to think it would be acceptable to do this?

[foldergirl]

This is my first post on mumsnet, I usually lurk in baby names though I don't have dcs yet. I wanted to ask about my lifestyle and life decisions as recently I have got the impression some people think they are wrong.

I am 24 years old and an art graduate. It is 2 years since I graduated and when i did I was never really sure what I wanted to do so I didn't look for a job. I was lucky enough to be able to do this as my boyfriends' parents (he is now my dh) are extremely wealthy. After our graduation we lived in a flat owned by them and they payed all the bills etc as we didn't have jobs. In this time we have got married - planning the wedding was like a full time job in itself!! My dh eventually got a job about 6m ago as a waiter in a golf clubhouse, and has since been made supervisor, but he is finding the long hours hard and is talking about looking for something else.

At the start of the year, my dad was diagnosed with a stage 4 brain tumour. My dh and I moved out of the flat owned by his parents and moved back in with him. I am now his carer and receive carer's allowance. I cook his meals, make sure he takes his medication and drive him to his hospital appointments. I am very close to him and will find it very difficult when he is gone and the prognosis is not good. I couldn't work and look after him, so in a way I think it was a good thing I didn't get a job as I would have had to give it up anyway. My parents have been separated for years though are not divorced and my mum does still care about my dad and helps out with his care occasionally - we both have power of attorney for him.

Now, as I said, my pils are extremely wealthy and have more money than they know what to do with. They have 3 ds's and my dh is the youngest. They have gifted (I think for tax reasons) each ds and dil money towards a house and the amount they stipulated is £400K. Both dh's older brothers have received this amount though pils also insisted that they got a mortgage so that they had a reason to work hard (fil is v hardworking and a self made millionaire). I have seen a house I would like, but the problem is it is £595K. I'm not sure whether dh and I should ask pils for the extra money (I know they have it) as we would not be able to get a mortgage for that amount extra, or whether to approach my dad about selling his house and him moving in with dh and I while I continued to care for him. The only problem is my mum and my brother might have a problem with this. But the house is really beautiful and all I have ever wanted in life is to be a housewife with dcs and a dog and a studio for my art, and this house would enable me to have this - few people get the chance for their dreams to come true and so I think I should take it and ask pil for the money.

But lately, I have got the impression people feel I am lazy, even though I am caring for my dad. I know dh's brothers and my sils all work, but there circumstances are different from mine. I kind of think I deserve this house after giving up my time to look after him in his dying days - it that so bad? AIBU to ask pils for this money?

I am friends with someone whose sister had a similar set up. they lived off bank of mum and dad for years, their kids went to private school, had big house, nice holidays etc

except after 10 years the parents retired and suddenly the money wasn't there because the parents realised they couldn't sustain 3 households (yes they supported their other kid too!). they couldn't find jobs because they had no experience or skills. their kids had to be pulled out of their school and they had to downsize their house to get some money to live off.

they are now miserable. not because they are 'poor' because they still have a good lifestyle compared to most. But because they feel they are entitled to the better standard of living and seem to think they have been dealt a hard hand in life

foldergirl, families are priceless, don't lose yours through sheer greed.

OP, DH and I are probably not dissimilar to your PILs. Our DC will be given a London flat (probably worth about 450k)each in trust until they are 25 or 30. At present they are 13 and almost 17. DS is driven, very clever, very sporty and is determined to go to Oxbridge, DD is well above average and already talking about what she will do as a job. Both of them know they have had huge privileges, both of them also know they will be expected to earn a living and make wise choices (supported if it all goes wrong though because they are our dc and we love them unconditionally). DS worked at the local golf club last year - he was motivated enough to fix himself up with caddying between GCSE's and 6th form.

At 24 I was working in an investment bank having bought my own flat with £6,000 help from my father, at 27 I had a small house in South West London. At 30 I organised my wedding as well as doing a full time job. In 1994 DH and I bought our current house, largely with my equity and, at the time a substantial morgage (£90,000). Oh yes, and I contributed into a pension scheme from the first day I was able - back then it was on my 24th birthday.

You are being offered £400,000. If you want a bigger house mobilise your digits and get yourselves a job and a mortgage. As you have no experience and your dh is a waiter I very much doubt you will be able to raise as much as £195,000.

Pull yourself together and be glad for what you are being offered. Accept it graciously and if you want a bigger better house than £400,000 will buy you make a plan and set out your stall to get it. In the meantime fulfil your duty as a daughter to your father but leave him well out of any schemes to get what you want without working for it.

And if this is true and if ds brought home a girl like you in his early 20s his parents would be deeply concerned. No way would he and his young wife be getting a penny more than his sibling because he or she had an overdeveloped sense of entitlement. You are being very very greedy.

