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?

Personally I'd ring the gas emergency service, say you smell gas, they will come out, condemn your boiler and then she'll be forced into action regardless. Of course you will be without gas but then how could you pay rent in such a situation.

RUN

Just to clarify, OP, your MIL can't just 'put you on the mortgage' without also putting you on the Deeds.

The lender will insist that the names on the Charge (so the mortgage) exactly match those on the Deeds.

Have been lurking until now. Hope it goes well on Sunday, keep us updated.

Yes, please keep us updated! I dreamt about boilers last night (really need to get out more)!

If your MIL knows the law and is getting the gas checked in her other houses but letting you live with 'that boiler' I would hit the roof. ring the gas emergency service, say you smell gas, they will come out, condemn your boiler and then stop paying rent. Look for some where to rent and move out in your own good time. take just what you need at first and then moving the rest when you are good and ready If she trys to stop you say you report her.

Yes, good luck. Personally, I'd be out of there asap, baby or no baby (it might actually be easier to move before the birth). Glad there's no way you'd consider buying it now, too. You don't even have to worry about dh on that either; he wouldn't consider buying a place you didn't want.

Get the boiler condemned, move out. It sounds like hard work, but you can get the removals people to do all the tough stuff - packing etc - and in my experience, there's little they wouldn't do to help a pg woman (so you can play that up and keep dh out of the way most of the time). I know that's v unPC, but true nevertheless. Use your advantages.

I too think you should get out before the baby.

Sorry smells have only just seen that you asked me a question. Yes even if it's a pre-existing mortgage. It's called a Transfer of Equity and your names just get added on. A solicitor or conveyancer would need to deal with it. The mortgage lender would have to agree to it though, but you would then get to see how much is owed.

I don't think it's the solution to your problem though.

Have you had The Chat yet? Hope it went as well as possible.

Ooops, for some reason I thought it was Sunday already. As you were.

This is what we're going to bring up, and also responses to how we think she'll respond. Thoughts?

Re. the boiler

The boiler hasn't been serviced for 10 years
10 years ago MIL was made aware that the boiler couldn't be serviced because of its age, she's made no move to replace it in all of that time.
The safety of her GC and her own son has been put at risk because of this
She has a legal obligation to service the boiler yearly, and replace it if necessary.

She is breaking the law and has been for 10 years.
Is she arranging a yearly boiler service for her other tenants, if so - why has she not done the same for us?

If/When she mentions that the house is really ours and she only pays the mortgage we will point out that :-

She bought the house as a buy-to-let
She made DH, and then DH and myself sign a tenancy agreement
She's re-mortgaged the house and not invested a single penny back in to the house but instead used the money to fund other projects.
She could have added DS on to the mortgage when she bought the house, or added/transferred it to him after he started work - she did not do this.
This all points to her viewing the house as an investment rather than a generous gesture to help get her DS on the housing ladder.

If she claims not to have the money to pay for repairs.

She has 2 buy-to-let properties including this one, and several holiday cottages, how come she doesn't have any money set aside for repairs?
Tough, re-mortgage one of your other properties and invest some money in this one for a change.

If she tries to convince us to put our names on the mortgage in return for our savings.

No, we're not becoming responsible for your debt.
No, we're not handing over all our money only to find ourselves solely responsible for the thousands of pounds worth of repairs and renovations that this house needs.
No.

Sounds good.

Make sure you have it written down so you don't forget or get side tracked.

Do you have a plan for when she starts with tears as you mention earlier she has a habit of doing when she feel threaten.

By the way if needed you could probably get copies of your cheques from your bank to prove which bank account they were paid into.

I know you're about to give birth, but really I'd have your notice written as per terms of the tenancy agreement and hand it to her if she doesn't play ball - the thought of no tenants may panick her into action!

Is she charging you market value rent for it or is it cheap?

One further point OP
Do a quick total of the amount you have paid her in rent since you've been there.
When she says she's got no money for repairs, point out just now much you've paid her over the years.

You're not going to have any kind of discussion with her. She is going to cry and say she loves you and doesn't have any money.

I think she may well have convinced herself that she is doing the right thing. I mean, I doubt she is thinking "I will fleece my son of his money and make him live in awful housing". She has convinced herself that she has generously bought a house for him, and not done any repairs because it is his house so why would she. The rent he pays is just to cover the mortgage payments. The money she's got from remortgaging is something she doesn't think about too closely.
So she might well be quite shocked when you talk to her. She probably also really thinks she doesn't have money, because people usually do think that.

