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I want to buy with my partner, but we're not married. What happens if we break up?
Bayley Clarke · Mortgage broker on the road · Last checked 16 October 2026 · 3 min read
The short answer
Life happens. If you break up, it generally goes one of two ways: you sell the house and split what's left, or one of you buys the other out. That's just how it works.
A buyout only works if the person keeping the house can borrow enough on their own, and the valuation and equity position support it. And the more amicably you can sort it between yourselves, the cheaper and simpler it is for both of you.
The 90 second version, filmed from the driver's seat. The rest of this page is the detail underneath it.
Life happens
You buy with a partner, it doesn't work out, and suddenly you're both looking at each other going, we've got this loan now, we've got this house now, what on earth do we do? It's more common than people like to admit, and being unmarried doesn't change the basic fact: you both own the property and you're both on the loan.
Where it goes from there depends a lot on what the relationship is like by the end. If it's amicable, and you're both relaxed about it, you can generally work out the divvy up of assets between yourselves and move on. If it isn't, it gets harder, slower and more expensive, and the house tends to become the thing everything else gets argued over.
Option one: sell and split
The simplest path is selling the house. It goes on the market, it's sold, the loan is paid out, the agent's commission and the other selling costs come off, and what's left gets split between you, however you've agreed to split it. Clean, final, and neither of you is left carrying a loan on your own.
That works well when the property has gone up in value. If you're at a loss, it's a much harder conversation. If the sale doesn't cover the loan and the costs, you're both still responsible for the shortfall, and you'll need to agree on how you cover it.
Option two: one of you buys the other out
The other path is one of you keeping the house and buying the other out. That means refinancing the loan out of both your names and into one, and borrowing enough to pay out your ex's share of the equity as part of that same refinance. On paper it's one new loan. In practice, it's a full application on one income.
For that to work, a few things have to line up. The person keeping the house needs the borrowing capacity to carry the loan on their own income. The valuation needs to come in where you expect, because the equity figure you're splitting depends on it. And the equity position needs to support the new, bigger loan. This is the part I can help with directly: working out whether a buyout is actually doable before you both commit to it.
The honest bit: it rarely goes the way you'd want
I've helped a couple of people through these. It never really goes the way either person would want it to. The ones who come out of it best are the ones who sorted it between themselves as much as they could, because the moment it turns into a long legal fight, things get expensive and complicated for both of you.
If it does go that way, make sure you get proper advice on what you're entitled to. Either way, it nearly always ends in one of the same two places: you sell, or one of you buys the other out.
Need to know if a buyout is actually possible?
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