What happens to adults who live with their parents when those parents die

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What does happen to adult children who never leave home and then the parents inevitably die. Particularly those lacking social skills and who have not lived independently, but still function with a level of independence and work.

We have this in our family. It wasn’t a big deal in the 20s (many others in that situation), became an issue in the 30s as relationships with siblings and parents were disrupted, more so in the 40s and now in the 50s the inevitable next step needs to be considered and fast.

I thought parents were being compassionate, but now it is clear that the adult child would have benefitted hugely from support to live independently while they had a chance to forge an independent life alongside their peers. Not saying this can’t be done at 50+, but will obviously be harder.

What responsibilities do siblings have and what is the right thing to do. It is complicated as we all need to protect our DC from someone who is in all honesty very difficult, can be dishonest and obsessive, and has sometimes used this to made things awful for others in the family.

Sorry, English not first language. Please don’t think this is taking a grudge at people who live at home. It isn’t, and we know many situations where it worked for the benefit of all, but this situation is not so good and very difficult. It is also not so bad the sidbling would need or get official help.

You have no obligation to help and support them at all. If it's going to cause a problem with your children then you need to protect your children from that and go non-contact.

It's up to the person themselves to manage when the parents have gone. They don't have disabilities and have full capacity you say, so they'll have to get on with it.

However, I wouldn't worry about it too much, we had two similar cases in our wider family and both (men) magically found wives within a year of their mothers dying... I also have a friend who is mid 50s. He's suddenly got a girlfriend after being a merry bachelor all his life and living next door to his mother. His mother is now 90 and frail. Could be coincidence of course.
People like that who've hung around their parents for years being lifted and laid are good at manipulating people into doing what they want (Obviously I'm not talking about people who have disabilities/neurodiversity etc).

You need to have this conversation with your husband and his family (when the time is right).
A sibling has no legal responsibility, what they think is their moral responsibility is up to them.
I am beginning to worry about something along these lines in my own life. My older sister doesn't live with my parents but is financially dependent on them. She is in private rented accommodation but her tenancy is very precarious and if she has to leave there, she definitely won't be able to afford the rent on somewhere else. If that happened now, my dm would take her in but I don't know what's going to happen or how she is going to manage when dps are not around anymore. I always say I'm not going to take over from them and she'll have to sort things out herself but if it came to it, would I really be able to refuse to help her if she had nowhere else to go? Probably not.

My Dad may find that he's simply not able to be making 500mile trips on a regular basis. It's just not feasible. The way it stands, I doubt my uncle will be willing to move north either thankfully. He knows no one here at all. My Dad is at least reasonably well informed on what rights and obligations his brother has. I think protecting me and my family is going to be a fairly significant driver of what happens tbh in turns of a decent counterweight to emotional blackmail (Due to his age, in theory this could ultimately end up being DS's problem when he's starting his own family!). My Dad is reasonably well used to dealing with services due to some of the work he's done in the past and I'd be surprised if he cracks. (Long story but he's seen a fair bit of this before so knows pitfalls).

We think there will be some inheritance but we have no idea how much. Or how long it will last - my Dad thinks his brother isn't capable of managing his own finances. He occasionally gambles so my Dad is wary of that too. ATM he doesn't think there's a known gambling problem as such as my uncle doesn't have enough money to put more than small bets as his mother manages all their finances. The concern is what happens if he does have a reasonable inheritance.

He's still only in his 40s though and that's the other concern. He is in poor health for his age but who knows. His mum is well into her 80s and his father lived til his 95th birthday!

The frustration is really my dad's step mother who says her very elderly friends will look out for him as the solution, and both their unwillingness to talk about autism. (My uncle has enough capacity to understand what it is).

I feel massively for parents of disabled kids for this reason. But this is now something hanging over my dad, me, my son and potentially any children my son may have. That's four generations after parents.

He's my uncle but he's also pretty much a stranger. Its really not a feasible thing to do.

I have a very loose acquaintance who sounds very similar.
Now early 40s, still living at home, in her childhood bedroom, with increasingly elderly and frail parents.

