to be a little suspicious of landlord MIL.

[SmellsLikeTeenStrop]

Sorry, this is long.

DH and I rent from my MIL. She bought the house for DH before we met and there was always the understanding that when he had a steady income that would enable him to take on a mortgage she would let him buy the house at the same price she paid for it.

This was over 10 years ago, DH and I live here with our DCs and we're now in a position where we can buy the house, but now the plan seems to have changed. MIL is very cagey when we try and talk to her about buying the house. In the past she's said she'll 'be fair' when it comes to selling the house, but she's also said that for various reasons it would be impossible to sell the house to us for anything less than full market value. We've been told that the rent barely covers the mortgage and insurance, but we've also been told that she relies on our rent as her main source of income.

The last discussion we had she was pushing towards us not buying the house but instead having our names added to the mortgage and taking over the mortgage payments. I asked her how much the mortgage was and she claimed not to remember.

She's not been the best landlord in the world, she's made no effort to update the house at all. We can't have the boiler serviced because it's so old there are no parts available for it - but she can't replace the boiler as she has no money. The house is in massive need of updating, the kitchen is at least 30 years old, ditto the bathroom. The windows we're fighting a losing battle with, we sand them down and paint them every other year but they're deteriorating more and more.

For a house we're merely renting, it's not suitable for us any more. We're expecting another DC soon and we're a bit squished as it is. If we owned the house DH and I would hang on here a bit longer to improve the house and hopefully get it to a point where we can sell it on at market value and use the equity for a bigger home. Alternatively we could extend and/or add a loft conversion. MIL is aware that this is what we want to do and has said that this would be fine, but that was when we weren't in a position where we could actually buy the house.

If she won't sell us this house than the only real alternative is for us to move out. I won't hang on renting a house that is too small for us, especially with all the issues we're having with it. Us moving out would either force MIL to sell, or to invest a few thousand in to the property before she could get new tenants in. Given the amount of work the house needs, I can't imagine it would sell very quickly unless she sold it very cheaply.

So, after this huge wall of text. AIBU to be suspicious of MIL and WIBU to expect her to honour the promise she made to DH but if that really is impossible for her, to give us a mahoosive discount to take in to account the years of rental we've been paying, plus the huge amount of money we'll need to invest in the house?

and another for good measure. I'd be hiding in the bedroom too if I were you. Actually, I would be packing my lippy and a clean pair of pants in a knotted hankie and fashioning a rope from the bed clothes to escape through the bedroom window...

you need to leave, can you move in with your parents for the short term? Make it clear to DH (and MIL) you are serious.

We're going to move, at least, I'm going to move with the DCs. DH can do what he wants.
That is a hard decision OP, but the correct one. Your DCs come first.

I would also stop hiding, go back downstairs and say clearly and calmly - "whatever DH has said to you, I will not allow a penny of our family money be spent fixing your problems." then come back upstairs and tell DH you are serious about moving out before the baby comes.

Dh came upstairs before ''are you annoyed at you me?'' ''why yes DH, yes I am!''.

Yeah, it looks like we'll be moving soon. I just wish you could rent for a month at a time, rather than a minimum 6 month contract.

i have been lurking on here waiting to see what happened today. I am sorry for you OP. It sounds really frustrating and upsetting. Can i ask, when she says take over the mortgage, does she mean including the loan secured against your house? (in which case you will have funded her poor investment with no benefit to yourself) Or just the original 40K? And why did she come to a meeting to discuss it without the details of how much the mortgage is? Is your DH really serious about you doing all the repairs and replacing the boiler?

I am that she still see's this thru her 'poor me' prism. If i were you i would be furious too. i would also be leaving.

Read the thread earlier OP and been waiting for your update. Poor you, it all sounds horrible

It sounds like she is probably severely in debt and desperate for you to help her out of it. DON'T DO IT!!!

At worst, she is ripping you off having ripped off your SIL in the past. At absolute best, she is blindly trying to her convince herself that this is 'best for you' because it gets her out of trouble.

Don't touch her debt with a barge pole, don't even show her your mortgage quotes. There are so many stories out there of people's credit rating being ruined and causing them endless mortgage / finance problems later because they've done nothing but linked themselves with other people's debt.

Can you pull your DH to the side and point out to him how much he's just gone back on everything you agreed, while she's still here & therefore he has a chance to go back downstairs and fix things? Fix things between you and him I mean, by backing you up and telling her what the two of you had discussed.

It will be six months before you are realistically ready to buy. You need out of this toxic and dangerous mess.

If your MIL is bankrupt (sounds like it) she needs to get her own affairs in order and quit milking you

Remind your DH of all those thousands you paid in rent, over and above what she needed for the mortgage. If she has squandered that money, it's her lookout not yours.
You don't want to live there now. It will make you feel sick every time you come home to it and remember the grief it has brought you.

I expect she's not evil and probably went into it with he intention of giving he house to you, and hought she had a great way to make money with the holiday homes. En things went wrong and she's probably panicking. I don't believe many people do bad things on purpose.

However, this doesn't change the situation you are in - big
Mortgage on a house that needs lots of work, is unsuitable for you now and has an unsafe boiler.

I would be kind to your DH who is probably feeling terrible - hell, I'd be kind to mil too - but I'd make it absolutely clear, calmly but resolutely, that you are moving out as soon as possible.

Oh God, what a nightmare.

But at least you now know exactly what her priorities are, that she doesn't see the house as yours, and that your DH will continue to be manipulated by her.

She now sees this 'putting your names on the mortgage' as an opportunity for her to offload her troubles onto you.

I think you have reached the only sensible conclusion - get out and have no housing ties to such a grasping, unscrupulous landlord.

Ask your DH if he'd be happy bringing up his family in this financial and safety mess if his landlord wasn't his mother?

