'AITA for not telling my BF I own the building we live in? He called me evil.' UPDATED 2X
"AITA for not telling my boyfriend I own the building we live in?"
CapableEmergency5154
When I was 18, my dad gifted me a house with two stories. I am extremely thankful. We are not upper class, but my dad bought this house for a cheap price a long time ago (it was his grandmother's cousin's house.) I know that this was an extreme privilege and I am forever grateful for this.
The layout of this building is like an apartment, but it is a house. So basically, each story has its own separate entry, its own kitchen and bathroom. I live upstairs while I rent out the downstairs.
My boyfriend 25m moved in with me about three months ago and we have been together for six months. I have not asked him for money, neither for utilities or to pay me any rent. The only thing he contributes to is groceries, that we split 50/50.
I have not brought up that I own the building as it is not something I tell many people, if people ask me I of course tell them that I own it, but if they just assume I am a renter then they can believe that. The topic of a landlord, the renter downstairs or the owner of the building has not been something we have talked about.
This last Tuesday the renter came up to tell me that her freezer has stopped working. I answered the door and my boyfriend heard us talking I suppose. I went downstairs to take a look and we came to the conclusion that she would buy a new one, send me the receipt and I would give her the money. She was very grateful for this solution.
When I went upstairs my boyfriend asked if it could be fixed, I told him no, but she was going to buy a new one and I would pay for it. He looked at me like I was crazy and asked me why I would pay for her freezer, I told him that because I am her landlord and the freezer was there when she started renting, I would stand for the cost.
He just asked me if I was serious, to which I said I was. He begun screaming at me, asking him why the hell I would hold this information from him and that I was an evil person.
I said I was sorry for not telling him but I did not think that it would matter. He said he could not believe he was together with someone who is a landlord, that all of us just use people for money and that the only thing “we people” care about is money and we would rather have people be homeless then offering affordable rent.
The downstairs is 1 kitchen, 1 bath and 4 other rooms. I charge 500 dollars in rent. I understand many people have had trouble with landlords, but I try my best to be a good one.
He demanded that I give him 50% of the money I make from rent or else I was just as bad as he thought. Was I really the ahole for not telling him? He has not talked to me since Tuesday and I have tried telling him that I am truly sorry but he doesn’t answer me at all.
Here were the top rated comments from readers:
LingJules
Let me get this straight. He must not have offered to pay half of the rent, because then it would have come up and you would have told him, right? He is living with you rent-free. Up to now, he thought you were paying the entire rent. On what planet does he deserve half of the tenant's rent money? Please reconsider this relationship. NTA.
The OP responded here:
CapableEmergency5154
No he did not offer to pay for any of the rent, if he offered I would have explained to him that I own the building. In hindsight, I should have told him that it was my building that he would be living in with me even if he did ask or not.
I think that his outburst really showed how he was, I thought about breaking up with him but also thought I was maybe overthinking it. If it comes to that, at least I learned something for future relationships.
TheZZ9
Yep, this is a huge red flag. He was more than happy to leech off you, not paying rent, not even offering, but the moment he found you own the place suddenly he demands half the money! And he has the cheek to criticize YOU?
And landlords living off other people paying rent is evil, but his solution is for HIM to get half that money? So it's evil unless he gets his cut? It's very clear what kind of person he is.
MichaSound
This is reason 5067 why you don’t move in with someone after three months of dating.
WhyCommentQueasy
NTA, dump him. I know that's a common response on this subreddit, but this dude was happy to exploit you for free lodging, and now that he finds out you've got income he wasn't aware of he wants half of it just cause or else you're a big meanie? You do not owe him an apology. You owe him a kick in the rear.
The OP again responded:
CapableEmergency5154
He sees it as both a way of me proving that I am not renting as a way to grab money from people, so that is money is not what I care about I should have no trouble giving him half, but also as a way to prove to him that I am sorry for not telling him earlier that I own to building.
sra19
NTA, but you will be to yourself if you give in to his manipulative demand to give him 50% of what you make from the rent. He clearly now sees you as a potential gravy train. "by not telling him I caused a big argument." You did NOT cause an argument, his greed caused an argument.
Later, the OP commented:
CapableEmergency5154
Edit: obligatory edit to add that I certainly did not expect this to blow up the way it did, I have tried to read as much as I can. Thank you all for your advice and support, I have talked with him and I will update later tonight when I had have time to process everything that went down and try to write it out as best as I can.
For the people who was worried about my safety, I called my dad who was sat outside in his car when I talked with my boyfriend and I am safe as of right now and hope it will continue that way. Thanks yet again to everyone.
The next day, the OP added:
CapableEmergency5154
I am currently at Work (I don’t live in the us so different time zones and I work weekends.) To those who have been supportive, thank you. After all your comments I think this relationship need to come to an end, but I will try and talk with him today or tomorrow and see what he says.
To those who think this is made up, trust me when I say I wish this was. I can’t speak for why he said things that contradict each other, that only he can have an answer to. Ending the relationship should not be that hard emotionally, even though I have grown to like him. Seeing and realizing what you helped me do, the emotions you can gather in six months are easy to overcome.
This is going to be extremely rushed, lack details and maybe not be so clear. I apologize for that and I tried my best writing out everything as clearly with as much detail as I could. Sorry if it feels a bit anticlimactic reading it due to the style of how I wrote it, I tried.
