to have expected my parents to buy me a house? Long and boring sorry!

[JealousAndUnreasonable]

Well not 'a' house, my house! Three years ago DH, I and our 3 DCs moved abroad to start a new life after DH was made redundant here. We sold our house and had enough equity for two year's rent and to buy furniture and a car as it was too expensive to take our stuff with us.

DH was on a work visa (went over and got a job before we went) and the plan was after two years we would apply for permanent residence and get a mortgage at which point I could work as well.

Anyway in brief, the house we found to rent was no longer available when we got out there as out paperwork took longer to go through than anticipated (we used a relocation agency which cost £££'s). When we got over there, DH had to start his job straight away and we just could not find another house to rent as there was literally nothing available in our price range except for a house literally right next to a lake which was not ideal for our 2 and 3 year olds!

We met a mortgage broker by chance one day who told us he could get us a mortgage which was something we had not considered as we were not permanent residents. After 4 weeks in a hotel room with 3 DC who were driving me nuts and no school for the eldest as we had no permanent address, we jumped at the chance and put most of our money down on a beautiful family house, mortgage was very affordable on the basis that DH would get paid his contracted salary and it was an upcoming area which the agent assured us would mean the house prices would rise quickly. All good up to now!

Two months later DH's car skidded on ice (very cold winter), he was lucky to be alive but had to take 4 months off work with his injuries with no sick pay as he did not qualify! I could not work due to our visas either. Not eligible for any benefits at all. We were literally living on credit cards and cereal (not the DCs). When DH went back to work, his employers changed his job so his pay was less and as he had no legal protection (not a citizen, new employee) we were buggered. Immediately we put the house on the market as we realised we were not going to cope financially and at least we could take the equity and just rent anything, even a cheap apartment.

House would not sell even when we lowered the price to below what we'd paid for it. The reason being that the government started a scheme to encourage people to build their own houses by releasing cheap land which was much cheaper than buying one that had already been built. I was basically phoning every mortgage company begging them to give us a bigger mortgage so we could release equity that way but again was refused due to residency and DH's lower wage. He could not change jobs due to his visa or take an extra job. We were completely trapped.

I did something I had never done before which was to ask my mother and stepfather for help. They had sold their house some years before and had the money from that in a savings account as they were living abroad in a house provided by my stepdad's job. They were planning on buying a house again in a few years but did not need that money at that time. Knowing this, I asked my mother if they would consider buying our house from us so we could release the equity to top up DH's wage until we were eligible for permanent residence and he could get a better job and so I could work. We would pay them rent (more than the interest they were getting from the bank account) and they would then either sell the house back to us taking any increase in value for themselves or we would try and sell it again giving them the increase in value. We would have got a solicitor to draw it up legally etc. I was not interested in taking money from them, just in salvaging the mess we were in.

They said NO. It was our problem to sort out. We continued for another 6 months hoping to sell, getting further behind with the mortgage, stress causing me panic attacks and eventually handed the house keys to the mortgage company and flew home using credit which we still have not paid off. The bank sold our house a few months later and we got a total of £4k back from a £50k investment (same house is now on the market for $100k than we bought it for!). We have no hope of ever raising enough money for a deposit to buy another house here as we are paying over £1k in rent!

My mother has recently told me that she has bailed my younger sister out to the tune of over £70k in paying off her debts, paying her rent, paying her DCs nursery fees and buying clothes and furniture for her. Sister has split up with the father of her DCs (although he still pays for them and has them on weekends) and she needed their help more than us apparently. She not bothered that my DCs were made homeless and we had to come back to the UK and lose everything.

AIBU to be furious about this?

You do sound like risk-takers, which would make me wary of lending you money, but if I was your mother I'm sure I still would have done something. But, it sounded like a very proposition you made to your parents and I certainly don't think UAGU to ask, and as for the open favouritism, how ghastly.

I hope things pick up for you now. Usually when so much bad luck comes altogether it is followed by a string of good luck, I hope that is your case. And try not to hate your sister; people tend to hate the favourite, but it is not her fault.

I think your parents are really hurtful to treat your half sister so much more favourably, and to basically try and use you to get a visa .

Tell your Mum how that feels. In terms of feelings rather than money .

Sorry you had such bad luck. All luck to you and your DH from now on.

You've had a dreadful run of events,and of course it hurts
I hope you can manage to not dwell,put it aside
Value your own family and dc.sorry to read about your dh rta

As an immigrant to Canada myself I think that the OP made an incredibly bad decision to buy a house within weeks of arrival, and that the broker was pretty unethical to persuade them it was a good idea. When you are on a temporary work permit you are incredibly financially vulnerable.

