AIBU to wonder why retired parents live in big houses and don't help family?

[Dojos]

Not judging the choice but i can't help finding it odd that you can have two sets off grandparents living in and owning several properties and adult children both in full
Time work struggling to make ends meet.

Bright enough and big hearted enough to know inheritance is a gift not a right, and rightly so. I'm just curious how parents can sleep In 5 bedroom homes they don't need at night whilst their good steady grown up kids struggle a whole Gang into a 2 or 3 bed semi.

I guess that applies further - why do the elderly generation not downside and keep the lifecycle of a family home going?

I have always wondered why we don't pay capital gains tax on house appreciation profits. The current system encourage people to spend more on housing and less investing in businesses, savings, etc. It also perpetuates the prices differences between North and South, good/poor school catchments, generational inequalities, etc. A lot of these problems might improve if profits were taxed

The problem with every generation is that there are extremes within it.
There are Gen Ys/millennials who work hard and live good lives while there are some who want life handed to them on a plate, paid for by others
There are baby boomers who support and help their families and there are greedy ones who don't and want life handed to them on a plate, paid for by others.

Some things never change

I think if you were in council property struggling to get by and maxing credit cards every week then I’d wonder why they didn’t get more involved. Perhaps they want you to stand on your own two feet and just maybe it would be an insult to downside and offer family more? They worked hard to get where they are and it’s lovely to have a big home for gatherings and family staying. Homes have memories and energetic ties that make us feel settled and grounded.

Expecting a person to sell their family home that they have worked on and invested their time and money in is ridiculous. Just put yourself in their shoes for a second and you can see that.

However... intergenerational wealth inequality is a massive issue in this country. So saying 'i worked hard for this, I earnt it' is an oversimplification because someone born a generation later could work just as hard and have no house to show for it.

I would much rather pay a 25yr mortgage of 20k at 20% (336pcm) than 150k at 2%. (£636 pcm)

When your initial amount is low, the interest rate can be really high without the total cost being high AND the interest rates are likely to never get higher and probably get much lower over the years. Today is high prices and low interest - sounds better but it really isnt, and that low interest rate will probably only go UP.

StormTreader yep, not sure why so many fail to grasp this. Also it’s highly unlikely that property bought today will see anything like the growth of the last 10 years.

GreenTulips in answer to your previous question** about renting all your life and claiming housing benefit in your old age v selling your home to pass money on to kids leaving the state to fund your care.... a fundamental difference with renting v owning a home is that 40% (give or take) of all the rent you pay goes to the state via the LLs income tax, as does 28% of the capital gains on the property.

Still lots of people posting about the bizarre 'expectations' of the younger generations...but does anyone on here actually have children that they know has these expectations??
Will my children expect us to downsize our humble home and leave ourselves financially exposed in old age? No of course they don't. As I'm sure most people wouldn't.
But as parents, if we do have anything to pass on, that doesn't leave us destitute or without a decent home, then yes without a shadow of doubt, we will be doing what we can. At a time when they and their potential young families might really benefit most. Not when we are 6ft under, and their own kids are adults too! All hypothetical of course...now where's that lottery ticket

I don’t agree that people should have to downsize to help their kids. BUT I do find it sad that those with plenty of money don’t want to help their kids who are struggling. When my now DH went to uni, his parents, despite having plenty of money, never even offered to buy him a text book. They frequently took the p out of him for going to “school” but when he graduated and got a job they were oh so proud of course and told all their friends. The year he graduated they upsized to a larger house. When we as FTBers bought our own house my DH wanted to take some furniture from his old bedroom, his parents wouldnt even let him take his old chest of drawers.

So YANBU OP. My children will work hard and won’t be given anything on a plate but I will continue to work and save for them.

We have retired early, big house, second property, money in the bank. We're working class people, first in the family to uni, worked hard, been lucky, done well.

Absolutely we'll be giving chunky house deposits to all our four kids and helping them in any way we can. Ours are reasonably hard working decent people; but they will likely be less affluent than we are through no fault of their own.

StormTreader
Average wage when a house was 20k was £5720 a year so you need to pay the mortage of 336pcm with a montly income of 476.66pcm

The current average wage is £29934 so to pay the £636 pcm with a montly income of 2494.5

Now take into account the 80's income was one person and modern is two so to pay the £636 pcm you have £4989 pcm

So mortage to wage ratio in 1980 was 70% of ones income used to pay that mortage

Modern day is 13% of ones income to pay the mortage, even if it was modern one person income paying it that would be 26% of the income paying for the mortage.

