Not to want to help fund MIL's/family holiday home?

[RightBuggerforit]

MIL bought a holiday home with inheritance from FIL 20 years ago. It has been used as a family holiday place in the past for dh and 2 SILs but they're all grown up now. MIL uses it loads, several times a year for weeks at a time (alongside several other foreign holidays a year), SILs also go there once or twice a year. Dh and I don't use it, we have a young family and can't afford a holiday, plus it takes ages and costs a lot to get there, hours on ferry and car etc and isn't near anything, so even if we could afford a holiday, we would have it somewhere else.

MIL now says she is having trouble affording the upkeep of the property, which she and the SILs are attached to due emotionally to it being purchased in memory of FIL, so selling is not an option. Dh doesn't see any connection.

As a solution, MIL has suggested that, since this house will be left to the 3 kids, they should all start contributing for it now, about £300 a year. I think this is unreasonable, if you use a holiday home and you want to keep it, shouldn't you pay for it yourself instead of asking your dc to pay? MIL has no mortgage and is in the process of downsizing which will free up nearly £100,000 of capital to help with her lifestyle, so why not use some of this money?

I feel really strongly that if we can't afford a family holiday of our own, we shouldn't be funding a share of MIL's holidays, especially given she's in a much better position than we are financially. Dh says we should see it as an investment because we will inherit a third of this house at some point, and if we don't pay MIL has said she will cut him off from this part of the will.

AIBU/WWYD?

You said you've got credit card debt. That is your get out clause.

We are in debt, we have no spare money at all to contribute for the foreseeable future, if you need to sell it that's fine we have our memories of the place.

Why don't you just ring MIL and say this isn't going to work for you that there just isn't the money and your a bit upset about being slide lined especially as it money her DGC need to have now.

Then tell DH that you've told MIL how it is and point out why it isn't a good investment and what a can of worms it all is.

If anyone gets upset with you then you get very upset and very vocally offended back.

I think it very hard for them to agree anything if they know before hand your not happy and don't intend to go along with it. If stuff is decided then you can be angry at being disregardful and do something rather than vaguely resentful possibly for years and feeling you have to be quiet and do without.

All the financial advice I've read is to pay off high-interest debts (like credit cards) before making investments. All of it, without exception. Would you be comfortable telling your MIL the extent of your debts? It might at least shut her up!

Is your MIL also chipping in £300 per year too, or has she left the costs purely up to you and SILs?

If it were me, I wouldn't agree to paying as you would be paying for a property you never use, and never would. As it is so important to SILs, suggest it is left solely to them once she is gone, but that you won't be contributing to the upkeep.

£300 per year may not sound much but that money would pay for you to have an appropriatly located family holiday of your own every 5 years (on top of whatever you allready spend on holidays).

Some things to consider:

Is it in a country where property prices will even keep pace with inflation in the UK?
Is it in a country where proceeds from a sold house can be taken out of the country?
Will the house need to be sold to pay the inheritance tax in it - if it even stays in MIL's owndership that long?

I would say you and DH understand completely that it is hard for her to pay the upkeep and suggest that if she does want to hold on to it it might make sense for family members who use it to contribute pro rata for week used. Say you'd be very happy to do that. Explain that you won't be using it this year, too brassic, but may well do in future years....

Of course I hope this doesn't happen, but if MIL goes into a care home in the future, would the holiday home have to be sold to pay for it?

Or if the SILs use it for, say 2 weeks a year for their £300 (cheap hol!) then ask for 2 weeks of your own - to rent to a friend like a sort of timeshare, and make your £300 back like that!

I would pay it. If my mother felt she needed help financiAlly for whatever reason I wouldnt think twice about helping her.

Hecate, as ever, gives sound advice.

I always assume that DH and I will inherit nothing so if we ever do then, well it will be a nice bonus. Never let anyone manipulate you with a future promise of money.

£300 per year will only be the start if it. The requests for money will only go up and not down.

scarlettsmummy2 - but the person in this case asking for money is in a much better financial position than the family she's asking for money from.

I would have thought leading the money in the case described when OP has debts as well would be a recipe for years of simmering resentment and ill feeling.

She can't subsidise the MIL's second home when she can't afford to take her own kids on holiday. It's simply not fair on them.

You need to find out if you could force the sale of it? If you inherit a family home in the UK and one child wants to sell it, that can force the sale so would a holdaiy home abroad also be treated the same way? You need to find out before you can come to any decision, I think.

FFS! It's so simple. Rent it out for 10 months of the year for holiday lets. Find a local housekeeper or a management company to keep it ticking over. It doesn't need to be a big trauma.

Did you actually read the thread scarlettsmummy?

I think you need to have already talked to and decided with your DH what you want to do before you go to the meeting. Care homes cost over a thousand pounds a week in my area, in twenty years time it will be more.

I'd tell her to stick her holiday home. No guarantee your children will ever inherit anything, she might have to sell everything to pay for nursing care one day. Best not to live your life waiting for the crumbs your mean sounding MIL decides to throw to you.

The minute someone starts talking about inheritance that way, you need to decide are you
A. Going to write off in your head any chance of inheriting
Or
B. Going to suck up for the rest of that persons life (and quite possibly still not inherit)

I wouldnt touch this with a barge pole. She might get the hump and leave all her assets to the cats' home. She might meet somone new and leave everything to him/her.

This is a property in the arsehole end of the back of beyond. Unless it happens to be sat on top of a hitherto undiscovered goldmine it is worth very very little.

I can't tell you what to do but do have some experience of a situation like this.

Fwtfil was widowed and had a holiday home. He said he was short of money and suggested that he, dh and siblings each contributed an equal share to the running costs on the basis that we could all use it for holidays and it would be passed on to the children eventually in any case. Fil suggested an amount (c£3000pa - running costs of £12000pa for a 3 bedroom house that's hardly ever used wtf?) and dh who's a pushover when it came to his df agreed on the basis that an overseas holiday would cost us that much in any case.

FIL then retired, met someone and went to live with her in the said house. He expected us to continue to pay the running costs on the basis that we could visit for a 'holiday' any time we liked. We didn't of course because it wouldn't be a holiday, we'd be visiting our inlaws who were living in the house at our expense.

He subsequently sold the house at which point we stopped paying. He and new partner now have many holidays overseas, weekend breaks and 'pampering' (their words) and meals out on the proceeds.

As has been pointed out lower down the thread, it is not legally possible in France for your DMIL to disinherit her son from French property. In fact that's why there are a lot of family houses in rural France in some disrepair, because they have been left to children who can''t agree whether or not to sell and can't afford properly to maintain empty properties.

Which brings another issue, which is if your DMIL can't disinherit your DH from the French property, she would therefore, if she were to carry out her threat, have to disinherit him from UK property equivalent to the value of the French property. And this might be worth something or it might not.

All in all, I'm inclined to agree with your DH. Just to save the barney. This is not a lot of money. We are talking £4 a week.

OP, i sympathise with you, as my grandma & aunt and uncle own two houses in spain (next door to each other) and it is in the exact same situation as the house you described. I went once, and was bored. If i had to start paying towards that, id flat out refuse!

i'd say to the mil, i doubt you'll have anything left to leave after you have paid for your care home