She graduated university top of the class, showed all the signs of being a real highflyer in her rather-nerdy computer field (we suspect there's at least some element of neurodiversity there, but can't be certain, she's never disclosed anything, other than a very general sense of "Oh I can't possibly work!"), worked in her field for about 2 years. Then quit.
She hasn't had any sort of job in approaching 20 years now. And of course, the subject knowledge she accumulated during her degree and couple of years of work will be long since out of date and obsolete - so she'll have to start any other career from the very bottom.

She now spends all her time indulging herself in a couple of niche hobbies, which include a fading pop band whose 90s heyday is long since passed, and researching children's tv shows from her childhood.

There's no physical reason why she couldn't work - she springs about everywhere, no problem. I can only put it down to idleness and very strange parenting. There's no way on earth my parents would have allowed me to do the same! They were starting to twitch when my older sister was still at home at 26!

I can't begin to imagine what'll happen when the parents die/become too frail to live at home. There's an older half-brother, so I imagine he (not unreasonably) will want his share of the house. Glad it's not my problem!

"She went tough love and bought him a terraced cottage in the village" is the best quote ever!😂

He is on full PIP both elements and the psychiatrist has assessed him as being unable to live independently.

@Anisty when the time comes, use this to challenge the placement in a flat as unsuitable. He has to accept the flat and move in, then challenge it straight away. So he'd be given homeless status even though housed, because it's unsuitable.

SS are lying to you, they can do more they just don't want to. If there's no availability locally they'd have to house out of area where there was availability. "No budget" isn't a legally acceptable defence for not fulfilling their legal responsibilities towards a client. It is specifically stated in the legislation that they're not allowed to consider their budget when making decisions, beyond meeting the person's needs in the cheapest way possible. The decision of their care is supposed to be purely needs-led, not budget-led or services-led (availability). The criteria for whether someone qualifies for a particular sort of help with a particular thing is set in law, it's not something councils are allowed to make up for themselves like they do.

You'd need to step back and let him suffer a bit unfortunately, otherwise the cheapest way of getting his needs met is to let you continue to meet them. If undesirables got into the flat report to police and housing association, every time. It helps show need to live elsewhere.

TBH I'd push for it hard, when you get round to sorting out housing, if he's that vulnerable - because he doesn't sound suited to home ownership, how is he going to manage home repairs for example? In any form of social housing there is at least a housing officer nominally in charge of their tenancy even if they've never met and social LL offers far more in the way of support than private LL does. Like the way repairs are reported, the way antisocial behaviour is dealt with etc. Even just someone to flag up to SS that the tenancy is failing and the person needs assistance. As a home owner he'll be far easier for SS to ignore, he won't necessarily be on anyone's radar.

If over 50 far more chance of a sheltered housing or age restriction housing flat which can come with an additional level of support (depends on which circumstances/estate). Again, if there's a warden, it's another person keeping an eye out who can flag up a tenancy failing or person struggling. The housing associations can and do sometimes make allowances for disabled people who are younger than 50 but who are best suited to that accomodation and let them live there.

The same thing that happens to adults who move out for the first time I'd imagine. You learn how to live by yourself. It's not difficult

On the contrary @Beezknees , it is often completely impossible for anyone with long term mental issues.

I agree, but then who steps in to help? If they are fully functioning etc and just mollycoddled /enabled, they might never get the chance to be fully independent.

Who do they turn to for help once their parents are passed away? Will there suddenly be a whole hoarde of people who are left in dire straits/homeless etc?

Thank you so much for the reply @RedToothBrush and best wishes for the future.

This is really the crux of our issue, the potential for it to impact future generations. It is going to fall on DH and his siblings to some extent. But the nieces and nephews should really not have obligations and difficulties.

I also feel frustrated with PIL who have just sat back and done nothing as stranger (some of it paranoia, so they need sympathetic treatment but also help) and more difficult/manipulative behavior has unfolded, so there are not really any close bonds.

