Will we ever get our house back

I get the OP's discomfort, but this is so incredibly sad. I mean, that the ILs are never wanted, ever. Not a single post on here how they are thrilled that ILs moved in. We shall all become ILs one day and be never wanted by our children-in-law. Life is cruel and unattractive in this respect. The only time I was really jealous properly is when my friend's husband, on hearing that her mother became widowed in Greece and totally alone, told her 'bring her home'. The old woman was brought to the UK to live with them, not speaking a word of English, with her weird habits, etc. She never learnt English until she died, managed to have rows with her son-in-law in Greek, was interfering and also very ill in the last 6 years of her life. I heard from my friend (!) about all the problems and yet I was insanely jealous, to have seen such humanity in somebody else's family. To this day I am jealous, thinking that had either of my parents lived widowed, I doubt my dh would have done the same.

My god, I'd be concerned the longer she stays the furthur she gets her feet under the table. Then it becomes the norm and the convo about moving becomes harder and time goes on. "But it seems to work well with everyone, my son seems happy with the arrangement you are a troublemaker"
Worst case scenarion, next thing you know you are a carer for an aging person.
Nearly fell into that trap myself, finally got shot of exh and mil in one hit, I divorced him and pushed for sale of the house. He moved back with her and remained is still there 20 years later, is her carer and has no life of his own as she's so needy. That could have been me 😮
Take them in and they think you've adopted them.
Set a time limit and don't get swayed by tears, tantrums or sulking from mil or h for that matter. You and your kids need your home and space back yesterday.

She must be making a tidy bit of interest on the proceeds of her house sale, she can afford to rent somewhere.

Talk with your husband first though. If you really need her to go it might be better to push for her and her stuff to move into a rented flat. Once the stuff is gone this might be harder to achieve.

It sounds like she needs to keep some clothes and minimal personal effects with her, and put all the storage boxes and furniture into a rented storage unit.

What age/sex are the children? Are any of them studying for exams? If you have a girl, could MIL share her bedroom so that the room doesn’t become ‘grandma’s room’ by stealth?

How old are the DC? Is she doing many viewings? Where abouts are you? We all need to help find her a property 🤣

Time to have a chat, you only agreed to this as you thought it would be a short time but as it’s already been 6werks and she’s not offered on anywhere, realistically you are looking at August at the earliest (assuming she finds something perfect in the next week or so), most likely September or October. So can she find a short term rental property instead while she looks? Say a deadline of end of June for the dcs to have their bedrooms back?

OP, I think you are going to have to have an honest conversation with her about the fact that the house is just too small for her to live with you permanently. Unfortunately, the longer she stays, the more difficult it will be for you. I’d be doing some earnest house hunting to move things along a bit.

It might be easier/quicker if we build an annex
That is her real long term plan, she'll help out with childcare for a while & in return you'll be her servant & carer for the rest of her days.

What sort of property is she looking for? How old is she?

The one thing about moving her stuff into storage is it could have the opposite effect - out of sight, out of mind and the house then starts to seem plenty big.

How old is she? Is it a retirement type place she is looking at?

I’m glad you were joking as I was about to point out that moving her into an annexe is you signing yourself up to be her future unpaid carer. I’m a carer and one of my main clients moved her two (at the time completely well) parents into her annexe. Within 2 years it was found dad was a secret alcoholic, had 5 falls in 3 months , 1 resulting in a brain bleed causing dementia type symptoms, and another a broken hip. Mum got diagnosed with huntingtons and went down EXTREMELY quickly, in the time I’ve had her she can no longer wash/dress/make food or drinks, can barely speak and is becoming incontinent. They’ve been moved into the main house and she’s become their full time carer on the 4 days a week she cannot afford round the clock carers. Her career and relationship is on hold and at now 40 years old her and her partner have had to make the decision to not start a family. It’s nice you’re helping your mil op, but it sounds like she’s not even attempting to help herself

Sounds like she's too comfortable. At least make her pay for storing her stuff. Sounds claustrophobic with all those things, and the children may end up resenting her being there. That would be a shame.

You haven’t said how old she is, but I’m guess 70s if she is still helping with school runs. She’s got her feet under the table and is in no rush to leave.