I'm also not sure why the OP couldn't work, that's not usually an issue in Canada (me being able to work saved our family finances and my work permit was a part of the standard spousal visa), or why her dh didn't have short term disability insurance as that tends to be fairly standard here, paid for by either the employer or employee. Plus usually it's a requirement to have mortgage insurance unless you have a very large deposit.

So I think that there was quite a bit that the OP and her dh could have done to avoid the situation. Having just been made redundant in the UK I am surprised that they were so naive. That doesn't mean I'm not sympathetic, it sounds like a run of horribly bad luck, getting into trouble far away from home is very very stressful, emigrating is very expensive and we all make bad decisions from time to time.

Do I think the OP's mother and step-father should have bought their house, no. Should they have helped, yes I think so, no one should sit on cash when their child is suffering and they can do something to assist them (and in this case it was in their longer term interests too). A straight loan would have been a better proposal though. I suspect from the OP's other posts that the relationship is far from straightforward and the blended nature of the family obviously is a major factor.

I do think that maybe the whole thing wasn't as thought out as it should have been or you should have least have had a back up plan. Obviously it's unfortunate your DH had an accident, that's awful. But getting a mortgage when you've only just moved there and only one of you working and with a visa is risky. I'm surprised you could even do that.

However I can see how hurtful it would be for your sister to be favoured over you. And saying your half siblings will get the inheritance is just unbelievable and really sad. I think it says everything really. Favouritism over children is a horrible thing.

Seriously if your step sister is being treated significantly better than yourself, then I'd have a long hard look at whether you want to remain in close contact with your parents. Obviously if they move to Canada then that's a bit easier.

PIL treat BIL/SIL a bit more favourably than us but then they do tend to mother BIL. TBH we're moving away (with work) and I think that'll help as I won't know half of what they do/have. It does make me a bit resentful and they do help us a bit too, but then I feel that our relationship with them is more 'adult', rather than 'parent/child'.

If they've said that about inheritance, I think that's very unfair and I'd cut contact altogether.

Maybe it's a good thing it didn't work out.

Your parents would be following you to Canada (or using you as a free pass) but appear to treat you badly by favouring your siblings. They don't sound like nice people so maybe you should cut down contact.

Quoted from pg1: "YABU you left the country, in moving away you were essentially saying we don't need you."

What? Moving to a different country doesn't have anything to do with how much you need or care about your family.

Yanbu

You asked them to lend you 80k (which they would very likely get back + interest). They said no and chose to give away 70k to your sister.

Clear favouritism towards your sister :(

I don't blame you for being upset and cross about it.

Also about the clear favouritism with the wills. Very unfair and I would also stop contact with them if this was me.

I'm sorry your plans didn't work out op, fingers crossed you are able to regain some financial security in the future as your dcs become older etc

It's tough OP it really is. I guess I can't criticise your folks for not bailing you out in that way, but I also think it was very presumptuous of them to think that you'd be easing their passage over there. Very cheeky.

Regarding their help for your sister, I made a decision at a young age that I would never ask my parents to bail me out. That decision informed many of my financial decisions tbh and I'm not a risk taker. I know they've helped my siblings possibly, but I don't care about that, it's their money and I already decided taking money from them wouldn't be an option for me.

I agree with anyone who said you need to move on and not let this define you. But also maybe just realise your relationship with your mother is not what you thought it was and distance yourself.

Wow bit of a drip feed there.

I was about to say YABU because you can't expect parents to help you as an adult, although whey they couldn't have maybe lent you some money for mortgage payments to get through I don't know (mine would, as would many other family members for their children).

I don't think they should have bought your house, but I do think your mother should be strong enough not to offer differing support to adult children (I am assuming that this is down to SF).

I can understand that must hurt but I guess you know where you stand. Value the relationship for what it is I suppose. They might regret it in old age if they are banking on DSis helping them out in return for all that cash.

YANBU to be upset at the level of help they gave to your sister after refusing to help you. That is not fair. But I do think YABU to expect them to bail you out and make assumptions about whether they needed the money or not. Both you, and your sister, sound quite spoiled. Why did you not rent until your visa situation allowed you to take on work in the case of events turning out like this? Even a 'cheap apartment' in the first place.

I don't know enough about the family dynamics to judge. There is no mention of a dad and no mention of a MIL or FIL. If they are around are they also not family ? Why is all the onus on the mother and SF ? You also were not privy to what conversations they had with your sister OR what her situation was. If you take a look at the step-parenting board there are plenty of blended families who make hard-hearted parenting decisions on what inheritances they leave their birth children as opposed to their step children. It's a lot more complicated than just sharing everything out equally - especially when some children will get another inheritance from a birth parent that the other children won't get.

