My new partner is trying to get a share of my divorce payout

property. Am I right to give him a share in my home? Should I demand a share in his business in return? I worry if I wanted out of the relationship I’d struggle to access my money? I hope you can offer some advice.

– Anon – that way you will get two hallways tidied up once a decade, too. Allow £ 10,000 for the kitchen refit and £ 5,000 for each of the bathrooms, £3,000 for the other rooms. Added up, that’s £41,000 over 10 years, or £4,100 per year – and that’s just for the interior.

You may well need to add another £2,000 to the annual budget so the outside gets a lick of paint once a decade, too. When I explain it like this to my clients they agree, but when I add the thousands of pounds to their financial plan they are sure they don’t spend that much. In fact, it is probably more.

You mention your new partner’s holiday let – I am guessing he, therefore, is well aware of the need to make provision for maintenance as a property owner. Maybe you could ask if he has a formula for making provisions, or if he just deals with maintenance as and when required? If the latter, then how much has this amounted to on average per year, and is that expected to be enough or are some bigger spends predicted? You could then use whatever method he sees as reasonable in his business to come up with an equivalent budget for maintaining your property, and then ask him to share that cost.

I don’t think you should be giving up equity in your home to reflect the contribution your partner makes to maintenance, but it would be a different story if what you refer to as maintenance is actually structural change that adds value – such as converting the loft. If your partner was helping fund property development rather than maintenance then sharing a representative portion of increase in value achieved by development may well be fair. But maintenance is not development and it is part of the cost of “consumption” and needs to be shared between the consumers.

I am impressed that you are considering your own financial needs and working out how to ask for them to be met.