I'm not saying any of this makes what she has done any better, she has still behaved horrendously. Convincing yourself that a bad action is ok doesn't make it ok. Just I don't think you should expect her to understand that she's behaved badly. She isn't going to accept responsibility for her actions.

I think you need to keep it all really, really short.

Service the boiler, you are breaking the law. If you don't do it by xxx date, we will report you. We don't need to know how you'll finance this, that is not our problem.

If it is our house, give us our rent money back. No? Not our house then.

No, we don't want to buy this house, it isn't suitable for us.

Yes, yes, we know you love us and want the best for us, have a tissue, so, you'll need to go and sort out the finances for the new boiler, off you go, yes we love you too but we don't want to die of cm poisoning, bye now

I think you should also mention that you are intending to move. Not as a threat (and be prepared for her to say 'I'll fix it! I'll fix it! Don't move!'), but because you need a bigger home in a better condition than this one, and you know you can get one for as good a price (even if that last bit isn't true).

Yes we have a plan, DH has admitted his first instinct will be to comfort her but what we'll do is keep pressing our points and get an agreement out of her that she will get the work done. Under no circumstance is DH to say things like ''we don't blame you'' ''we're not angry'' ''we understand''. We do blame her, we are angry, we don't understand why she would invest thousands elsewhere and not spend anything on the home her own grandchildren live in. She's going to be made very aware that we're shocked, appalled and dismayed at her criminal negligence and the only hope she has of keeping a relationship with us is to get this work done.

Oooh I've looked that up and yes we can get copies of cheques. Copies are stored on microfilm and I can request copies of those. That is good to know.

But don't forget that as discussed at great length above, fixing the boiler is unlikely to be an end in itself.
You don't want floorboards up for new plumbing, rewiring etc when the baby is due.

Honestly, it seems more hassle than it is worth. And pressing the point about th e boiler now, will just force you to stay on in an unsuitable house.

I would take a different tactic all in all.

Tell her that the issue with the boiler (feel free to list the issues), and her way of handling the situation, has made your think carefully about your own housing situation and housing needs. As the house is indeed not yours (List WHY you have concluded this) and she is a landlord and you merely her tenants, you have decided you dont want the house, it does not meet your needs anymore, and are looking elsewhere. The fact that you are normal tenants, living in a badly maintained house, with a boiler too old for servicing, has convinced you to hand in your notice. Give her three months notice in writing.

Start house hunting. It does not matter if you rent elsewhere some time.

You have not said whether you are paying market rate or a cheap rate, though.

Think you really need to decided what you want out of this discussion.

Do you really want to stay in the house long term and buy it from her? If not then you must be very careful as that does appear to be the way you are heading and you don't want to agree to something that is not what you want.

random it's slightly cheap for the area. Other similar houses are generally £50-75 more pcm, but given the condition of the house - I doubt she could get full market value rentals for it.

I really don't want to hand in our notice until after we've seen the mortgage adviser, and that won't be until Thursday.

sallying a conservative estimate would put that figure at around 20k more than she originally paid for it. She didn't pay a lot for it btw, less than 40k. Up until the point she re-mortgaged we could have been paying twice the amount in rent that she was paying in mortgage ..... oh fuck

bertha, I agree with you and that would be completely in fitting with her personality. We'll keep emphasising the ''you have broken the law'', ''it is illegal to not make sure the boiler in your buy-to-let property is serviced annually'', ''faulty boiler kill people''.

MissM, DH wants to do that because he wants to give her the chance to get the house sorted for the next set of tenants .... as for me, I'm still feeling the rage.

But shall you live there and put up with mayhem with a newborn, just because your husband wants the house to be OK for the NEXT tenants?

His loyalty to his mum is pathetic. Sorry.

No, you don't want to buy the house, it isn't big enough, you don't want the headache of making good all the neglect and you'd rather start afresh somewhere you've chosen together.

Is she likely to tell you that as it's dh's house she was happy to get the mortgage for him but assumed he'd be maintaining it?

Start house hunting. It does not matter if you rent elsewhere some time.

I'm not prepared to tie myself in to a 6 month contract on a rental property if we can get a mortgage for the amount we need. I realise if MIL refuses to repair the boiler than we probably won't have a choice, but I'm not making any firm decisions until after tomorrow.