Have you got the message - off backside, mobilise digit, get job. Have a studio and paint as a hobby - once you have made some proper money and your dh has a proper job - you may be able to work part-time and do a little more painting - but first of all see if you have enough talent to sell anything.

I would laugh if this is real and your MIL is a MN,er and recognises you. Hopefully she will cancel the 400k!

You know the beyonce song Independent Ladies. It's so true and whenever I hear it I think back to how proud I felt when I bought my first house completely on my own when I was 21. Couldn't afford to furnish it hardly but I look back on those times with fond memories.

There are lots of houses I can't afford but like - find a cheaper one!

I don't care.

Yy beaver, there is nothing more satisfying than that "I earned this" feeling. I love the fact that I earn my own money and am in fact the main breadwinner. I have friends who don't work as their DHs are wealthy and feel no jealousy as I would much rather have an independent income than rely on someone else.

"I can't help suspecting that the person who wrote "get a job" in your wedding guest book may have been your mother-in-law."

I actually think it more likely it was her DH. . He's probably sick of her being such a waster as well. At least he's trying to do something even if the best he can do is only a waiter.

My money is on the BILs. Very irritating when parents agree to give a very generous and equal amount of money to all their dcs, except the youngest who will have all his bills paid and extras on top because he and his DW can't be arsed to get jobs.

My Dad died of cancer when I was 24 too. He wanted to die in his own home. Unfortunately we had to take him into hospital and seeing how much worse the unfamiliar surroundings made his last hours for him was totally heartbreaking. I can't even write this without crying and it happened 3 years ago now.

Please please don't move your dad if you can help it. You will regret causing him that pain. Especially because, if he's anything like my dad, he will try to protect you by hiding his feelings.

Money and houses mean nothing compared with your dad and the loss that you are going to have to face at such a young age.

I am a carer for my partner who has mental health problems and hasn't left the house for ~three months. He gets no income because he was turned down for disability benefits, and he isn't well enough to get to the job centre each week/fortnight for JSA. (Neither of us has the energy to fight the decision, alas!) We live on my student loan and the income from my two jobs. It isn't enough, of course.

And each month my parents and his parents help us with the rent. And it shames and burns inside me, because I am twenty-five and I'm trying my hardest to survive on the smallest amount I can and still I turn to my family. When I am earning my own - respectable - money I will repay them as many pennies as I can.

I don't know about your particular issue, but I would recommend you get a paying job. The sense of pride and worth having worked for your own money is worth it, I promise.

manicinsomniac

Goodness me.

I'm sorry your DF has a terminal illness. It great that you are in a position to look after him but he doesn't owe you anything. You are repaying him for bringing you up.

Your PIL don't owe you anything. You are not their daughter and your DH cannot use their generousity to give you the lifestyle you desire without damaging his family ties. Don't be a petchulant child and demand anything from his through bribery.

If you don't want to work and have the chance to be a SAHM then good for you, but people will only respect thus decision is you and your DH can earn this luxury as a family unit rather than expecting others to pay for you.

Good luck. Losing a parent is difficult and you should count yourself lucky that you are in a position where youaren't combining your caring duties with a job.

*from him

If this is true then OP you are VILE

Why about your brother? I hope to God your father leaves everything to him instead as you are a disgusting money grabbing

"Would you say to anyone else unemployed for 2 years that they have written off this time being feckless and undignified?"

Yes, people with no mortgage to pay and no children do not have to be fussy about jobs. When I was in that position I was a waitress, worked in bars, stuffed envelopes. Most people can get at least a job like that in 2 years. How much effort did you make btw? If you LITERALLY could not get a job, what would you have done if you had had to pay your own way, bills, food etc? Starved to death?

And I am not jealous by the way. If we needed £200,000, I ahve no doubt we would get it from PILs, my parents or both. But, like most of the population, we work for most of what we have and are very grateful for the financial help we do get from family. Honestly OP, if your story was just that you had received the initial sum from your ILs but were supporting yourselves from now, people's reactions would be different.

Your DH is a waiter and you want to be a housewife? Nice. How are you going to pay the electricity/gas/council tax on a £600k house on a waiter's salary? Oh that's right you won't be able to, your DH will have to run back to his mum and dad cap in hand every month.

Christ on a bike.

thank god your mother never devorced your dad, as you will have to go through her before selling your dads home.

What I don't understand is look at Kate Middleton. She has no job and is supported by her husbands family yet everyone Loves her. Yet people speak to me as if I am dirt.

I am also upset by the way people are describing my dh. He has been promoted to supervisor at work so he clearly works hard, but the hours are quite antisocial, that is why he wants to look for something else, not because he is lazy.

