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I think it's better to have one that says you get back in proportion to what you put in.
This is what I was getting at before. It would have been better for you sister, but worse for the BF. That doesn't necessarily make it more fair.
(although all other contributions being equal I'm more drawn to this option).
hugo7-
It would have been better for you sister, but worse for the BF. That doesn't necessarily make it more fair.
In this case it would definitely have been more fair.
Between them they put in £60K and made £60K profit, so they made £1 for every £1 put in. But they way they split it, he got £3 for every £1 he put in, while she got 60p. All else being equal (and they were splitting bills, housework, DIY etc equally), he got a massively better deal than she did.
Just because £1 per £1 would have made the BF worse off than £3 per £1 doesn't make it unfair.
Now, I'm not saying everyone has to go this way. There's plenty of reasons for a different split. However I do think it's important people agreeing a split understand "equal return on £1" is the neutral, all-things-being-equal starting point, and not "I get my deposit back then we split the rest".
The latter may seem fair, but if you expect a rising market it disadvantages the person with the deposit, and if you expect a falling market it disadvantages the person without the deposit.
brokenbetty
I think it's better to have one that says you get back in proportion to what you put in.
This one caught my sis out. She and her ex split the mortgage but she put down all the deposit, about 40K.
They split up after 2 years during which the house had gone up by 60K. She took back her 40K and they split the profit in half.
Guessing about 10K each in mortgage payments, she made 30K on a 50K investment (still not bad) while he made 30K on a 10K investment.
If the market falls, the deposit - putter would be worse off with this arrangement, but it's still fairer than the other way which would have the person without the deposit taking a bigger loss to protect the other's deposit.
TL;dr the person with the bigger stake should get a bigger share of any profit or loss.