Not to say that the deception is shitty, but she’d be in the same situation as if she rented a place. It’s a little out there to expect equity when all you did was cohabitate for a period, it’s the exact same thing as renting a room or something.
The difference is a rental agreement and generally people in relationships aren’t expected to be in a landlord tenant situation. If this was just your friend then sure
Well hang on, here’s a scenario for you: Say I own a 2 bedroom condo, and have a roommate that I charge rent. One day, I meet a girl and we start dating. At some point, said roommate moves out, and it just happens that my gf and I are at the point where she moves in, and said 2nd room gets turned into a office or guest room, because obviously we’re going to share the master. She pays me rent for living with me (might even be a lower amount for whatever reason). After two years, we decide to break it off since it isn’t working between us and she moves out. Do you think I should be expected to pay her out a slice of equity? How is that any different than a roommate renting a room from a financial standpoint?
And in response to your other reply, what if she didn’t contribute to repairs? I think my point here is where do we draw the line? I can understand if a partner makes a significant investment contribution to the property, but I don’t know if I necessarily agree even with a certain length of time outside of marriage without a prenup, considering if y’all were renting somewhere you would have no claim to the property whatsoever. Just because someone is in a relationship with someone, in my mind, does not entitle them to another person’s assets just because they were together.
Not the OP, but in Canada at least, I think you would legally be expected to because common law is (as far as I’m aware) very nearly marriage and is entirely implied by time living together in a conjugal relationship. It might be provincial to determine the actual property laws, though.
I don’t have a firm opinion here, but I think the key difference in your case is that a conjugal relationship has some expectation of… Oh I don’t know, mutuality? A landlord tenant relationship is a lease agreement. If your roommate didn’t sign any kind of lease agreement, they might have a legal case to just not pay you and suffer no consequences (I don’t know), but they’re not in a conjugal relationship, so there’s also no implication of shared ownership.
Without signing lease agreement and being in a conjugal relationship, I think there is a pretty fair case that expecting shared ownership is a fair assumption.
That all said, it’s also really up to the individuals to figure that out early, and the deception in the meme suggests that the agency to have that discussion wasn’t available, and that’s really the part I find problematic here.
There are laws for this reason, because renting to a rando is different than commonlaw intimate relationship.
This is a relationship not a roommate nor a tenant. It’s slightly concerning how many people think these are the same thing