I have resisted commenting on this thread so far as I was coming down on the side of the OP being a troll. And then I thought about an old housemate of mine and a member of my extended family, both of whom could have written the OP's posts, albeit with a tiny bit more self-justification. I am now prepared to believe that the OP is actually as daft and selfish as she is painting herself.

Leaving aside comment on the morality (or lack thereof) of what is being suggested - other posters have covered that pretty comprehensively - shall we have a look at the actual practicalities of this idea?

1. PIL have made it clear that they expect their children to pay at least some of their own way. What they are offering is not actually any different from a less wealthy family giving their children much more modest amounts for house deposits and expecting them to make up the rest of the cost. They have just scaled it up because they are wealthy and no doubt have certain basic expectations about lifestyle, housing etc. If they do not intend to provide the full amount of their other childrens' housing costs then why on earth would they agree to waive that condition for their least industrious son and DIL? OP - do you honestly think they will turn round and say "oh, OK, you can have an extra £200k because you don't want to work for it like the others are working for theirs"?

2. A £600k house is presumably a fairly decent size. You clearly have no intention whatsoever of working. Ever. At all. Your husband is apparently working in a relatively low-paid job. How do you propose to cover the running costs of the house? We moved out of London to a 4 bedroom house and we have been shocked at the running costs in terms of unforeseen things that you don't have to pay for while renting. We have sunk a couple of grand into the house over the last 2 months because of things needing repairing/replacing/maintaining. How will you pay for these sort of things? Do you think your PIL intend to maintain you forevermore? What happens when the die? Do you think your BILs will be happy to take over paying for your lifestyle?

3. You are not the sole power of attorney for your father. Unless your mother is a complete idiot, she is a little unlikely to agree to you effectively incorporating what I assume to be the bulk or whole of your father's estate (his house) into your assets. If this happened, when your father died, unless you had managed to persuade him to effectively disinherit your brother which I doubt your mother will agree to, your brother, and possibly your mother, would be entitled to a share of your house as part of it would be owned by your father's estate. You could finish up being forced to sell your dream home to realise your brother's inheritance. You could finish up in court over this if you tried to avoid paying your brother. The bottom line is that you are highly, highly unlikely to be able to take your father's assets in order to fund your house purchase. You are very naive if you think you will be permitted to do so.

4. What happens if this plan goes through? Not that I think for one moment that it will. But what if you get your dream home which I am assuming is in an affluent area, surrounded by people living a certain type of lifestyle? Are you going to be content with a house that you can afford to do nothing but exist in? What about when you can't afford school fees for the local private school that everyone else goes to? What about holidays? A new car? Are you honestly going to be content with just the house? Or are your expectations going to go up and up and up in accordance with what everyone around you can afford? How are you going to manage that? Go running back to PIL? Do you think they will fund everything you ever want?

5. What if your DH leaves you and you are cut off from the PIL gravy train? Especially if your own family aren't speaking to you by then because you have tried to co-opt your father's estate to fund your own personal lifestyle at the expense of your brother. I wonder what the dream home will look like to you then.

You need to grow up, OP, and have a real think about how this pretty little picture you are building in your head will actually work. Because it won't. And you run the risk of finishing up with no £600k house, no £400k house and irreperably damaged fmaily relationships.

Ha! Ha! Ha! Comparing yourself to Kate Middleton is hardly going to win you many friends here. She married into the Royal family, not quite the same thing as you marrying your DH with the wealthy parents.
(For what it's worth the whole Royal family churns my stomach, but that is a row for another day.)

OP - different to some posters I actually have no issues with someone not working if they can afford to not work. My DH works and I am a SAHM, and work on my art (a bit of textile art and poetry) in my spare time. I have no issues with people staying at home. What I do have issue with is you thinking you are owed a living from other people.

DH and I live in a modest house as that is what our finances stretch to, it suits our family needs. If we wanted a bigger house then DH would do overtime and I'd take on part-time work. In no way shape or form would I go around asking relations for money as I'd lose my sense of pride and integrity.

I really want to know, what do your Real Life friends advise you when you ask them? Do they think you're living in a dream world? Genuine question, not trying to be cheeky.

manic please dont upset yourself over this vile thread.

See how hilarious this all is OP.
Such Christamassy fun.
Dragging up painful memories for people who have been throught the horror of losing someone to cancer.

Happy Christmas

I agree needles I have no problem at all with people being a SAHM if they can afford to. What I have an issue with is the sheer sense of entitlement, the greed and the money grabbing.

Foldergirl even if your intentions in looking after your DF are honourable, it probably appears to outsiders that you are only looking after him with the intention of getting your hands on his money. By suggesting he sell his house to buy you a bigger one you only confirm it. Is that really the way you want people to see you? It's no wonder they treat you like dirt.