Buying house with older person (non-relative)

[paxalo]

Hello

I am 31, I have a partner of 12 years and 3 sons of primary school age. We currently rent privately. I am working and earn circa €55k. My partner is a stay at home parent. We owe €10k and have no savings.

My partners uncle is in his early 60s and retired for health reasons and has no other family. We are very close to him and always have been. He currently lives in the countryside and the loneliness is getting to him. He has approached us about living with him if he buys a house in town. He doesn't want to live alone in isolation any more and he struggles with technology, bills etc...all of which I already look after for him.

We are very open to the idea as we all get along great, we don't want him to be alone and it allows us to have a permanent roof over our heads.

He has €250k. We can get a house for that price but it would need work done to renovate and extend and furnish of approx €125k.

So how do we manage this? Can he buy the house and put my name on the deeds so that I can raise a mortgage against it to do the works?

Or can he put up €125k to buy it and I mortgage the other half, leaving him with €125k cash on hand for the works?

Will the bank allow this? Has anyone any idea? (He has said he will clear our €10k loan in order to make me a more suitable mortgage candidate). I'm really not sure what the best thing to do is. And as my and my partner aren't married, technically the uncle is not even related to me.

Also is there tax implications. We think he can gift the house to us in 3 years (with a clause of lifetime occupancy for him) without capital gains coming into play as we have had to move in with him for reasons of old age/medical needs and we have no other assets.

We will seek legal advice of course, but id appreciate some advice too.

 

[sadie]

Questions I immediate ask are:
Have you applied for a mortgage yourself? If not, why not.
Why would he gift the house to you in 3yrs? Why would he not just leave it to you in his will.
If your name gets put on the deeds you have to pay stamp duty.
You all get along great. But try living together for while. Him having to have the telly up to blaring while your kids are trying to sleep upstairs. Has he lived alone always up until now? As it's a pretty big leap to realistically go from that to spending all day every day with a young family.
Maybe you are talking about an adjoining granny flat or something where he can cook his own meals, have his own TV etc.
Could he not buy a new house for himself in town with the 250k, sell his old house or gift his old house to your partner. Then you can sell his old house and buy a house near him.
I honestly would find a way around it that doesn't involve you all being in it together up to your necks both financially and legally.
Some way that you won't end up feeling beholden to him.