2006年NPR美国国家公共电台八月-Partners in Life, Partners in Home Buying
时间:2007-07-20 07:04:02
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(单词翻译)
On Fridays we talk about your money, today
Mortgage Before Marriage. The vast majority of home buyers are married couples. But in the past ten years, there has been a 50% increase in the number of unmarried couples and friends living together who own their own homes. As SL reports these
joint1 investments can lead to some messy situations if the owners split up.
The
hardwood floors have just been finished in Sarah Garbor and DW's newly purchased San Francisco home. Today their construction project includes sawing off the legs of a
doorjamb to adjust its height.
G and Wolf are in their
mid2 thirties and have been living together for about six years. Like many of their friends, they felt no rush to get married but they did feel pressured to buy a home last year before interest rates went up. Wolf used
trust fund money to pay half the down payment and with loans and
savings3 they split the rest. For the monthly mortgage, they worked out a system they both think is fair.
We are both gonna be paying into an account from which the mortgage payment comes out. So it's pretty 50-50, it might be slightly
prorated in terms of our incomes aren't equal.
Across the country, about 2.7 million homes are
jointly4 owned by two or more unmarried people. Most of these are in urban areas, where real estate is more expensive. VM is with the National Association of
Realtors.
In the higher cost housing markets, unmarried couples and friends may be more inclined to purchase together simply because the
affordability5 situation wanting to get into the market, while interest rates are still
relatively6 good. Because the sooner you get into the market, the longer you own, the better your investment.
But unmarried home owners can face big difficulties if and when they separate. Experts say most joint home owners never write up a
cohabitation contract, the unmarried equivalent of a
prenuptial agreement when they purchase a home. Without a contract, the default property laws that apply are significantly different than those for married homebuyers. California property lawyer Roger M says the few property disputes from unmarried couples he gets each month, are often among the most complicated.
Their personal relationships as opposed to an
arms-length business relationship. And when they end the relationship, there aren't any laws apply that are specific to how you divide the property when these folks have treated it as though it was
marital8 property, but it isn't marital property.
Married couples are governed by family law which in most states says that property acquired during marriage would be shared equally regardless of who holds the title. Unmarried couples and friends, on the other hand, are usually governed by general property laws, which often rely more heavily on whose name or names are on the title. M says neither law adequately applies to this growing segment of the home-owning population.
The laws have just not kept up with what has happened, and it needs to. And the legislatures should address these issues. Somebody has got to straighten out who has the property in what percentages. And ultimately if there is no guidelines, the courts end up doing a lot more of these than would otherwise be necessary.
Same sex couples have always had to deal with joint home ownership outside marriage. But a handful of states that have civil union or domestic
partnership9 laws like California, Vermont and Connecticut, allow registered couples to automatically fall under marital property rules.
G and W are
standing10 in the
doorframe of what will soon be their upstairs leaning closet, finishing today's construction. G and W are unusual among their group of friends in that they took the extra step of signing a contract that details what would happen to their assets in the event that they break up.
It is a big financial commitment I mean, I think even if you are married, you should think of those things, I mean, it's just realistic.
Yes, it's just a part of being in a relationship together. You have to think about, well, what if this doesn't work out.
Those "what-ifs" may seem unromantic, or even unfriendly, but lawyers and real estate agents say it would be wise for everyone going in on property with another person to consider them before they find themselves needing a lawyer.
For NPR News, I'm SL in San Francisco.
【WORLD BANK】
hardwood
硬木, 阔叶树
doorjamb门框两侧的直木
trust fundmoney belonging to someone that is controlled for them by a trustee
mortgagea legal arrangement by which you borrow money from a bank or similar organization in order to buy a house, and pay back the money over a period of years
Your building society or bank will help arrange a mortgage. They've taken out a 30 year mortgage (=they will pay for their house over a period of 30 years) . We
decided11 to use Fred's redundancy money to pay off the mortgage (=pay back all the money we borrowed for a mortgage) . Mortgage rates are set to rise again in the spring. She was having trouble meeting her mortgage payments .
prorateAmerican English to calculate a charge, price, etc according to the actual amount of service received rather than by a standard sum
realtor<美>房地产经纪人(尤指美国房地产行业工会成员)
cohabitto live with another person and have a sexual relationship with them without being married
prenuptial agreementalso pre-nup
a legal document that is written before a man and a woman get married, in which they agree things such as how much money each will get if they divorce
nuptial7
relating to marriage or the marriage ceremony
see also wedding a nuptial mass nuptial bliss
Arms LengthA transaction between financially unrelated companies.
doorframe门框
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