Dads partner leaving him homeless after her death.

He should propose!

Say he’s 70, and lives till he’s 95.
Then her kids, (who will most likely be retiring age themselves by the time he dies) will have had 25years of being “landlords” responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of the house, along with all the legal obligations that involves, but receiving no rent! I wouldn’t want to be saddling my kids with a burden - an asset thats tied up for potentially decades, and potentially costing them a fortune, what if it needs a new roof, or heating system? That’d all be the kids responsibility.

Another option is that he moves out now and lets her children care for her. I would if my partner of 20 years didnt give a toss what happened to me after they passed away.

Ps maybe the kids would consider renting the house to your dad

Quote of the day!

No one falls in love as quickly as a homeless man

Presumably when they got together your dad was a man in middle age with assets and a full time income. He’s gone into a relationship with his eyes wide open with an explicit arrangement to keep separate finances and has not made any contribution towards his DPs mortgage or household maintenance. They’ve had a mutually beneficial romantic relationship and she has provided 100% of the housing costs during 20 years of it. You can’t go into a relationship in middle age or later life with someone who has children and expect to inherit the home they have bought with their own money, in large part before the relationship started. Your dad has been extremely short sighted and naive and it’s not up to you, or his wife’s dc, to rectify that. People leave their assets to their kids - she could allow a lifetime interest but she doesn’t want to. Not everyone does. My mums friend has one and one of her late DHs kids has died and the other is almost 80 (mums friend is 94). Your dad’s Dp is being contradictory (he could live 20 yrs vs he won’t be far behind me) but she has considered allowing him to stay and decided against it. It sounds like the sort of house that needs maintenance and she doesn’t want it to deteriorate while an aging man with no money tinkers around it. When it comes down to brass tacks she wants her kids to have her money - I don’t think she has been sneaky about it - he has always known. He’s not going to have to wild camp along the salt path - he will be able to make a claim for housing benefit in over 55s social housing (unless he’s spent the last 20 years rent free making provision for himself).

Not sure what has been said already on this thread, but i think realistically she doesnt want a situation where you end up inheriting the house from your dad, which is kind of fair enough really, as she would want her house to end up with her kids.

Surely once she has passed away her kids could just allow him to carry on living there.

But that "apart from on a practical level where he's done things himself" could have saved her many £ depending on what they were and could have precluded him from doing overtime. Doing a DIY kitchen renovation, for example, could save a huge amount of money and take a lot of time.
I've seen just how much care someone in a wheelchair can need and how much it takes out of someone to be the sole provider of that care so I don't think it's black and white either way without knowing a lot more than even the OP does about the details. And care certainly doesn't come cheap so again, he could have saved her more than he could save from a low paid job.
It could be the OPs dad has been a bit of a freeloader with his head in the sound or it could be the DP has taken advantage of a good nature and financially abused him. I suspect the OP will never know the truth either way, given the relationship, and we certainly don't.
Best thing would probably be to point him towards Shelter for some knowledgeable advice.

So if your dad wasn't paying any rent, presumably he'd have been saving up a lot over 20 years to get himself somewhere?
If not, that's very foolish of him.

If he has been paying into her mortgage and paying for and doing home improvements he should collect eveidence of this and see a lawyer as soon as she dies, register himself as an occupier of the house etc.

If she lives, he will have to go back to work full time and explain to her that he cannot afford to be an unpaid carer as he will be homeless at some point if he doesn't work and save up.

If he closer to his partner’s kids then they can take him in.

Your post is all about how mean she’s being, but your dad sounds like pretty much a waste of space as far as his own child and grandchildren are concerned. So, really, why do you care? Of course it’s because he’s still your dad but I think you need to put some distance here yourself. You’ll have to talk to your dad at some point and make it clear you’re not stepping in.

He is free to find somewhere else to live. She has the choice of moving in to a nursing home , paying for carers to come in or being looked after by her own children.

He has always been free to make provision for his latter years. You know, during those 20 years that he was living rent free.

I'm in a similar situation. My Dad and his partner have been together almost 40 years. Her late husband's life insurance paid off the mortgage, so they both presumably take care of the other expenses for the home. I don't know the details, as I'm less close with my dad than you are.

He is older than his partner and in rapidly declining health with memory problems too, but I don't believe he is diagnosed with dementia yet.

I'm expecting he will pass first, hopefully not for a long time of course. But should she pass first, I expect that we'll take him in so that her children can have their inheritance. While it seems callous, I can understand how difficult it is when the partner might otherwise remain in the house for a long time. I would hope that they allowed a grace period to remain in the property of at least 6 months to a year.

We can fortunately make space for an aged parent to join us, but with mine being divorced for so long, it would be difficult to take in both! They are in their early 80s, but my mum is in better health than my dad, so hopefully I wouldn't have to choose. (I have siblings too, but am in the better position to take at least one in.)

