Buying a house together when you’re not married: how a joint bond really works

The short answer

Yes, you can buy a house together without being married, and plenty of couples should. Two incomes lift the amount the bank will lend and improve your odds of approval. The thing to understand is that South Africa has no common-law marriage, so living together gives you no automatic rights over each other’s share. For an unmarried couple, the title deed, a written agreement, a will each, and life cover are the safety net. Skip them and a joint bond can turn a breakup or a death into a financial mess.

How a joint bond actually works

A joint bond (or joint home loan) is a single loan in two names. The bank looks at both of your incomes, both credit records and the combined affordability, then registers one bond over the property. Once it is registered, you are both owners and you are both on the hook for the repayments. Simple enough on the surface. The detail is where couples get caught.

Your shares on the title deed

When you buy together, the title deed records what percentage each of you owns. Those shares can be equal or unequal. If one of you puts down a R300,000 deposit and the other puts down R100,000, you might register the place 60/40 to match. The important bit: if you do not record a split, the law presumes you own it in equal shares, whatever each of you actually paid in. So decide the split deliberately and get it on the deed, rather than letting the default decide for you.

Joint and several liability

This is the part the bank’s brochure tends to skip. On a joint bond you are jointly and severally liable. In plain terms, the bank can come after either one of you for the entire outstanding debt, not just “your half.” If your partner stops paying, the bank does not shrug and write off their share. It turns to you for the full instalment. And a missed payment lands on both of your credit records, even the one who paid on time.

Why your agreement won’t bind the bank

You absolutely should sign a cohabitation or co-ownership agreement covering who pays what, how you split costs, and what happens if you part ways. Just know what it does and does not do. It governs the relationship between the two of you. It does not rewrite your deal with the bank. So the agreement is what you use to sort things out with each other and, if needed, to hold your ex to their promises. It is not a shield against the lender.

If you break up

A joint bond does not dissolve because the relationship did. The debt stays until you deal with it, and there are really three ways out:

If one of you dies

A lot of older articles get this wrong, because the law changed. The blunt old advice was: not married, partner dies without a will, you inherit nothing. That is no longer the whole story.

After the Constitutional Court’s 2021 ruling in Bwanya v Master, and the Judicial Matters Amendment Act that gave it effect, a surviving permanent life partner can now inherit intestate(when there is no will) and can claim maintenance from the estate. So a long-term partner is no longer automatically locked out.

Do not relax too much, though. To inherit this way you have to proveyou were in a permanent life partnership with a mutual duty of support, and that can be argued over by the deceased’s family at the worst possible time. A will removes all of that doubt. With one, your partner inherits your share because you said so in writing, no proving required. On a bonded home, that matters even more, because the bond debt does not die with your partner. Which is exactly why life cover belongs in the plan.

The protection stack

None of this is complicated or expensive next to the cost of getting it wrong. Four moves cover you:

Questions people ask us

Can we get a joint bond if we are not married?

Yes. Banks lend to unmarried couples (and even to friends or family buying together). Approval looks at both incomes and both credit records.

Do we have to own it 50/50?

No. You can register unequal shares on the deed to match what each of you put in. If you record nothing, the law treats it as equal.

My partner stopped paying. Am I really liable for all of it?

Yes. Joint and several liability means the bank can hold you responsible for the full bond, and the missed payments hit your credit record too. This is why the agreement and clear shares matter.

If my partner dies without a will, do I keep the house?

You may now inherit their share as a surviving life partner since the 2024 law change, but you would have to prove the partnership. A will makes it certain. And remember the bond still has to be paid, which is what life cover is for.