My girlfriend and I are planning to move in together in ~3 months.

I own a small apartment in Amsterdam, my mortgage, heating, water and electricity is about 2000 Euro a month, and I earn 30% more than she does.

Some context: Amsterdam is damn expensive and in an housing crisis, since living here she’s been paying about 1000/m to rent a room. Both of us earn quite well and money isn’t tight

What is a fair way to split costs? I’ve heard everything from she should live here for free because I was paying for everything anyway to we should split everything 50/50, and I’m not sure what is fair.

I don’t think 50/50 is fair, because the way I see it, I’m going to get back a fair amount of the money I pay to my mortgage when I sell the apartment.

So what is fair? My gut feeling is something like we split the heating, electricity, groceries etc. 50/50. And she pays say 500 Euro a month for living here (less than half what she’s used to paying in rent)

  • ch00f@lemmy.world
    18·
    3 days ago

    When my wife (at the time girlfriend) moved in, we split the interest portion of the mortgage payment 50/50. Principle was 100% me. Utilities food and supplies were evenly split. Every bolted down upgrade I paid for 100%, but we decided to split paint since it mattered more to her.

    The idea was if she bolted, I would mostly be left with what I paid for. If we got married (we did), we’d combine finances and it wouldn’t matter anyway.

      • ch00f@lemmy.world
        2·
        1 day ago

        The logic is that she didn’t pay any equity into the house. That makes the situation similar to two people sharing the monthly rent on a rented apartment except they’re paying a bank and not the landlord.

        • mathemachristian[he]@lemmy.ml
          1·
          23 hours ago

          it’s the cost of purchasing a house. Two people paying a landlord is more similar to having two girlfriends who pay off the mortgage. This is more like one person sharing the cost of the loan on a house they won’t get to keep.

          • ch00f@lemmy.world
            2·
            19 hours ago

            Ok, but like it also doesn’t seem fair for the non-owner romantic partner to just get free rent, no?

            This is more like one person sharing the cost of the loan on a house they won’t get to keep.

            If the owner sells the property, they will not get back any of the money spent on interest. Thats the point. The assumption is that the principal is the best representation of the portion that the property owner gets to keep.