All info comes from here
www.abcdiamond.com/average-uk-wage-and-salary/

Also cost of living is cheaper now so spending that huge portion of income on a mortage was way harder a life than now.

So please don't think you parents had it so easy to take care of you, it was way harder in their generation and they didn't have luxuries of modern life and women the freedom you have now.

LaurG, I'm glad your parents are happy "rolling about in their wealth". Good luck to them. Well said Bumper1969 and Jon66. This generation will go down in history as the most entitled ever! All they seem to do is show extreme forms of jealousy, have their nose in phones all the time (even ignoring their own babies and small children) and posting on mumsnet. In the 60's and 70's, even if there had been computers and mumsnet, we wouldn't have had the time!

My inlaws inherited money from their parents and bought a monstrous 10 bed 5 bathroom mansion that they rattle around in the 2 of them. They can barely afford the upkeep yet don't seem to want to downsize despite constant complaints that its too big. By contrast, we live 4 of us in a shoe box sized flat with no garden. I don't expect anything from them but I could do with a bit less of the very insensitive grumbling about having too much space.

I have always wondered why we don't pay capital gains tax on house appreciation profits.
We do for second homes. I feel that I pay tax enough tax....on my income, then on materials to improve my home, and on paying people to make improvements when I can't do them myself....then you want me to be taxed again on the increased value afterwards!
Appreciate some profit is due to general rises in house values, but most people have spent quite a bit of money on their home too, and you can't easily separate the two.

You can't pass on your money and leave the state to fund your care. It's easily traceable and local authorities are totally on to that kind of fraud these days. It's morally reprehensible too, why should our children benefit from our money and expect the taxpayer - all of you - to pay for our care? And, last but not least, I for one don't want to end my days in the kind of vile shit hole the local authority deems adequate if they're footing the bill.

Sometimes I forget how skewed towards the middle class this place can be.

My grandmother lived in her six bedroom house as long as she could. Having so much space meant that several of her four children and nine grandchildren could come and stay at once. Spending weeks there as a child were really magical with lots of my cousins around. None of us begrudged her that space when it was a gathering point for the whole family. OP, you have too narrow a view of what a home is for.

If you want to have choice on your later life care you need money and your money earns more in the house than the bank.

If your folks sell their house to get you on the property ladder will you remortgage to pay for their care? Hmmmm?

I’m in my 30s. I am an adult. I am responsible for my own life. I do not want my parents money.

heslimedme
With the way marriage is treated today can you not see why they might be hesitant to buy you a house, you leave your husband and now he has no house they are in downsized house with a lot smaller inhertance to give and he has to rent while the "family home" they paid for he cannot use, he cannot move back with them because their new house is too small.

Kopa It was to illustrate the point - actual prices were lower and the usual interest was more like 15% according to my parents. 20k at 15% is £256 which is about 50% of income, matching most rents or mortgages today, and every scrap of capital that pays down will drop the total and repayment amount quickly.

I also dispute that "current average wage" is £30k. It might be the mean, but that site itself says that the mean is about 25% higher than the median, which is probably higher again than the mode. A lot of families are on not much more than minimum wage.

"Now take into account the 80's income was one person and modern is two so to pay the £636 pcm you have £4989 pcm"

Also, nice try slipping this in, as if the norm of both people having to work is in some way a benefit. Your generation could have had both people working too. But then you'd have to have paid the huge childcare costs, which you seem to have unaccountably not mentioned?

StormTreader
The average in 1980 is also above the median, point is in the 1980's you actually had to a higher percentage of your income to pay the mortage.

Yet you think of the price of the house was cheap but don't consider the wages where poor and interest rates massive.

Parents in law and my parents live in 4-5 bedroom houses, we (2 kids) in a 2 bedroom house. a) we work. we have no time to clean, maintain etc a big house with a huge garden. they do. b) its their home, not mine. i have no right to it. they have helped us a lot already (and no, they don't provide childcare! )

There was no childcare. I well remember the nightmare of school holidays, without my mum I'd have been completely buggered. Why can't people understand just how different society was then?

Creambun2, re your misquote of me this morning. Read what I said properly please. You're not really helping the "dumbed down" image some people have of today's generations! My post was simply trying to show a little of what life used to be like, absolutely nothing to do with iphones or buying houses.

StormTreader
I actually think two income families was a huge mistake, it just increased the prices of stuff due to increase in spending money and disadvantaged children as they are no longer raised by their mothers but childcare.

But ask people would they take lower price houses if it meant going back to single income families and most here would be outraged.