Yes to storage which she pays for
Then drag her round every possible house within budget in your area, every single week until she she’s yes to one

tell her completion must be before Christmas with a chosen house by August, if not she needs to move into rented.

The property market is very slow, there is not much coming on the market. She's in a great position to proceed once she finds something suitable. But that could take months.

DD was looking to buy her first home. She had her deposit saved up and her mortgage agreed. She just needed the right property within her budget to come along. She checked online every day and she even widened her search radius but it was still well over a year before anything suitable came on the market. It didn't matter to us because she lived here anyway, in her family home, already had her own room etc.

Your MIL could see something she likes next week, or it could be months and months. I think you do need to have the conversation with your DH and put a time limit on how long she can live with you.

We satyed with family plan as had to decouple selling and buying - was supposed to be a week or two at most - it was 10 weeks in the end. Our stuff was in storage.

We were ringing everyone every day in end and had reached point we were about to pull out and look for rented.

We broke the chain and our sellers were going into rented - in end went through super fast so had to wait a week for our stuff to get here - then that was a farce.

So you need to talk about storage and plan for months not weeks.

It will realistically be up to a year even if she finds a house.

This is a permanent situation, and she's happy with that.

I wouldn't put up with it: either she would be finding somewhere to rent, or I would be.

Actively help her house hunt. Download details of every property in her price range and arrange viewings. Insist that she sees at least 3 properties a week. She can't stay with you long term, she must realise that. Also give her information about local storage facilities and arrange for her stuff to be removed from your house as soon as possible.

Since it sounds like you all get on with her and it's not a stressful experience except for the space, I think asking her to put things in storage now is a good start and if she hasn't even identified a house in 6 months, have a sit down with her to say you don't want the kids sharing for more than a year tops, so she'll need to find somewhere very soon or start looking for a rental while she searches. But have this conversation with DH now, so you know the timeline and can relax about it.

(I have said 6 then 12 months because I assume if you invited her to stay knowing she hadn't even found a house yet, you knew it would be unlikely to be less than 6 months, and doubling that seems reasonable to me. But if you have a different "that's too much" point in mind, use that.)

I think you need to have a tough talk to your DH about timelines for your kids behalf. If her house took a year to sell and she still hasn’t even found something- this could go on for years which isn’t fair on your kids right now( I know someone will say well when I was a kid but… these kids had their own room already)

With her stuff in storage I would give her 3 months to find a property and if she hasn’t found something she can rent till she finds her unicorn.

Is she being overly picky is she be realistic in her search?

if she had a large amount of equity in the house she sold, presumably she is earning a good amount of interest on that. Would it cover a rental?

She has no impetus to leave whilst living rent free with you.

So if you won't accept money, then I don't see her moving out any time soon. She will be a permanent feature which you will with continue to embrace and be pleased about her 'being family' and helping with school runs or you will get fed up of her being around. Also will she continue to be so helpful.
If she knows she can stay as long as she wants maybe that money saved for the house will start to be spent on things she enjoys so she suddenly isn't available to help out as she is doing a class, and then also doesn't have the funds to buy the house she wants when she finds it.

To me it sounds like she's moved in, you just don't realise it yet! If she's had a year of looking and selling her property that's a lot of opportunities she hasn't taken. I would ensure she is on all mailing lists for estate agents, if she hasn't got/doesn't use email then print them out for her, I'd do this regularly and prompt her to review. I'd also be making moves to get her to view properties too. She should also be speaking to estate agents so they know her requirements and if anything comes up they can let her know quickly. It needs to be an urgent thing, not something she does when she thinks of it - I am guessing she is far too comfortable!

I'd also talk to DH about her renting a place, if she doesn't like that because it'll be "wasting money" that will at least hurry her up. Also get her stuff into storage because your children shouldn't have to put up with that just because she can't make up her mind.

Sorry if that all sounds tough, but I'd hate having another family member and the mess of someone's stuff in my place. I'd want firm plans and dates.

That's awful of your husband to make everyone in the house's lives worse to pander to his mother.

He needs to set a timeline with her and your kids get their rooms back today. She can sleep on the sofa or wherever, and her stuff can go to storage where it should have gone to straight from her sold property.
She can rent or use long term AirB&Bs if it's not to her liking.