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The original was posted on /r/AmItheAsshole by /u/RanchhandLuke on 2023-09-19 20:15:16.

She’s my fiancée right now but the argument we’re having is that once we’re married, she wants her name on the house deed.

Years ago, I bought several acres as soon as I could afford it. Back then it was part of a ranch surrounded by other ranches. The owner needed money so he parceled out this section and sold it to me. I built a small house on it and have lived in it ever since. Since it was originally part of a ranch, I did enough to legally keep it classified as a ranch so the property tax is extremely low.

Over the years, companies started to move to the neighboring big city and land prices started to go up. Almost all of the ranchers sold their lands to developers so now there are huge houses surrounding mine. They start from $500,000 and go to several million. None of them sit on even an acre of land. My house is clearly the worst house around and I have no doubt it’s bringing the value of nearby houses down.

That’s all happened before I met and dated my fiancée. Now that we’re engaged, we’re talking seriously about our finances and the only sticking point is the house. She wants her name on the deed once we’re married because we’ll be sharing our lives. Alternatively, she wants me to sell the house and we purchase a house together. I don’t find either options attractive.

In our state, whatever we bring to the marriage we take out. Since I will be bringing the house into the marriage, I can leave with it should things not work out. If I put her name on it, then she’ll get half. If I sell the house, there’s no way I’ll be able to afford anything that’s even close to what I have now. Not to mention our property tax will be several times higher. Then there’s the drive time. My house is 30 minutes away from my work and 40 from hers. House prices has gone up so much that we’ll have to move at least an hour away from our jobs.

Like I said, we agreed with or compromised on everything else. This one issue is the only sticking point and it’s becoming a big one. So much so that she brought her family into it. This weekend her father took me out to dinner to have a man to man talk. He told me that if we’re going to join our lives, we have to join everything. He expects me to do the right thing if I want to join their family. So now it’s her entire family on one side and me by myself on the other. Am I wrong to want to keep the house I built by myself to myself?

Edit 1 to answer a good question:

Neither of us are rich. I bought the land at a very low price but now it’s worth 10 times as much. Even if I offer to sell half of it to her at its current value, there’s no way she can afford it. That’s why if we buy a house together, we’ll have to move far from here and our jobs in order to get one we can both afford.

Edit 2 to answer some common questions:

In all, I spent about $200,000 to buy the land and build the house. Everything is paid off and I pay the extremely low taxes every year. The tax assessment on my property is about $2 million. I don’t know anything about refinancing but at our salary level, I highly doubt we would qualify. In fact, we’ve spoken to a real estate agent and with a 20% down, our salary qualifies us for a $300,000 house. The property tax on a $300,000 house is many times the currently tax I pay now. I’m comfortable with us living in my house and paying all the taxes and maintenance by myself.