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?

We both worked in the 80s by the way full time and like others on this thread went back to work very very soon after babies came (2 weeks in my case and 6 weeks or 3 months was very common and few could afford any longer).

On helping children a good socialist would think that morally wrong of course - better you keep your money and give the state 40% when you die - inheritance tax.

Also my father used the entirety of his life savings on his at home dementia care - £130,000 in his last 12 months alone which is fine - we did not need or expect a penny but people do need to bear in mind that the elderly may need their cash for that and we were on the verge of helping him to consider equity release when he died (not that there is that much equity in NE houses).

Lots of pages and lots of posts, hopefully this has been covered. I’ve worked with seniors helping them into either assisted living or long term care facilities and the results are that; moving isn’t easy, getting rid of possessions is sad as no one wants the items the seniors saved, family are often too busy to take on a full move. There are huge costs associated with moving and with the depreciation of their income paying packers/movers/real estate/ deposit and other fees seems ludicrous to them.
House rich on paper is not the same as cash rich. Many are extremely careful with their money.
Now my experience is with seniors born in the 20’s and 30’s.
Friends born in the late 40’s early 50’s often would like to move but stay in the same area. They tend to be again house rich, cash poor. Bungalows sell for the same price (due to demand) and need decorating or structural work. So downsizing when your coping makes no sense if your unable to release significant sums.
I don’t know anyone who doesn’t help children or grandchildren to the best of their ability. Most don’t believe throwing cash at family in need is helpful but will feed and shelter readily. But grandchildren rarely want to stay and help grandma...after all their house smells funny, the TV is antique and they eat “funny” (white fish boiled in milk).

No, all this talk about the older generations ripping off the young? Both my in laws left school at 14 or 15 with no qualifications. My Fil worked in a manual trade - they lived a hand to mouth existence, where he worked all the hours and did all the work on the house himself. The children had one school uniform, one set of play clothes, never went on holiday, never had birthday presents never mind parties after about 7....

They certainly could not afford a private pension. He died in his early 60s. I guess there are millions of working class OAPs like them, living on the state pension, who didn't get to grammar school never mind university, and to talk about them as wealthy baby boomers is absolute nonsense!

Ofcourse another point is you well may give up your cherished home only to see you child get divorced and have to sell it to fund two houses.

MIL is now living on the state pension and some pension credits in her 90s!

Childrenofthestones

Sell it, not a chance it's the family home exDIL gets to live it for another 10 years, while you cannot even have your son move home because you downsized. He must rent now and you cannot help him becasue all your equity went to the house exDIL now occupies.

Massive generalisations going on in your question OP, but I'll try to answer.

It's very likely the parents (as we did) helped their grown up offspring by putting them through university and helped them with the deposit for their first homes.

Prior to that maybe they had those children privately educated, paid for their hobbies etc etc etc. The list just goes on and on.

Once those children grow up, it's time for them to do just that - grow up and stand on their own two feet. If they are cramped in their 'too small' house then it's up to them to do something about it. If you can't afford a decent sized home then have fewer children! The Bank of Mum and Dad has to close some time.

As regards downsizing and releasing the large family home, well that is entirely the parents' choice isn't it? Personally I would hate to be stuck in some tiny retirement flat.

I have the opposite issue, after DM died my DF downsized to such an extent that I can't stay at his home with my husband and two young children (I'm pregnant with DC2) - there's just no room! He has a 3 bed, but it's 1 double bedroom (his and his DP's), a single room currently used by DBro and another single room which contains a double bed and about 15cm of space on one side to squeeze through.

He left a lovely four bed detached house with a huge garden, but says the upkeep was 'too much' (it wasn't, his DP just didn't want to live there). His DP's family all live in the same town so I think they just didn't think through future additions to our side of the family when he bought it. Recently he mentioned something about staying at his house, I said 'Yes, but where do we all sleep now there are going to be four of us?' and you could see it suddenly dawning on him... 'Fuck, there's actually nowhere for them to sleep!'

DazzlingMilton I couldn’t agree more. It’s really sad that your FIL has so little self awareness.

I just don’t understand how people just race to say how hard it was for them without trying to empathise with the current young generation.
For one thing my father had a corporate job in London (with final salary pension) and was home by 5.30 every day. My husband leaves at 6.30am and is home most nights by 8.30. It would be almost impossible to get a second job given those hours.

My mother had help from family and family friends when we were little. That’s pretty rare now. My MIL looked after her grandchildren every day after school. Those grandchildren now have to pay (exorbitant) nursery fees for their children.

@Mumto2two no, I use the refuse collection for about 12 weeks out of 52 weeks but pay full council tax because I'm on my yacht in Europe the rest of the year. In answer to the person querying my figures lots of people started work at 14, and very few actually went to university.

Kopa
" point is in the 1980's you actually had to a higher percentage of your income to pay the mortage. "
I disagree, with the example I gave you in my last post.

"But ask people would they take lower price houses if it meant going back to single income families and most here would be outraged"
I dont think they would, because those lower-priced houses are the exact same houses that are expensive now. Would I like to have a house for half the price so I dont have to work? Yeah, ok!

