Buying Property Together in Texas and You’re Not Related

The Realtor finds the perfect house at the right price in the perfect area for someone and yet they procrastinate on writing an offer. As a Realtor in Houston, Texas, I learned a long time ago you never quite know what stops a buyer from writing an offer after you have found the perfect home. Is it a money problem, or even a loan qualifying issue and they are too embarrassed to say? Sometimes it’s relationship problems between couples, a baby on the way or just shattered nerves about buying a home. Many times, the Realtor never knows what stops people from buying that perfect home you found them. You know the saying, “Be careful what you are looking for because your Re/Max Houston professional might find what you’re looking for.”

So it went recently on that perfect home in Katy, Texas I located for a middle-aged unmarried couple. It was “exactly”, I mean “exactly” what they were hoping to find. Oops, and there it was, months before they were anticipating purchasing a home, staring them right in the face, “their dream home.” Just on the market, the only one of its kind available and the likelihood of another perfect home appearing on the market would be slim to none.

And, they wanted to think about it for a while. Huh? As a professional Houston Realtor, I displayed the appropriate response. I dropped to my knees in tears knowing lighting would not strike again soon finding the perfect home for them. To my surprise, they called me a few days later wanting to meet and write an offer on this miracle discovery. To an even greater surprise, the home was still available, but another offer was already submitted. We had to hurry to get our offer in to have a chance to snag the prize catch.

The buyers were in their 50’s. Her husband passed away many years ago. He was divorced many years ago. They were not married, yet. There was an obvious strain in their collective voices. My keen sense of human nature was not needed to detect their uneasiness. It was quite obvious. Actually, they had every reason to be concerned.

Here’s the deal. They were buying a quarter of a million dollar property in Texas together, not married, with each having surviving relatives and about two million dollars in cash combined in local banks. Yes, they had a lot to think about before buying property here. She stretched her arms across the table reaching for his hand, as women will do and asked, “We do love each other, don’t we?” It was her way of asking, “my investment is safe if we buy together?”

Is her investment safe? What happens if one of them stops making payments leaving the other responsible for payments, taxes, insurance—everything? How is ownership protected if one of the owners unexpectedly dies leaving surviving heirs claiming rights of inheritance? The buyers do have a lot to think about. Where do they go from here?

Straight to the attorney’s office is the first course of action. According to John Trueheart, an experienced real estate attorney, the first step for the buyers is to create a partnership agreement. In this agreement “The buyers are creating a partnership with both having a 50% ownership in the property,” Trueheart explains. “The partnership agreement addresses how situations are handled if the co-owners are in each others good graces, or if they have a falling out.”

For example, Trueheart explains, the co-owners can address in this agreement maintaining a working business account where all the bills and mortgage payments and repairs to the property are made from one account.

If the relationship goes bad, there can be a buy-sale agreement. One party can buy the other one out based on the current market value of the property. According to Mr. Trueheart, since each party has a 50% of undivided interest in the property, nothing is stopping one from allowing other people to stay at the property or have un-welcomed parties against the wishes of the other partner. A co-ownership agreement could address these issues too.

Also, in the event of an untimely death of one of the co-owners, the 50% interest in the property would go to the family of the deceased, rather than the other co-owner unless it was specified otherwise.

So, what happened with the dream home? The offer was made and accepted. And, as it turned out, no partnership agreement has been created. Love and trust trumped an agreement. At least the Houston real estate professional explained the options to the buyers who said, “Owning a home in Houston, Texas can be complicated.”