She told you she told him OP, doesn’t mean she did. You do not owe her silence, I would tell your Dad and do not tell her you have.

well talk to him about it if you’re concerned but frankly I don’t think you should see him as your problem, as you say he’s not been there for you. I think there arrangement is strange, I’d expect a surviving partner to be given life interest but she’s not led him on he’s had ample time to discuss and agree things between them.

She has always funded everything they've had done on the house and never let my dad contribute a penny as she always knew the house would be left for her kids. Now I see it as her been very clever if not a bit sneaky!

It's a shame for your dad, but I wouldn't call this sneaky considering he's lived rent free all these years; it's exactly what we'd urge a woman with an unmarried, live in partner to do and he could quite easily have asked her plans about the house or saved up for himself

He didn't have to give up his job and pension to care for her either, but unfortunately he's done a lot of assuming and it's come unstuck

You've still not said how old he is, but if as you suggest it's unlikely to be long maybe the "decent" children will allow him to stay for the rest of his life - otherwise it's probably going to involve a visit to the council's housing department

This is awful of her, but you don't know what their relationship is really like. She already thinks he's fragile and won't carry on for much longer if she dies, yet she's kicking him in the teeth by not giving him the right to live in the house or a share of the proceeds if it's sold. Other people marry their partners when they become aware they need surgery of this nature and may not survive. She can make a will to ensure her children get their inheritance and it isn't expensive. I don't think it says much about her at all, but we don't know what happened in her past relationships, etc.

I wonder if her illness has affected her personality (it happens) or her children have said things to her and she doesn't think there are alternatives?

One thing to be very clear of though OP, it is not your responsibility to house your father and I wouldn't given your living arrangements. This will be the part you'll find difficult I think.

Guess you're not good at reading complete paragraphs.

How's his relationship with his partner? Not good I suspect after learning after her total disregard for him. Good luck finding a paid carer if you survive your op. Might have to dip into some of that inheritance with any hope.

Have I missed a post from the op where she said her dad was a great father figure to his partner’s kids? I think she said he spent time with them which isn’t the same thing.

My mum has been with her partner for over 20 years, since I was 14. In no way whatsoever has he ever been a father figure to me and we are not close. Time alone doesn’t mean a good relationship.

Working and living rent free.
He had 25 years to prepare. The DM's boyfriend cannot take the family home.

We have done the same. Pre retirement DP will move out and sort himself out. Post retirement he can stay in the house until he remarries or cohabits and then the house passes to my children. They’ll get savings etc when I pass but they’ll have to wait for the house. I think that’s fair

If i was you, i would of told her there & then you have no room and no desire for him to live with you and they both need to sort out their mess.

I can't really get past the bit where he hasn't bothered with you and you kept going round with gifts. Walk away, he doesn't care about you so stop caring about him. He's made his bed, now let him sleep in it.

Now that he’s been given a heads up I think he needs to find his own place to live.

A similar thing happened with my grandad (dad's dad). We were very close, my dad's mum died when my big sister was just a few weeks old. My parents lived a few doors away and for months my grandad was barely coping with the loss of his wife so my mum cooked tea every night/housework etc.

He always came on holiday with us and we saw him a few times a week.

When I was about 6 we suddenly saw him less and my parents found out he'd met someone.

My mum was really happy for him, didn't want him to be lonely but really my dad wasn't great. He felt like his dad was being unfaithful to his mum in some way, even though she'd died 10 plus years ago.

For years and years we hardly saw my grandad, he completely absorbed himself in his partners family, she had a big family and grandkids etc.

We felt quite bitter at the time but in hindsight I can see that yes he did leave us, but also my dad wasn't exactly welcoming to his partner so didn't make it easy to do things (he wasn't mean, just standoffish - quite ridiculous either way).

Anyway roll on 30 years and they were still together, he lived in her house, really happy together. She went in for a routine op which unfortunately went wrong and she went to ICU and died 2 weeks later. Again my grandad just shut down, he was devastated and almost silent.

Her family seemed to take this that he didn't care, and asked him to leave her house as they were selling. This was within a couple of days of her dying.

He went to live with my parents and about 10 days after she died he became very ill, massive PR bleed and was taken into hospital. He went on to have a cardiac arrest and died 2 weeks to the day after she did.

The cause of death was officially DVT but unofficially we know he died of a broken heart. He couldn't cope with losing another love.

Her family still weren't great. They asked if they could have his car, they'd bought it 50/50 I think but they wanted it for one of her grandsons. The alternative would have been to sell it and split the money but it wasn't a particularly fancy car and my parents were to full of grief to bother with messing around with it so just let it go.

They were allowed to the house once, for 1 hour to take some of his things, but it was very much my grandad's things only. They came away with a few of his tools from the shed and a lovely rose bush (thankfully in a pot). We put his ashes in the pot and the rose thrives every year which is lovely to see.

So, if you've kept up with all of that!, it was shocking to see, like you're seeing, that after 30 years of togetherness he would have been left with nothing and the family that we feel he left us for, actually just kicked him out. He'd been at all their family events, Christmas days, birthdays, christenings, holidays, he saw them almost weekly. It meant nothing to them in the end.

I'm sorry for what your dad (and you) are going through.