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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

740 replies

Dojos · 12/04/2018 21:20

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?

OP posts:
Teateaandmoretea · 15/04/2018 09:22

Nursy don't you think you are more of a burden if you don't move into a care home to your dc not less? That they would be expected to care for you alongside full time work, their own dc? Unless your estate is enormous (and in which case 40% is lost through IHT anyway), once it has been split 6 ways they may well be better off concentrating on their own careers for money.

nursy1 · 15/04/2018 09:46

Well it’s complicated to explain without outing. Our estate is definitely not enormous. We have a house (not worth millions or anywhere near. We don’t live in an expensive area) and another which is split into rental properties. This is already in our children’s names but the income is ours. Their contribution would be needed if this income and our pension was not enough to pay for our care in our own home.
I rather hope we will have a quick end with a cancer that takes less than months or a quick heart attack. You win the end of life lottery if this is your fate :).
I don’t think that is an expensive burden between all 6. We gave them most of the excess money we had after downsizing. We have enough for our needs, we have final salary pensions which is something their generation will never have.
I would anticipate the cost of buying in care to be within the amount we already earn but perhaps not if we have to employ two people.

nursy1 · 15/04/2018 09:52

Look everyone has to come to their own decision on this, the problem is that many families never make the decision until it comes to a crisis. Some parents are arses (mine included which is part of the reason I’m doing what I do) some will say as bluelady that they would rather keep their money and live through dementia in a care home.
If you can, talk about it as a family.

Xenia · 15/04/2018 09:55

I agree with teacher22, gave children 25% pension lump sum to child for housing. Child now want more - no. My position is I pay for their university fees/ costs and they can live at home rent free for a year or 2 after university and then I provide a first property deposit then they are on their own as they have had some of the best opportunities on this planet in this family to give them a really good start, private schools, stable home, no student debt, London.... then it is up to them. Their brother has chosen to drive Ocado trucks after working as a post man and that is a perfectly valid choice. he owns a small house outright and lives very happily. If he or any of the other older children who have different careers which are better paid want to move a second time that will be up to them and I will do the same for the younger children if I have saved enough money towards their property by then.

On the nursy issue people just differ. My mother from a very poor home had seen far too many people's lives ruined by living with old parents. My friend at school had to share a bed as a 15 year old with her granny even. Whilst sometimes that can work it's not ideal and my mother always said - put me in a home eventually. She wanted to avoid being a burden. in the end she died quickly of cancer in her own house.

I would prefer to die at home in this house as my parents died in their house but who knows what will happen? We are the sort of family however that I am 100% sure the children would look after me if the need arose and have always been totally open. My parents always posted us copies of their wills if they changed them and I email them to the children too. No secrets and equal treatement between all the children no matter what they earn.

Xenia · 15/04/2018 09:56

..treatment....

MismatchedStripySocks · 15/04/2018 10:00

I get it OP. We have a decent size family home, plus somewhere we rent out. We will Pay both off by retirement. Then we plan to downsize the family home and give a lump sum to each of the kids towards their house deposit or lump sum off their mortgage. My husband’s nan owns a £650k house outright, bought a £250k house in cash and has hundreds of thousands in the bank but helps no-one. It grates a bit.

Bluelady · 15/04/2018 10:05

Nurse, how am I going to buy care in if I have no capacity? Who's going to employ the careers, pay them, make sure they're meeting the required standard, ensure they're not robbing me blind? I'd be on my own with them unsupervised, how is that going to work? And apparently the cost is about 70% of a care home.

As for this "bleeding away assets", which will also happen in your scenario, that's what they're for. That's the whole point of having money. Not handing it over to the next generation as some kind of bribe to look after me when I can't do it myself and become a complete burden on them.

And you're completely wrong about all care homes, there was no subsidy for local authority residents in the one I chose for my parents. The home just wouldn't take them. There were more than enough people prepared and able to pay because it was as good as such places can be.

I really think you're looking at your fate in old age through overly optimistic, rose tinted glasses. You may think you've got it all taped but there's a military saying "Perfect planning seldom survives enemy contact".

snewname · 15/04/2018 10:18

You'd need to pay more than two carers. Even with a long overnight shift you'd have to cover holidays and weekends.

Port1ajazz · 15/04/2018 10:21
  1. Your parents probably started out struggling the same way as any young people do 2. Your sense of entitlement shows that you expect a free ride 3. Why should anyone give up their home ( it's not just a money bank )to help pay your way 4. Your parents brought you into the world , nurtured you to adulthood and set you on your way . So stop whining and get on with what you earn or have on your own merit !
Xenia · 15/04/2018 10:24

Yes it tends to make most of us happier to think we are and ensure we are self sufficient entirely responsible for ourselves without reliance on anyone. the internal mental freedom is really worth trying to nurture in your children and giving them survival and life skills so whatever happens they can be self reliant.

