unfortunately it doesn't address the survivor/heir issues but maybe a trust can do that.
Serious question.
What if you buy a property together and it explodes in value. Then he dies and you are stuck unable to buy out his half from whoever inherits it.
Do either of you really want to be stuck in a position of quite possibly not being able to afford owning your own home, possibly in your senior years??
Also, having seen many, MANY divorces, it's not always easy for two parties to settle on a value for the house. I saw a divorced couple lose a ton of money because they couldn't agree on a sale price and missed the high season for selling.
This could end up being your situation if you end up co-owning the property with whomever inherits. If they are greedy or unreasonable, you could end up in a drawn out conflict while losing your home.
Now, if you're both totally okay with losing your long term partner, and then losing your home, while possibly being in a brutal legal battle with their heir...then you are much tougher people than I am.
DH and I shared title on our previous home before we got married, and set it up that the survivor inherits the home, just like a marital home. That's just what I did personally, but that's because I could never handle selling and moving whole mourning.
Regardless of what you choose, I strongly recommend seeking legal counsel. There are a lot of ways this kind of arrangement can go sideways, so you will want to set it up in a way that protects whomever survives as best as possible and doesn't leave them vulnerable to legal conflict upon the other's death.
These are all the reasons I am very hesitant to do this. Plus other issues like if one gets sued or medical costs etc that would force a sale. I'd hate to deal with these potential issues (as would he) if one of us died. But it is really important to us to leave our assets to our siblings (I only have one but he has 5). I think the only thing we can do is just agree that no matter what the situation is, if one died (or we broke up) the house would be sold and the proceeds divided. Or just rent.
I really would think about that carefully.
If you end up with this person for a very long time, either of you losing the other could be utterly devastating, and the last thing you may want to deal with is having to sell a home.
Agreeing that it will be sold doesn't solve anything, because the heirs inherit ownership.
You could talk to a lawyer and see if it's possible to have a legal arrangement that the title of the home never actually transfers to an heir, and that the home doesn't need to be sold right away.
As in, whomever survives retains the home, and has two years to either sell and give half to the heir(s), or can buy out the heir(s) at a value determined by their own assessor.
That way, the heir(s) are never actually entitled to the home and never have any legal say in how or when it's handled, they're just entitled to a cash inheritance within 2 years of death.
That could be legally tricky to pull off though, and when things are legally tricky, they're easy to legally poke holes in.
DH and I actually decided to just trust the other to fulfill our wishes. No legal documents involved. We have clear legal outlines of what happens if we split up, but if one of us dies, we each know what the other wants done with our assets. Neither of us want the other to ever get caught up in legal battles with our other loved ones.
I'm not saying this is right for you, I'm just saying that that's what DH and I came to after a lot of contemplation and understanding how ugly post-death division of assets can be.
Just think very, very carefully about the positions you might end up in for every one of your options, and remember that you might be in deep, all consuming mourning when they could happen.
I've seen enough families ripped apart over this shit to be extremely careful and to understand that putting things in writing can cause as many problems as it solves.