2006年NPR美国国家公共电台八月-Partners in Life, Partners in Home Buying

On Fridays we talk about your money, today Mortgage Before Marriage. The vast majority of home buyers are married couples. But in the past ten years, there has been a 50% increase in the number of unmarried couples and friends living together who own their own homes. As SL reports these joint 1 investments can lead to some messy situations if the owners split up.

The hardwood floors have just been finished in Sarah Garbor and DW's newly purchased San Francisco home. Today their construction project includes sawing off the legs of a doorjamb to adjust its height.

G and Wolf are in their mid 2 thirties and have been living together for about six years. Like many of their friends, they felt no rush to get married but they did feel pressured to buy a home last year before interest rates went up. Wolf used trust fund money to pay half the down payment and with loans and savings 3 they split the rest. For the monthly mortgage, they worked out a system they both think is fair.

We are both gonna be paying into an account from which the mortgage payment comes out. So it's pretty 50-50, it might be slightly prorated in terms of our incomes aren't equal.

Across the country, about 2.7 million homes are jointly 4 owned by two or more unmarried people. Most of these are in urban areas, where real estate is more expensive. VM is with the National Association of Realtors.

In the higher cost housing markets, unmarried couples and friends may be more inclined to purchase together simply because the affordability 5 situation wanting to get into the market, while interest rates are still relatively 6 good. Because the sooner you get into the market, the longer you own, the better your investment.

But unmarried home owners can face big difficulties if and when they separate. Experts say most joint home owners never write up a cohabitation contract, the unmarried equivalent of a prenuptial agreement when they purchase a home. Without a contract, the default property laws that apply are significantly different than those for married homebuyers. California property lawyer Roger M says the few property disputes from unmarried couples he gets each month, are often among the most complicated.

Their personal relationships as opposed to an arms-length business relationship. And when they end the relationship, there aren't any laws apply that are specific to how you divide the property when these folks have treated it as though it was marital 8 property, but it isn't marital property.

Married couples are governed by family law which in most states says that property acquired during marriage would be shared equally regardless of who holds the title. Unmarried couples and friends, on the other hand, are usually governed by general property laws, which often rely more heavily on whose name or names are on the title. M says neither law adequately applies to this growing segment of the home-owning population.

The laws have just not kept up with what has happened, and it needs to. And the legislatures should address these issues. Somebody has got to straighten out who has the property in what percentages. And ultimately if there is no guidelines, the courts end up doing a lot more of these than would otherwise be necessary.

Same sex couples have always had to deal with joint home ownership outside marriage. But a handful of states that have civil union or domestic partnership 9 laws like California, Vermont and Connecticut, allow registered couples to automatically fall under marital property rules.

G and W are standing 10 in the doorframe of what will soon be their upstairs leaning closet, finishing today's construction. G and W are unusual among their group of friends in that they took the extra step of signing a contract that details what would happen to their assets in the event that they break up.

It is a big financial commitment I mean, I think even if you are married, you should think of those things, I mean, it's just realistic.

Yes, it's just a part of being in a relationship together. You have to think about, well, what if this doesn't work out.

Those "what-ifs" may seem unromantic, or even unfriendly, but lawyers and real estate agents say it would be wise for everyone going in on property with another person to consider them before they find themselves needing a lawyer.

For NPR News, I'm SL in San Francisco.

【WORLD BANK】
hardwood
硬木, 阔叶树
doorjamb
门框两侧的直木
trust fund
money belonging to someone that is controlled for them by a trustee
mortgage
a legal arrangement by which you borrow money from a bank or similar organization in order to buy a house, and pay back the money over a period of years
Your building society or bank will help arrange a mortgage. They've taken out a 30 year mortgage (=they will pay for their house over a period of 30 years) . We decided 11 to use Fred's redundancy money to pay off the mortgage (=pay back all the money we borrowed for a mortgage) . Mortgage rates are set to rise again in the spring. She was having trouble meeting her mortgage payments .
prorate
American English to calculate a charge, price, etc according to the actual amount of service received rather than by a standard sum
realtor
<美>房地产经纪人(尤指美国房地产行业工会成员)
cohabit
to live with another person and have a sexual relationship with them without being married
prenuptial agreement
also pre-nup
a legal document that is written before a man and a woman get married, in which they agree things such as how much money each will get if they divorce
nuptial 7
relating to marriage or the marriage ceremony
see also wedding a nuptial mass nuptial bliss
Arms Length
A transaction between financially unrelated companies.
doorframe
门框