Buying a house with a partner when you are not married is common in the Houston area, and the process is open to you. The mortgage treats you almost like a married couple. The law does not. Before you sign, settle four things in writing: how you hold the title, who put in how much, how you split the monthly payment, and what happens if one of you wants out.
Yes. A lender does not ask whether you are married. It looks at two applicants: both credit reports, both incomes, both debts. If you apply together, the loan is sized on your combined income, and both credit scores affect the rate you are offered. If one of you has a thin or damaged credit file, read our guide to buying a house with bad credit before you decide whose name goes on the application.
One thing surprises people: on a joint mortgage, each borrower owes the whole payment, not half of it. If your partner stops paying, the lender comes to you for the full amount. Two names on the loan means two people fully on the hook.
The loan programs are the same ones married couples use. A conventional loan and an FHA loan both allow two co-borrowers who are not married.
Texas is a community property state, but community property rules apply to spouses only. If you are not married, the house belongs to you the way the deed says it does, so the wording of the deed matters more than usual. There are two common ways to hold title.
Neither option is better for every couple. Survivorship keeps the house with the partner who lives in it. Tenancy in common protects a larger share that one of you paid for. Ask your title company to explain the exact wording before closing, because changing a deed later costs time and money.
This is where couples most often need a clear rule. Say one partner puts $30,000 toward the down payment and the other puts $10,000. There are two fair ways to handle it, and they lead to very different numbers five years later.
Either works if it is written down. What does not work is agreeing out loud and trusting both of you to remember the same version when the house sells.
Couples usually pick one of two rules. The first is half and half: the same dollar amount each month. It is easy, and it feels fair when your paychecks are close.
The second is by income. If one of you takes home $4,200 a month and the other $2,800, together you bring in $7,000, so one pays 60% and the other 40%. On a $2,000 payment that is $1,200 and $800. After the mortgage, each of you keeps the same share of your own pay, which is why this rule tends to hold up when incomes are far apart.
Whichever rule you choose, pay the mortgage from one joint account that you both fund on the same day. Paying it from one partner's account, with the other sending money back, is how the record of who paid what gets lost.
A property agreement between unmarried partners is a short document, usually drafted by a real estate attorney. It should answer these questions:
Married couples get default answers to most of these from Texas law. You get none, so the agreement is what stands in for them.
If you have lived together for a while, share a budget and have already talked about the questions above, buying before marriage is a reasonable decision. If buying the house is how you plan to find out whether you can share a budget, it is a hard way to learn. A lease ends in twelve months. A mortgage runs for thirty years, and selling a house costs several percent of its price in commissions and closing costs.
A useful test: sit down and write the agreement described above before you tour a single home. If that conversation goes well, the rest of the process will be easier than you expect.
The deed and the agreement cover the house. Daily life in it is a separate set of decisions: who pays the water and power bills, who handles the yard, who calls the plumber, and what counts as done when the kitchen is cleaned. Couples who wrote a careful property agreement often leave these to goodwill, and that is where small resentments start.
Write these down too. Some couples use a shared spreadsheet or a list on the fridge. Others use Alpacto, an app where partners and roommates set up small agreements with each other: the task, what counts as done, the due date, and a reward from a list they wrote together. The format matters less than the habit. The monthly split and the weekly chores should be as clear as the deed.
No. One partner can take the loan alone, and both can still be on the title. The lender then qualifies you on one income only, and only the borrower owes the debt, although the house secures the loan either way. Ask your lender how it handles a co-owner who is not a borrower before you apply.
Yes. How you own the house and how you pay for it are separate decisions. Just record both in your agreement, so that a 60/40 payment history is not read later as a claim to a 60/40 share.
Without an agreement, co-owners who cannot agree can ask a court to divide or sell the property, which is slow and expensive. With an agreement, you follow the buyout or sale steps you already wrote down.
Generally, each co-owner deducts the interest they actually paid, even though the lender sends one Form 1098. Keep records of who paid what and confirm with a tax professional.
This article is general information, not legal or tax advice. Talk to a Texas real estate attorney and a tax professional about your own situation.