You rushed to buy a house in a country you didnt know becsuse some guy, an estate agent told you so? I ve seen this in Spain. 'Estate agents' go to bars to meet their victims, they flatter them and the fools hand over their savings.
How can you buy house in a country you never lived in? There is lots of homework to do. It is not a pair of shoes.
And you really couldnt find any house at all to rent? Wow! No parent would rent near a lake? Erm, many of us in the cities live next to busy roads. That's what the house keys are for. You lock the front door so the small dcs cant go out.
Tbh stepdad or no stepdad if i wad your mum i wouldnt give you money untill you got down from the clouds.

Wouldn't expect my parents to bail me out, but would be pretty peed off if they'd bailed out my sibling and treated us unequally. Favouritism is an ugly trait in parenting in my opinion, especially when you had asked for their help. Not totally unreasonable tbh.

I'm curious after reading more of your thread, have you actually had an honest chat with your parents about how you get treated differently? I think I would have by now.

I am trying to figure out what the 'mistake' we made was.

Actually, I think there were loads of them.

Firstly, why didn't your DH go out first and find somewhere to live, instead of you all going together and having to stay in a hotel because you couldn't find anywhere else. Seems crazy to me to drag small children half way across the world without having finalised where you're going to live.

Also, why hadn't you done your research properly on the rental market? Very risky to go with a budget that limited your choices so much!

Why pay £££ to a relocation agency instead of putting the hard graft in yourself to do your research properly. The relocation agency clearly didn't help you much!

Why on earth would you buy a house so soon after arriving in a new country, without knowing enough about the market? And why would you believe the assurances of an estate agent about house prices rising quickly?

Why would you invest all your savings and take on a mortgage in a foreign country, where one of you was unable to work and the other could only work for one particular employer, and neither of you were entitled to any benefits? And why on earth would you do so without at least considering the possibility of accident or injury, and putting appropriate insurance in place?

Why would you expect your parents to invest their life savings into a property that you had tried and failed to sell? Even if the value has gone up now, there was no guarantee then that it would, and your track record of managing your finances wasn't exactly brilliant....

I think you were unlucky, insofar as your DH's accident was obviously very unfortunate, but you also sound spectacularly naive and very irresponsible. Perhaps that is why your parents were unwilling to help? Perhaps they feel - rightly or wrongly - that your DSis is a more deserving case?

Then again, maybe it is just favouritism. If that's so, that's incredibly unfair, but I still think yabu to have expected your parents to bail you out - and I say that as someone who would normally say that parents should always do what they can to help out their adult children.

I should think your parents are probably wondering how on earth they managed to raise two children without a shred of financial capability between them. They shouldn't have had to bail out either of you!

So glad others see you as lacking financial common sense too. That's the trouble with people lacking financial common sense, everything seems such a surprise and so unfair.

Your DH had been made redundant in the UK and you spent your nest egg equity money on relocating abroad
You chose to buy rather than a house in a country you hardly knew
You made a bad medium term investment
You were dependent on only one income because of the visa situation
Your husbands job was not protected and he had limited employee rights
You didn't have adequate insurance protecting his income
You knew how vulnerable your family was to your DH being made redundant because you'd just been through it in the UK.

This is what I mean, you're risk takers who could easily have thought things through and limited your risks but chose not to. You are not a sound investment for anyone to give money to.

You then ask your mother to buy your house for more than the market value at that time and when your DH earns less money than he started on, you still can't work because if the visa situation and you wonder why she wouldn't

My dad has money in the bank, it's his retirement fund! I would never expect him to lend it to me, although he might offer.

Your sibling jealousy is a whole other subject but I'm guessing she's not as entitled as you are and they probably see her as more of a victim rather than having made piss poor choices.

Well, my parents would have done it. There's no way in hell they would have stood by, not in those circumstances.

I can't really speak to whether you were too hasty in making any of your relocation-oriented decisions, but you had terrible, terrible luck wrt. your DH's accident and the lack of insurance in place (I get it that it was not your fault that he was not covered, as that was due to your status as non-citizens/new employees). I hope he's okay now. That alone must have been just awful, and you went through so much besides that.

Your proposal that they throw in 80K to keep you from losing their house doesn't sound like it was unreasonable at all. And if they had three times that much in the bank and were then willing to give almost that much to your sister, then it really was shitty and unkind of them not to help you -- particularly as you had a plan in place with multiple options for paying them back, whereas it sounds like she does not.

I'm really sorry. I hope things will soon begin to feel like they are looking up.

I think given the mess you were in it would be throwing good money after bad.
If either of my kids were going to be homeless I would bring them home.

What were you thinking taking all those risks with 2 dependants?

Of course you should have considered the risk of critical injury or death. You have to when you are traveling with kids.