Cooking the Books podcast: What to know before buying a house with friends

People are getting creative as they try to get on the property ladder. Photo / by Michael Craig

Each week the NZ Herald and Newstalk ZB's Cooking the Books podcast tackles a different money problem. Today, it's the good and bad of buying a house with a friend. Hosted by Frances Cook.

Money can be particularly difficult when you're flying solo. You don't have the luxury of pooling resources with someone else, buying the same thing for a fraction of the price.

Or don't you?

Particularly in the house buying world, some people are now teaming up with friends.

It's a smart way to get around steep prices - particularly when most houses have more than one bedroom anyway, and you were probably already thinking about a flatmate in order to keep the bills down.

There's just one issue; buying a house is a major commitment, even for those in a romantic relationship.

For a friendship you want to make sure you do this right, as there's no standard divorce law to help you out if things go sour.

That means there are a couple of legal considerations you need to be aware of first.

For the latest Cooking the Books podcast I talked to Joanna Pidgeon from Pidgeon Law.

We discussed what legal problems can come up, what to put into a contract, and how to vet the person you're thinking about buying with.

For the full episode, watch the video podcast above.

If you have a question about this podcast, or question you'd like answered in the next one, come and talk to me about it. I'm on Facebook here, Instagram here and Twitter here.

You can subscribe to this podcast on iHeartRadio, Apple podcasts app, or Spotify, to make sure you never miss an episode.