Seriously, renting for 6 months while you look for something to buy is nothing. You could hand in your notice today and be in your (temporary) home by October, start looking for mortgage deals before Christmas, then start seriously house hunting in January, with a view to moving in by the end of April.

I do understand that your DH wants to help his Mum and is no doubt very concerned about her level of debt, but his first priority is to you and his DCs. I don't know how you work out your finances - can you afford to sign a 6 month lease using your own salary/savings? Is he likely to spend money for repairs without your agreement?

You need to move out of this bloody house and soon, do you have a tenancy? By law she has to have a gas safety check every year and the boiler has to be safe,

Some landlords will offer shorter tenancies.
It might be worth looking on Gumtree.

I'm so sorry it went like that.

DH will be sensible once the weeping woman is gone from his sight. He knows you have already agreed not to buy the house, not to pay for the repairs, etc.

Some men just can't cope with tears (dh is the same. His mum cries at the drop of a hat; I hardly ever cry. He has promised his mum all sorts when she's in tears, but once she's gone home, it's like nothing happened. Not good, I know but better than being stuck doing what she wants, which is only ever for her good, and generally crap for us.).

What an awful situation OP, and what a shit your MIL is. You just do not need this stress so close to having your baby.

I agree that you need to leave- you cannot have your children in that house. I can't believe how selfish and uncaring that woman is about the safety of her own grandchildren!

Oh dear. Is she still there? I'd get back downstairs and ask her to leave. If dh shows signs of not wanting to let her, do you have it in you to cry? Or shout and throw things? He needs to understand that you are just as unhappy as his mum is, and to be reminded which woman he chose to spend his life with.

And get househunting. Now might be a good time to start forgetting to write the rent cheques, too.

Renting for 6 months worked pretty well for us. We literally first saw the house we now live in the day we moved into a rental property with a 6-months lease. It took almost five months for the house to be ours. It really would be worth considering.

You posted miles back on the thread that this woman has 2 investment properties in the UK as well as her 2 foreign investments. She's had holidays and renovations carried out on her own property, all the while neglecting the property you live in. I don't believe FOR A SECOND that she has no money. It might not be easily accessible, but she hasn't made any effort to sell either of her other properties, has she?

Massively relevant point above: Your MIL expects to be able to approve your most important financial decision, to have it all laid out in front of her to inspect. Ask the same of her and you're told that she doesn't even know how much the mortgage is on the house she's pretending could be yours!! The woman owns 5 properties, there is NO WAY she doesn't know. She's just prepared to lie to your face. And change verbal agreements to suit her. Remind her of this when she accuses you of doing the same, which she will when you insist on moving.Fight fire with fire I say.

Don't worry about the renting period being 6 months. In terms of what it costs vs paying off a mortgage in the short term is negligible. Indeed the uncertainty in the market means it could pay off to wait if prices keep falling. I also think you'll be in a better position to buy from a different property due to no stress from MIL.

Finally, congratulations with standing up for yourself. I'm afraid it's going to be tough for your DH to admit that his mother is dishonest. You'll have to push through the move, but the baby needs to be in a safe environment. She won't fix the boiler or spend any money on that house, so what if anything else breaks? Don't spend any money on it, it's not your responsibility and you need every penny to provide a home for your family. I wish you luck, it won't be easy but it sounds like a private rental is the way forward.

I think your DH will probably come round in a bit. It must be horrible for him too. But honestly, that woman, what a nightmare. Do NOT get financially entangled with her, it could wreck your credit rating. NO no no names on mortgage with her.

Could you stay with your parents while you have the baby? I hate to think of a tiny baby in a house with a dodgy boiler, I really do

don'tmind, my family are all at least an hour away. I have to stay local for schools. Also, I think DH should be the one to correct the false impression he gave, he let me be the bad guy and ask all the difficult questions and try and explain that the boiler was dangerous. He didn't step in until right at the end and only to comfort her.

thanks spuddy would her re-mortgage be separate to her original mortgage? I have no idea how these things work.

hermione I do think we're her lifeline and as long as we live here she's got some form of income. I've got no intention of linking myself to her debt. DH and I have excellent credit ratings and that could all be destroyed by going on the mortgage with MIL if her bad investments finally catch up with her.

holeyghost she's not bankrupt yet, that I do know. I am going to move, I'm just whinging because things haven't gone the way I wanted them to.

inabeautifulplace has made some very good points there. Particularly with regard to "Over the past ten years she's had numerous holidays abroad, she' had her sodding patio redesigned to look like one of the places she went to on holiday. Most recently her garage roof started leaking and she had folk out straight away to repair it. The roof had to be completely replaced on it, not a cheap job."

Come on girl, get your arse down those stairs and ask how she paid for all that!

I have moved about a lot and rented privately from many different landlords (I also moved to a new rental just before my dd was born).

I've rented from a couple of prats in my time, but never encountered any landlord that was anything like as bad as your MIL.

You will get through this.

msvestibule ok, I'm probably unneccessarily worried about renting and letting a house slip through my grasp. Yes we can afford to move out. DH couldn't pay for repairs behind my back. The savings account is in my name.

We can not use the boiler without it causing too much hardship. Our shower is electric, we have a dishwasher and if we do need hot water for the babies bath - there's always the kettle. When it gets cold that's when we'll have problems but I and the DCs will be gone by then.

jux good to know DH isn't the only one. I just so alone trying to get my points across, being shouted - no screamed down by MIL and him just sitting there.

she's leaving now I think.

mm sorry for nagging. Just her debt sounds absolutely toxic from all you've said and I shuddered at the thought of you getting involved in that!

You're not whinging at all, you've been sucked into her scheme, it's no wonder you're upset about it.