If they were pleasant I would suggest an annex or us supporting them if they chose to move closer. But there is no way this will happen because of their appalling behavior to DC (I would not say this to relatives as I would not want DC to feel any way responsible for future outcomes). It is so difficult though as I don’t want to just encourage or support DH to essentially abandon them. He also seems to have his head in the sand about how bad things are.

We have this with DP’s sister. No diagnoses, always worked but 45 and just never left home.

I’m also 45 and I can’t imagine never having had to remember to put the dustbins out or choose a paint colour for the living room or check out a scary noise in the middle of the night. A million tiny experiences of adulthood.

I’m autistic and like knowing what’s going to happen, so I sat down with my parents bluntly one evening and discussed it. It was emotional because nobody wants
to talk about their parents dying. But it gave me peace of mind. Maybe that’s something you could do?

If its anything like my family, then I think there's often a certain amount of co-dependency going on. Plus autism often runs in families so the ability to know how to fix the problem isn't necessarily there. And the denial...

My grandfather was almost certainly autistic too. My step-grandmother took on looking after him. I don't think she can bare the thought of her son being independent in case he moves out. And I don't know that after years of dealing with her husband that she sees the actual need to do anything else. Because she doesn't want to. My grandfather was not willing to ever admit his son was autistic - he always blamed him being strange on his wife (despite all the evidence about older fathers). Going for a diagnosis carries that really old fashioned stigma and sense of failure to both of them who were born in the 1920s and 1930s.

Getting my uncle a diagnosis might have also meant my grandfather might have to confront something in himself.

Strangely, despite all this my parents never once have considered autism in my brother...

The frustration is really my dad's step mother who says her very elderly friends will look out for him as the solution, and both their unwillingness to talk about autism. (My uncle has enough capacity to understand what it is).

My aunt spent my cousin's entire life pretending he was no different to anyone else. Capacity is such a complex issue. My cousin was deemed to have full capacity, even though everyone who ever met knew that he was incapable of looking after himself or making good decisions for himself. I had an extraordinary conversation with one social worker who said 'He's his own person, it's up to him if he ends up living on the streets as a result of making poor decisions and being exploited and you and the cousins shouldn't be trying to influence him' one minute and then said 'The best thing for him is for the family to pull together and make arrangements to care for him, because we can all see that if you don't he'll end up on the streets and being exploited.' It's a bizarre situation to be in. Good luck with it.

I think its really important to stress that you are going to be making decisions that might have a massive impact on your children not just you.

There's a lot out there about the pressures of the 'sandwich generation' and women finding themselves looking after their parents, parents in law and children. (I would be mindful of who would actually end up doing the caring if your husband took on a relative out of his guilt. His guilt does not necessarily mean his workload...)

These situations add another layer to that - a Sandwich+1 if you will. That can be passed down to your children.

In the past extended families looking after their own was much more doable and I don't think families today should be shamed for saying they can't do it.

I do family history and its very clear that families had much bigger and stronger family support networks living nearby. And there was also a sense of community to help too. A family would have more children to 'spread the load' to a degree too - whether that be financial or in a caring roll. And generations were shorter so children weren't in the sandwich in quite the same way. A fairly typical elderly great grandmother in her 80s could well over 30 adult grandchildren and this would be normal rather than an outlier.

This is a massive social difference to today. There's less kids and grandchildren and you often don't live near family. Plus women are juggling work as well as caring roles.

Talk about 'blood responsibilities' neglect the reality of the situation for many.

Isn't the real issue here that housing is far too expensive now, because for decades, the wealthy have insisted on treating property as an inflating asset rather than a functional possession? The average house price is actually only supposed to be about £70,000; the rest of the value is the result of inflation and an artificially constrained supply.

You will see threads on mumsnet from people complaining that they can't balance their finances on whopping £100k salaries. Then those same people pretend to be confused that their 20-somethings aren't moving out on salaries below £25k.

Absolutely this. People idealise past times we don't live in any more. The complexities of looking after an adult with additional needs are also different in the times we live in.

