When one of you earns much more: buying together fairly
One of you earns £65,000. The other earns £28,000. You want to buy a home together, but 50/50 doesn't feel right — and you're not quite sure how to talk about it without it becoming a bigger conversation about who earns more and why.
This is one of the most common situations couples face, and one of the least discussed. Here's how to approach it practically.
Why 50/50 creates tension
A strict 50/50 split sounds fair in principle. In practice, it means the lower earner is paying a much higher proportion of their take-home pay each month. If you earn £28,000 (roughly £1,900/month after tax) and your mortgage and bills come to £1,100 each, that's 58% of your income — almost certainly too much.
This doesn't just create financial pressure on one person. It creates resentment, financial anxiety, and a power imbalance that tends to compound over time. The higher earner may start to feel like they're subsidising; the lower earner may feel unable to spend freely or make financial decisions as an equal.
Proportional contributions: how it actually works
A proportional approach means you each contribute the same percentage of your take-home pay, rather than the same pound amount.
On combined net incomes of approximately £4,300/month (£65k + £28k), a proportional split would mean:
- Higher earner pays roughly 70% of shared costs (£3,000 / £4,300)
- Lower earner pays roughly 30% of shared costs
This keeps both people paying a similar proportion of their own income — and leaves both with a similar amount of "breathing room" each month.
Enter your individual take-home pays and the income splitter calculates your proportional split automatically — then shows you what each of you contributes to every shared bill.
Calculate your fair split →How ownership should reflect your contributions
If one person is contributing a larger deposit, a larger monthly payment, or both, it's worth considering whether the legal ownership should reflect that.
Buying as tenants in common with unequal shares lets you register ownership at, say, 65/35 rather than 50/50. This means if you sell, the proceeds are split according to your recorded shares — not automatically down the middle.
You'll want a Declaration of Trust drawn up by your solicitor to record the agreed shares and how ongoing contributions affect them over time. See our guide on protecting your deposit for more detail on this.
Useful reading
What about the mortgage application?
Regardless of how you split costs between yourselves, the lender looks at both incomes together to determine what you can borrow. The higher earner's income will carry more weight in the overall affordability calculation, but both of you are equally and fully liable for the debt.
This is worth understanding: if the higher earner lost their job, the lower earner would be expected to cover the full mortgage. That's not just a lender requirement — it's a real financial risk you should both be clear about before you apply.
The emotional side
Money conversations between partners often aren't really about money — they're about fairness, contribution, and feeling valued. A proportional split handles the numbers, but it's worth having an explicit conversation about what "fair" means to you both.
Some couples prefer to both put the same amount into a joint account for shared costs, with the higher earner putting more into shared savings. Others prefer full transparency with a proportional share of everything. There's no universally right answer — but having agreed on something explicit is better than an unspoken assumption that quietly builds tension.