I think they would be utterly outraged. And t wouldn't happen, people are used to the two income pattern now. Women, quite rightly, value their independence so if houses suddenly halved in value, women wouldn't rush like lemmings to stop work.

If houses halved in value the people it would really hurt are those who have bought in the last few years. The impact on older people who have paid off their mortgages would be negligible.

StormTreader
Thank Feminism for that. People have said if brexit crashes the economy and stops immigration we might have to go back to single income model and larger families with a stay at home mom so you might get your wish yet.

Bloody hell!!! My mum has a big house and a second property . She lives in it on her own and tens the other one out . I wouldn't dream of expecting her to sell up and give money to me . She worked bloody hard all her life and it's HER money . She can gamble it away for all I care .... I hate the entitled generation.... work harder , get two jobs ,three if need be ..;don't expect handouts!!!!!

I paid for my trio’s uni education in full. They started off debt free. All in their own homes, my 35 year old is even mortgage free.
Mine are fine, I’m not responsible (other than being compassionate and a tax payer) for the woes of millions.

Article in the DT today reckons that the sandwich generation, who may be retired in their 60s spends about £4k a year helping out their kids, grandkids, and their parents!!! Don't see how that is selfish.

£4K sounds on the low side. Are they factoring in childcare?

MIL and FIL lived in a lovely country house. They were quite miserly all round with money. But the location of the house was a dream.
DH only child so it all came our way in the end. Meanwhile looking back we had a lovely place to take the children to visit when they were small (sadly their grandparents died when they were still at school) and which I know they have many happy memories of.
Alternatively they could have bailed out when we first had kids, given us the money then and lived in a tiny bungalow where we could never come and visit.........

The entitlement of some people.
I have owned properties for decades. I have lived in every one of these houses. I offered one such property to a younger relative with 2 children who was in a very small rented flat. They did not want a property that I had chosen many years previously. They went homeless to get the council to rehome them. They got a house for that number of children. There are now more children and they are trying to get another house. The house offered to them would have been big enough for their current situation (or even with more children) but the location was not their choice.
Currently I want to move house and therefore another bigger house will be going available but it will not be offered to any relative. They had a good chance to make a home in a larger house but knocked that back. The newly vacant property was bought many years ago so that is even less choice of theirs.
I don't like to see relatives struggling with things. I don't like being pressured into things I don't want to do. As people who have never bought a house they do not understand the value of one area against another area, I presume.
Another pertinent point is that I get no help from the younger relatives so I don't feel that I should help them under demand! I would have loved to have helped but offer made was refused.

We would be upset if the IL’s downsized as it would mean we’d rarely see them. They live abroad and we wouldn’t be able to afford flights and accommodation with any regularity.

I'm struggling a bit now - with maintaining my own house - and may well downsize soon for a range of reasons.

My dad is sitting on some assets - his home and some investments. It has never crossed my mind that he should give me any of his hard earned savings. For one thing, he is 88 and has suffered poorer health over the last year or so, and may well live with declining health and increasing care needs for another 10 years. He may well need all of that money! Good for him that he was so abstemious and careful over so many years that he has put that safety net in place for himself.

So if he gave away his money now, we would have to ensure that as his children we would pay for all those costs between us. It could be a very big bill - care homes costing anywhere from £500 a week to £1,700 in this area depending on the level of nursing or dementia care required.

Our generation expect more and spend more. We dont save as much as the generations before and then expect them to foot out bills?

DazzlingMilton I would just like to point out that not all landlords pay tax on their rental Income! It is estimated that a substantial number think they can get away with not declaring it, hence a crackdown by HMRC at the moment.

I heard just recently of one doctor (A) telling another doctor (B) that she was mad to be declaring her rental income - 'We never have!' This was told to a relative by doctor B.
Anecdotally I have heard of plenty of other cases. It has been far too easy for a long time to get away with it.

There is the thorny issue of paying for care - if you an older person. If you suddenly downsize or sign your 5 bed detached house over to the grandchildren. Then you need to go into residential care you can be stuck with a huge charge despite no longer owning the assets, as some LAs will consider that a deliberate deprivation of assets. So older people may feel obligated to keep the property to be sold on after their death to pay for care, some may have used equity release schemes again leaving them with little actual equity left in their property.

It is easy to make judgements, but you need the facts to really understand each individual situation - things are rarely as clear cut as we want them to be.

It still seems very abiut face to me- as parents you look after children into adulthood, these days it's usually often living together in the adult children's twenties , but in our older age it's the children that start to care, chip in, pay back, worry about us!! Nit ask can we have your house and money!
Blinkin cheek, earn your own.

not all landlords pay tax on their rental Income! It is estimated that a substantial number think they can get away with not declaring it, hence a crackdown by HMRC at the moment.

For the purpose of this conversation let’s very simply assume the proportion of money from the rental market going to the state (via LL income tax and CGT) is higher than that of homeowners (zero).