TheMythicalChicken · 15/04/2018 10:38

Your parents probably started out struggling the same way as any young people do.

Not so. Our parents' generation had it much easier. You could buy a house for your annual salary, not 20 x your annual salary as it is now.

Thehappygardener · 15/04/2018 10:40

On the other hand .....

  1. On Gransnet today there are TWO threads about parents and grandparents who have helped out their children and/or grandchildren, have often downsized to do it, or given away inheritances that they had got, and are themselves then left impoverished. Some now aged 70+ need to get mortgages or equity release. In several cases, once children or grandchildren have the money, they then stop speaking to their parents or grandparents. Much, much more common than I had feared.
  1. My colleague, aged 62, was helped by her son to buy a flat after she invested all her money in a failing business, including a loan against her house which she then lost. He didn’t want his mum to live in rented accommodation and knew he could help, so he did.
  1. We have helped our adult children with house buying but, fortunately didn’t need to downsize to help. Tying the money up in a way to protect against divorce isn’t easy although I know some say it’s possible.

What I’m trying to say is that there are always two sides to every point of view and often considerably more than two sides. 🤔

Bluelady · 15/04/2018 10:53

When I bought my first house - at the age of 38 - it was four times my annual salary. It was 1991, just after the property crash. There were loads of repossessions and lots of people in negative equity. Interest rates were 15%. A lot of people lost everything. So, with the greatest respect, Mythical, you're talking bollocks.

EmilyAlice · 15/04/2018 11:08

Yes our first house was four times annual salary in the early seventies. I don’t know where people are getting their figures from.

findingmyfeet12 · 15/04/2018 11:08

There's are countless threads on mn about grandparents overstepping the mark with their children and grandchildren.

Reading those, it's clear why parents should keep their "wealth" for as long as possible as it might very well be the only thing they have to take care of them in their old age.

As a society we are increasingly intolerant of our elders, its all about us, our children and our friends. Yet we have the nerve to complain that they don't give us their cash at the earliest opportunity.

holiday101 · 15/04/2018 11:20

Yes finding it's sad. GP's should be pulling their weight, providing free childcare and financial help, but for forbid they offer advice. It's all me me me now.

HazelBite · 15/04/2018 11:21

I've come back to this thread (I posted a couple of pages back about how two of our 4 Dc's live, with their partners in our 4 bedroomed house)
The dc's who live at ours live rent free this is to enable them to save for deposits etc, hopefully they will all be able to move out soon and DH can make decisions about our future.
So many of my friends have financially helped their dcs out to their own detriment, they also provide childcare to the extent they have no energy to enjoy their spare time.
Whilst I and my friends love their gandchildren and love seeing them, I sometimes think that their parents don't realise what a physical imposition the childcare actually is on the grandparents, however how physically fit the grandparents appear to be.
Each generation has its own problems and I don't think you can say any generation has it easier than the previous one, circumstances are different for each one

Port1ajazz · 15/04/2018 11:21

You weren't there So you don't know !

Teateaandmoretea · 15/04/2018 11:34

I rather hope we will have a quick end with a cancer that takes less than months or a quick heart attack. You win the end of life lottery if this is your fate.

Hmmmmm I think you want to be careful what you wish for, that is only if your death isn't premature.

peacheachpearplum · 15/04/2018 12:09

Not so. Our parents' generation had it much easier. You could buy a house for your annual salary, not 20 x your annual salary as it is now.

If only. Don't know why anyone would need a mortgage if that was the case.

TheMythicalChicken · 15/04/2018 12:10

Bluelady, I am talking about in the 1960s, when most Baby Boomers bought their houses.

Port1ajazz · 15/04/2018 12:17

Why don't you snowflakes who want a free ride stop wasting your time on whinging and get on with life !

jamoncrumpets · 15/04/2018 12:25

All the posts about 'tying money up to protect DC against divorce' really piss me off. My DH's family are way better off than mine, and in a position to help us financially. They haven't, but that's fine, we don't expect them to. But if they were to help us I would be really annoyed to be locked into an agreement that would leave me with nothing, after twelve years of being with their DS and raising their two grandchildren. I do more than my bit for this family, if they gift him something they gift it to all of us - as a family.

SoyDora · 15/04/2018 12:34

I do more than my bit for this family, if they gift him something they gift it to all of us - as a family

Exactly. My IL’s are very generous to us a family. They wouldn’t dream of trying to protect their gifts from me. They see me as part of their family.

DaphneduM · 15/04/2018 12:40

jamoncrumpets and SoyDora - absolutely - it would be an insult to the other party to try to tie it up - we just took it all on trust when we gifted to daughter and son-in-law - he is the son we never had and we love him