A few weeks ago I met Gemma Thompson, a life coach and owner of a local Suffolk magazine Roundabout at a WiRE business networking meeting in Suffolk. I explained what yours2share is all about, as one does, and she surprised me by saying that she had bought a house with her parents and sister’s family, in which they all now live.
I had to find out more.
The arrangement came about when Gemma decided to move back to Suffolk with her nine year old daughter. The house next door to her sister Emma was available to let, and she thought this was the perfect solution. However her father thought Gemma wanted to move back to live with her parents was concerned that there wasn’t sufficient room. He suggested that they all buy one property and live together.
Gemma liked the idea, but didn’t expect her sister, together with her husband and 16 year old son, to be interested, but they were. Emma’s only condition was that she didn’t want to move away from the village of Alderton. They thought finding a five bedroom house here would be difficult, but the following weekend the perfect house came onto the market. 90 days later in July 2008 all the three families moved in.
Everyone has their own bedroom, but the living room, dining room, kitchen and gardens are all shared. They eat together about five nights a week, sharing the cooking between them but the arrangements are flexible. All the food and household expenses are paid from a fund to which they all contribute every month. They have regular meetings to discuss any issues. If someone wants to buy something for a communal room, say a new picture, everyone has to agree beforehand. Gemma, Emma and their father all work from home so they all need a working area. They are just about to build a log cabin in the garden creating an office for them all. Emma Aldous is a graphic designer, artist and photographer and their father works for Holiday Property Bond.
I was curious about how they managed times when one group wanted the house to themselves, maybe for certain visitors. Gemma explained that they had all agreed to make themselves scarce on these rare occasions. Whenever her sister’s in-laws come to visit, she and her daughter go out for dinner!
Gemma is clearly delighted with the arrangement and there are some obvious huge advantages:
- Bigger house and garden
- Much lower cost of housing, household expenses and food
- More time with their family
- More adult and children’s company for the children
- Built-in babysitting and flexibility for single mum Gemma
- As her parents get older, it will be easier for Gemma and Emma to manage
- Advantages for inheritance tax
As I’m well aware, these arrangements can be fantastic as long as the people have thought things through properly at the outset, and have a proper contract in place.
At the beginning Gemma’s family had extensive discussions to work out how to make the arrangement work and this is defined in the trust deed and a financial document covering the monthly payments to cover expenses. They worked their way through many “what if” scenarios. One key decision was that no-one could leave the arrangement for the first two years, and after that the other owners allowed to buy out any leaver. If this couldn’t be done, then the house would be sold.
It sounds like a model fractional ownership arrangement, long may it continue!
[...] written before about sharing houses, in Suffolk and in [...]