Before get on with the update, I just want to give some answers to frequently asked questions and some claims I have seen. Also would like to note that I am not in the US, neither do I live in a country where English is the first language.
Why on earth I would charge 500 dollars in rent for a place with 5 rooms?
I don’t live in the us, neither is this place in the city. It is a place about 1 hour drive from the nearest city, 15 minutes to the nearest store. We still are about 3000 people who live here, but what we have is a preschool, one playground and school for kids ages 6-9 and a church.
The cost for other places with the same amount of rooms in this place is about 600-700, it can be a bit more if the place is newly renovated, have a nice view, have a garage etc etc.
Many factors play in, the building I own doesn't have a garage, is not newly renovated except new floors and wallpapers in rooms that we changed. (Also other stuff that you NEED to change, like stoves, bathtub, toilet etc but I don’t see that as a full on renovation). So even though the rent is below market rate, I still make enough from it to cover outstanding expenses regarding the house.
That this story would be fake.
You can bet I would have loved it if this was something my mind just came up with, but it is not. I have seen some people claiming it is fake for different reasons, being that if it was real, rent would be higher, but as seen in 1 I already explained why.
Another reason is that my bf would not hate on landlords then want to participate in having money from the rent. Does everything everyone does always make sense? No. Did this make sense? Absolutely not. I can’t tell you all why he would say that, I am not him.
Why would you move in with someone after 3 months?
He had problems with his recent living situation, told me about it, I offered to let him stay with me for as long as he needed/wanted. I did this as a nice gesture as I did not want him to be homeless and he expressed that he would feel like a failure if he moved back in with his parents.
On to the update.
I read as much as I possibly could and after thinking about this, also about previous stuff I just brushed off, I decided I would break up with him. It may seem like an impulsive decision, but after everything I felt that the sooner, the better it would be.
I texted my dad and explained a bit off it all to him, I asked him if he would be willing driving to my place and sit in the driveway when I was going to talk with my boyfriend and he without hesitation said yes.
I thought about what I would tell him and how I would lay it out. I was extremely nervous about how it would go and not going to lie, I was scared after all the people telling me I should be careful and that he may try to hurt me.
When I got home he was already there, I just greeted him and he of course said nothing. I texted my dad, my dad got here and I sat down on the couch besides my boyfriend (he did not know my dad was here.) I can’t recall the exact details of the conversation, as my mind tends to blank out in stressful situations, but I will try my best to recite it.
Me - I think we need to have a talk with each other if this relationship is going to work.
Him- So you are ready to apologize?
Me- I will apologize for not telling you that you lived in my building, which I have apologized for many times already. I will not apologize for not giving you a part of my income.
Him - And why is that such a big deal to you? If you don’t rent out for the purpose of taking peoples money, you should have no problem giving any of that money away.
Me - I really try to understand how you think. You think I am in it for the money and think I am a bad person for renting out the downstairs complex, but yet you want money from it. Don’t you understand that it seems like you are just in it for the money?
I rent out the downstairs for 500$, if you really believe all landlords are money grabbers and not good people, would you like me to donate half off it to charities specifically for housing?
Around here is where the calm, collected and fine conversation ended. My memory from all of this is still all around the place, the gist of it is him telling me I was crazy for even thinking he wanted anything to do with the money for selfish reasons. That I should just trust what he says.
He said he regretted ever meeting me, that he would make sure all my friends knew how I really was. He said that we were through, he threw my keys at me, he tried punching a hole in the wall (unsuccessfully). By this time I had already texted my dad who came in to see what he was doing. My boyfriend just laughed and told us both he never wants to see us again and that he was out.
I know this is extremely extremely rushed, but it all just happened so fast and was incredibly stressful. It was much more said and much more done, but in all honesty, I don’t really have the best recollection of everything.
I tried to write out all the important stuff and if I in a few days have managed to take care of my emotions and calm myself down, I will try to at least comment and answer questions if any of you all have any for me. The conversation I tried to recite seems very cold and emotionless. In reality, it was more emotions and other words. I just tried writing it out as best as I could.
However, I am safe, he can’t come in here because he threw his key at me so he don’t have it anymore. He is now my ex-boyfriend and I will contact him in some time asking about when he would be able to pick up his stuff. I don’t know where he is staying, neither do I really care.
Here were the top rated comments from readers after what appears to be the OP's final update:
GNU_PTerry
That he never offered to pay rent or utilities when he thought she was paying them was already a red flag. Sounds like he was just one of those guys trying to weaponize buzzwords to get what he wanted.
valleyofsound
Yeah, I don’t know why people were surprised his argument didn’t make sense. He didn’t actually have an argument. He knew she had money. He knew he wanted the money. He knew he had to say words to get the money, but he just had no idea what those words were.
whoozywhatzitnow
I remember reading the first part and thinking the bf was off his rocker for demanding 50% of what she made from the renter. Just to prove she wasn’t as bad as the other landlords? He’s just a boyfriend of 6 months. He doesn’t have the right to demand anything from her.
Possibly if they were engaged and planning their financial future after marriage then he might possibly have the right to ask about it. I recommend OP makes sure she had a prenup signed before marriage that protects her premarital assets in the event of a divorce.
TheSilkyBat
What a fool! Living rent free and he still wants more. He is everything he accused OP of being and I guarantee, he will come crawling back when he realizes he threw away his meal ticket.
iChaseGaming
What the actual F was this??