Cohousing-L Mailing List: Unrelated People Buying a House

[Becky Schaller (bschaller]

This listserve has been so helpful in helping me to learn from the 
experiences of others as we build our cohousing community.  This 
evening I have yet another question.

I've been thinking about buying a house with another person or a family 
who is not related to me.  If I were to do this, I would want to make 
sure that we entered into this arrangement with a sound business 
agreement.  I'm writing to find out if others have done this and what 
kind of business arrangement you had.  

If one party wanted to sell, what were the arrangements?  If one party 
became unable to pay their part of the mortgage, was there any 
protection for the other party?  Do banks give out two separate and 
independent mortgages for such arrangements or do you need to get one 
mortage together?  

If anyone who knows about this or has had experiences with this could 
let me know what you think would be helpful for me to know, I would 
appreciate hearing from you.


Becky Schaller
Sonora Cohousing (formerly TNDC)
Tucson, AZ
We're building 36 private units on 4.7 acres of land in central Tucson.  
We'll be near bike routes, bus routes, car routes, parks, shopping, the 
University of Arizona, and a beautiful new library.  In the last ten 
months, we've had 20 households become invested members. If you think 
you might want to join, now's the time.   Our website is 
http://www.igc.apc.org/tndc/