Global · 7 min read · Laddered Editorial · 17 Apr 2026

Buying Property With Friends or Family: What to Know First

Pooling money to buy with people you trust can be a genuinely smart move or an expensive mistake. An honest look at what makes the difference.

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This article is general information only and is not legal, financial, tax, or property advice. Consider advice from a qualified professional for your circumstances.

Why so many people are doing it

In most expensive cities, buying alone has quietly become a fantasy for a lot of capable, employed people. Two deposits clear the hurdle one can't. Two incomes make the repayments breathe. The numbers that don't work solo start working the moment you add a second name, which is why buying with a sibling, a friend, or a parent has gone from unusual to ordinary.

And it often goes well. The arrangements that are set up properly — honest conversations first, a written agreement in place — tend to work out, and people end up owning homes they'd never have reached alone. But plenty go wrong too, and the failures rarely come down to bad people. They come down to ordinary misunderstandings nobody bothered to settle at the start.

The upside is real

Pooling a deposit and combined income gets you into a better property, or a better suburb, than either of you could manage separately. For first-home buyers that's frequently the whole reason it happens. Sharing the ongoing costs — repayments, rates, the inevitable repairs — keeps it affordable after settlement, not just at the point of purchase. And there's something underrated about having a second person on the hook when the boiler dies or one of you has a thin month. You're not facing it alone.

The risks are real too, and worth saying plainly

Your finances become entangled the day you sign. On a joint mortgage, you're jointly and severally liable — plain English: if your co-buyer stops paying, for any reason, the lender comes to you for the *whole* repayment, and your credit is on the line, not just theirs. This is the part most people nod along to and don't fully absorb until they're living it.

Circumstances also move. What suits two 28-year-olds buying together looks different when one of them wants to move interstate for work four years later. Small frictions scale with the stakes, too — the friend who was a bit slow paying you back for dinner is now the co-owner who's a bit slow on the rates, and it lands harder because the number is bigger. And if you ever can't agree on whether or when to sell, you're genuinely stuck: courts can force a sale, but slowly, expensively, and at the cost of the relationship.

Tenants in common vs joint tenancy

The structure you choose matters more than it sounds.

Joint tenancy gives everyone an equal, undivided share, and the survivor inherits automatically if an owner dies. You can't leave a jointly held share to anyone in a will — it simply passes to the other owners.

Tenants in common lets each owner hold a specific percentage. Put in 60% of the deposit and you can hold 60%. When you die, your share goes where your will sends it, not automatically to your co-owners.

For most arrangements between people who aren't a married couple, tenants in common is the sensible choice: it reflects unequal contributions, it leaves room for estate planning, and it makes a future exit cleaner. Get it confirmed by a property solicitor before you commit.

What the people who do this well have in common

The co-owners who report few regrets tend to have done the same unglamorous things. They had the uncomfortable conversations *before* buying — what happens if you want out, if you can't agree, if someone loses their job — rather than discovering the answers mid-crisis. They put it in writing. They set up expense tracking from week one. And they actually revisit the arrangement now and then instead of letting it drift.

A few concrete moves before you sign anything:

Talk through the exit, the financial-stress, and the life-change scenarios out loud, while it's hypothetical.
Get independent legal advice — ideally each owner with their own solicitor.
Draft a co-ownership agreement covering shares, expenses, decisions, exit, and disputes, and have it reviewed before signing.
Set up a shared account for property costs from day one.
Check how a joint mortgage affects your own borrowing capacity — a broker can model this. (More on the lending side here.)
Update your will, because as a tenant in common your share follows it.

Having these conversations isn't a sign you don't trust each other. It's the opposite. It says you respect the relationship enough to protect it from the property. Done with that kind of care, buying with someone you trust is one of the more sensible ways to build wealth — the groundwork at the start is simply what makes it last.