My half siblings and I are all autistic. Two of us working and living independently. However, my brother has had addiction issues, mental health issues and now has physical health issues from all the drugs. He flits between living with parents and living elsewhere, usually until he gets kicked out and has to come back. He is not welcome in my home because he stole from us, and never admitted it, apologised or tried to make amends. His parents constantly rescue and enable his crap because autism, but their daughters have never had any consideration and very little support.

There is absolutely no way I will take any responsibility for him after my dad and stepmother are gone. Hell would freeze over first.

The one thing I am thankful for is that he is not being left the house, because it would get trashed if he was given free rein to live in it. It will be sold and the money put in trust for his care. My sister and I won't get a penny, but I don't care. If that's the trade off for not having to have this man in my life, or my kids' lives, then so be it. We both have good jobs and can fend for ourselves and don't need the inheritance.

If they were pleasant I would suggest an annex or us supporting them if they chose to move closer. But there is no way this will happen because of their appalling behavior to DC (I would not say this to relatives as I would not want DC to feel any way responsible for future outcomes). It is so difficult though as I don’t want to just encourage or support DH to essentially abandon them. He also seems to have his head in the sand about how bad things are.

Your first post was about your BIL who lives with them and how he'd cope when they die.

But now you're focusing on how your DH might look after his parents were it not for their awkward behaviour.

Which is it?

@shuggles Definitely for the UK. It would be daunting to leave home at 40 or 50 and then be renting a room in a flat share.

We are south so the amount you gave is reflective for our area. Also for our relative there is clearly many more personal and family issues making a barrier to independence

The OP is not in the UK.

She's said she's in southern Europe where the price of houses is far lower.

My Dad certainly will definitely see through the double speak. I'm sure it will happen because its the way all our systems are set up promoted as stopping grifting but in practice totally failing the most vulnerable and anyone who falls through the cracks unfortunately.

He'll take it personally and see it as they treating him as if he's stupid. He'll properly throw the book back at them if they make daft admissions like that.

(There is a huge amount of irony in this.)

My parents both have form for dealing with this type of nonsense.

I am genuinely puzzled by your thread.

You don't like your BIL and every post criticises his behaviour.
You portray him as an awkward so and so, with poor social skills. Or who at the very least you don't get on with.

But he's not your blood relative.
He's your BIL.

Can you explain why you're so worried about what may happen in 10, 15 or 20 years ahead of now?

It seems very odd.

Good luck to you if you end up paralysed or have early dementia. That attitude works both ways.

Do you really expect that falls to siblings if someone is in need of a great deal of medical care? When siblings may by that age be dead or have their own health problems?

We are in this situation. Three hardworking, independent siblings and one who does very little work, a day a week at most (has turned a hobby into a 'Job' apparently).

Lives at home with parents, late 40s, no ND, no reason for not working. Doesn't drive or assist a great deal. Seems to just be a passenger in life and lazy with it.

I wouldn't see them on the streets but I wouldn't indulge them either, the most I would do is get them into a bedsit, pay the deposit and a couple of months rent to get them on their way. My teens who study full time have p/t jobs etc.

I wouldn't be surprised if they received the house as inheritance, meanwhile their three siblings will be working until their 70 to fund their homes. If they did receive the (large) house, they wouldn't be able to afford to heat it or maintain it.

Whatever, I can't change it so I won't worry about it.

I couldn't "put a number on it", WeregoingtoIbiza - unsurprisingly it involves a social services assessment - but as a layperson I'd say that an inability to live unsupported in the community and a lack of family able or willing to do the caring would pretty much trigger this

Of course it's the family support thing they look for in order to save money, which is where either personal knowledge or professional advocacy comes into it, but IME it's certainly possible to achieve even if there are family who in theory could do all the caring but prefer not to because it wouldn't be in tthe person's long term interests

There are personal details I'd rather not put on an open forum, but if you're going through this yourself and I can be of any help don't hesitate to DM me

@MakeMineaDigestivePlease I'd expect there to be some involvement or support. It's complex, I've never been in that position so won't judge but I really don't like the attitude of 'not my problem' without giving it a lot of thought.