A reader writes:
When Jolene and I told people we were buying a house together, you would have thought we had announced we were joining the circus. My mother asked if something was “going on.” Jolene’s pastor asked, very kindly, whether we had thought about what happens when one of us gets married. Her brother just said, “Friendship and money? Unno mad.”
We were twenty-nine. We had met at church youth group when we were fourteen, gone to university in the same city, and shared an apartment for five years. We were paying rent that made us both feel sick, and neither of us could afford a deposit alone. Together, we could just about manage a semi-detached house with a basement. So we did it.
I am writing now, eleven years later, because we have just sold that house, and we are still friends. I know that is not how these stories usually go, and I want to say honestly what helped, because it was not luck.
The best thing we ever did was the most awkward. Before we signed anything, our lawyer sat us down and said we needed a written agreement between the two of us, separate from the mortgage, about what would happen if either of us wanted out. I remember Jolene laughing and saying, “We’re not going to fall out.” The lawyer said, “I hope not. This is for the day you’re both too upset to think straight.”
So we sat at my kitchen table over three evenings and a lot of tea and worked it out. Who put in what for the deposit (I put in more, because my aunt had helped me). How the mortgage and bills would be split. What happened if one of us lost a job. What happened if one of us met someone and wanted to move a partner in. How much notice we had to give if we wanted to sell, whether the other one had first chance to buy them out, and how we would decide the price. We argued about some of it. Jolene thought I was being cold. I thought she was being naive. We both cried once. And then we wrote it down and the lawyer put it in proper language, and we signed it and put it in a drawer and more or less forgot about it for ten years.
Living together as owners was different from living together as renters. When the furnace died the first winter, there was no landlord to call. When the basement flooded, it was us with a wet vac at two in the morning. We had a shared account for the house and a spreadsheet that Jolene kept religiously. We had a house meeting on the first Sunday of every month, which sounds very formal but was mostly pancakes and going through what needed fixing. When one of us was annoyed, the rule was that it came up at the meeting and not in a slammed door. We did not always keep that rule.
There was one bad year. I was made redundant, and for about five months I could not pay my full half of the mortgage. Jolene covered it. We had agreed in writing how that would work, as a loan against my share, but agreeing on paper and living it are two different things. I felt ashamed every month. She never said anything, but I could feel her being careful, and that was almost worse. In the end I asked for us to sit down and talk it through properly, and I confessed that I had been avoiding her because I felt like a burden. She confessed that she had been quietly resentful and hated herself for it. That conversation was hard. It also cleared the air in a way that months of polite silence never would have. I paid her back within two years, and we tore up the note together.
What finally ended it was good news. Jolene got married last year to a lovely man from her church, and they wanted a place of their own, which was completely reasonable. I did not want to buy her out and carry the house alone, and I did not want to live with a couple. So we got out the drawer.
I will not pretend it was easy just because it was written down. It was a strange grief, selling the house where we had spent our thirties. But the agreement meant there was nothing to fight about. We already knew how the money would be split, and how we would choose an agent and a price. The emotional part was still there, but the money part was settled by two younger, calmer versions of ourselves, and I am grateful to them.
On the last night, we sat on the floor of the empty living room with a takeaway and went through the whole eleven years: the flood, the time the raccoon got into the attic, my redundancy, her engagement party in the back garden. We prayed together, like we used to at fourteen. Then we locked up and gave the keys to the agent.
I am renting a small place now and saving again. Jolene lives twenty minutes away. I am going to be godmother to her baby in the spring.
If you are thinking of buying with a friend, I would not tell you not to. It gave us both a start we could not have had alone. But please, write it all down while you still like each other. And when something goes wrong between you, say so early. The house will survive a hard conversation. I am not sure a friendship survives years of the ones you avoid.
— Simone, Toronto
Editor’s note
Two things made Simone and Jolene’s arrangement work: a clear written agreement made before any problem arose, and a willingness to be honest when things became difficult. Scripture encourages believers to “confess your trespasses to one another” (James 5:16), and it is striking how much healing came from one hard, truthful conversation. Anyone co-owning with a friend or relative should take independent legal advice on how the property is held and draw up an agreement covering contributions, exits and disputes. It is far easier to plan an ending together than to argue one out later.
Reader letters may be edited for length and clarity, and names and identifying details are changed.
This article is general information only and is not financial, legal, tax or other professional advice. Please speak to a qualified professional about your own circumstances.
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