So, as the title says, this is a bit of a long one but I'll start from the beginning to give some background /context.
Just over two years ago, I left my abusive exdp, shortly after starting a new job in a hospital. Our son was 8. We have had 50/50 shared custody from day 1, as it was one of the few things we agreed on (and he and ds have a good relationship)
Exdp owns his house outright, we were never married so all I had were my belongings (clothes, a very few bits of furniture and approx 2k in savings). I was not entitled to anything regarding his house as we are in England so no common law.
I went to stay with my dm, who lives on the opposite side of the city to where I am now based. It was a pig of a commute as I can't drive (struggled to learn in the past with adhd and depth perception issues in my vision) and it's almost two hours each way on public transport from her house to my ds's primary school. It was exhausting for me doing 12 hour shifts, and exhausting for ds too obviously.
So while I was greatful to her for housing us, I really felt I couldn't stay. Luckily I found a house to rent that I could afford and is close to ds's school, and a reasonable distance to my work.
Unfortunately, my landlord put my rent up in January, only by £50 which was fine if a bit annoying. But £50 I could deal with. Now however, they have decided that actually, they want to put it up by £200, which I really can't afford, but would put it in line with going rent in my area. I told them I couldn't afford this and they have come back through the letting agent saying they will issue a form 6a (which is a section 21 no fault eviction) as they now want to sell. This was on the 15th of March but Ive had no letter as of yet.
I spoke to my mum about this, not looking for help, but just letting her know the situation. She then offered to help me buy somewhere, initially by taking out a sec mortgage (which I would pay her the repayments). But after talking to my aunt who is fairly savvy property wise, she is now going to try and raise a deposit for me from her house and I have an agreement in principle. We are in the north West so prices are quite modest compared to most of the country. My budget is only around 120k though, which is very tight even for the area I am looking in.
I saw a property a couple of weeks ago that would have been really lovely but I was outbid after putting an offer on so was clearly not meant to be. It was a stones throw away from where I am now.
I was initially looking at property near ds's school, but he is in year 6 in September, and is pretty much guaranteed a place in the senior school he has his heart set on, so I started looking for places in that area instead (about a mile away from where I currently live)
I viewed one today that is listed as between 120k and 140k. It's a beautiful house, in a quiet neighbourhood. It's walking distance to where I work and around a 35 minute walk to the senior school, though getting to primary school for the last year from there will be more challenging but not impossible. I currently get a taxi to work as the bus is not reliable enough to get me there on time. If I got this house, I would be swapping taxis to work 3/4 times a week for a taxi to the school roughly the same amount (and same distance) so I wouldn't be spending any more money on travel than I do now.
The thing is, my mum is being really difficult about this house (that I have kind of fallen in love with a bit tbh, I wouldn't even want to redecorate it they have great taste).
She thinks the travel would be too much for ds, I shouldn't be spending money on taxis to the school when buying a new house, she thinks it's too far from the secondary school (it's about 600 yards further than I had to go for secondary). There is a train station that is visible from the front door of this house, with the school being one stop and a ten minute walk at the other end.
She just seems to be very negative about this house and thinks I should hang tight for another year (I don't think I have that long, I'm very up in the air regarding this eviction and I don't really want to poke the bear by calling the letting agent to find out what the score is, they don't need reminding if they have forgotten to send the letter).
I think part of it is that this house I'm looking at is quite a long drive from her house (she hates driving) and she seems to be having second thoughts on helping me raise a deposit now. She is adamant it is too far from the schools and that I should wait.
Tia if you got this far. I'm not sure what I want out of this thread, but I needed to get it down