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?

No-one's looking for a free ride, Port1ajazz. We just want the same advantages afforded to previous generations.

As the oldest baby boomer was 15 in 1960, you're a bit confused with your facts, Mythical. In fact the youngest boomers were born in 1964. Nice try but no cigar.

I don't understand the mindset of somebody wanting to gift something with those sorts of conditions attached. If we help our DC out in the future we will do so in a way that benefits where they are at that time: married, single, whatever. If we have enough to give them a deposit for a house then we have no say in what happens to that money once it changes hands.

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.

You are generalising! My parents' house, a 3 bedroom semi was 4 x my father's salary! They were lucky, my grandfather gave them half towards the house, but my father was not in a well paid job. They counted every penny they spent. They had no fridge until I was 2 - they got one for my brother's arrival! No central heating, one coal fire in the lounge and frost inside the windows upstairs in the winter! Usually, the cheapest supermarket clothes. No telephone until I went to university.

There was nothing easy about life in the 60s or 70s or 80s, if you didn't have much money, and its absolute nonsense to make out people did not suffer just as much in poverty then, as now! Watch "Long Lost Families" to see how many young single mothers had to give their children up for adoption, because there was no family or state support for them!

I think one thing not being factored in is a north/south divide. When I bought in 1981 at the age of 20 with my ex husband in the Midlands, our small 3 bed semi was indeed one and a half times my ex husbands salary, not 4 times joint income minimums needed today etc, and even now if I look at house prices there , we could buy similar on just over two times our joint income. fact is though I'm in my 50s now, second marriage , moved south and have never been in that position again and neither parents on either side ever offered to help. I was working full time with a 12 week old baby. I don't think parents should have to give houses up, but I do feel there are many who could help ease the burden far more than they do, without putting themselves into penury. The benefits many of them had and the luck of the property market is out of reach for so many,mregardless of how hard you work and my mother by the way never worked more than 14 hours a week apart from 3 y ars.

That's right checklist and we certainly didn't even think what our parents were doing with their property, never mind discuss/suggest! Our first fridge was a painted cold concrete slab in a walk-in pantry. Our second was an icy cold window ledge! Our toilet was outside with slugs crawling up the walls, we certainly didn't hang about in there! Quickest wee's I ever had.

I don't think the North/South divide matters though tbh.

Up here if you save you can buy a house out right if you are prepared to do some work, they vary from about 50k to 90k for a two up terrace, which is good enough for any generation to start with.
In the south that would give you a deposit for a house/flat depending on where you are.
it's still a property away from mummy and daddy.

And it annoys you because??

When you are a grandparent, living alone in your five bedroomed home, finally able to enjoy life after years of struggling and working your ass of, please do come back and tell us all how good you feel about making the decision to walk away from it all, hand it over like peanuts to your grown up children, and then go live in a bedsit.

So OP Do you expect your parents to sell their house and give you the money and they move to a retirement village?

Your parents struggled to get where they are in a comfortable retirement. Where you are right now is down the choices and decisions you made.

Beaver, tbf I don't think it is always down to choices and decisions nowadays. Some of them are really trying but getting nowhere. My own dd (26) is having to return home next week, she has no choice. What upsets me is the attitudes on here. They just can't see how really tough we had it and also how shameful, rude and ignorant it is to debate over parents/grandparents own money, lifestyle, etc. This truly is the entitled generation (on MN anyway).

All my siblings and I are divorced - thank god my parents didn't give us all money years ago and sell up the big family house!

We also have a large and valuable house which we have absolutely no intention of selling to give our children money.

They will inherit it all one day, when we no longer need it.

Alittlesandwich, glad to hear it, thank god some of us still have sense!

And whoever said their in laws consider them family.....they won't if you divorce, believe you me.

And whoever said their in laws consider them family.....they won't if you divorce, believe you me

But if you haven't had children and then you divorce, there is no longer any family connection, is there?

It's very different if you have children, of course, because you will always be the parent of your ex in-laws' grandchildren, so the children link you to the grandparents for ever.

I had 5.

They remain my ex in laws grandchildren but hell will freeze over before I and my DH receive a penny, quite rightly.

And in my vast experience of divorce in my family and friends, ex in laws are tolerated at best, ignored at worst.

My parents bought a 3 bed semi in London for £16,000 in the early 80s. It is now worth more than 3/4 of a million. My father was a teacher and my Mum had a part time admin job. One of my siblings has a similar lifestyle to theirs in the 80s but they and their spouse are in extremely high flying jobs.

In the area of London I grew up in 3 and four bed houses would be owned by couples who had jobs like a builder and a secretary or a nurse and a finance clerk. Those same people would also run a car and have at least one holiday a year.

Now those same houses are owned by high flying city brokers and presidents of companies.

There’s just no comparison. The types of people who used to live in those houses and have that lifestyle would be scraping by in a studio flat.

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?

bluelady if you employ through an agency they would drb check, check qualifications as you describe.
I would hope, if it was me without capacity, my DH and the dc would employ and keep an eye out, I would if was my DH who lost it and not through an agency although I’ve got contacts in the profession obviously. We privately employed my fil carer for extra hours when he needed them.

As for the costs £35k+ in Home and £10k for a carer. I would suspect your mothers care Home was more and not on the local authority list.

Xenia I’m not proposing that my dc live with us to provide care. As I said, I think we have enough to pay for a carer out of income. If we are unlucky enough to need more then the kids may have to chip in. They know this is what we want. They are very grateful to have had the help they had from us, I trust them to use their judgement because as someone said, plans can go awry.

There are many solutions to this problem. Who knows, legislation may change. It would be fairer for society I think to have a remote tax like a rise in inheritance tax that would pay for all rather than just taxing to the hilt those that have the misfortune to have a long decline.

Sorry bluelady should also mention that carers can come from your local council. You pay all or part of the cost according to your means.

I agree mightybucks, London house prices are insanely high!

It's amazing how places that were considered no-go areas back in the 70s and early 80s have now become so gentrified.

My family came from London. The terraced house where my father grew up was in a very poor run down area, it had no hot water, no heating and no bathroom or toilet, just an outside privy at the end of the garden. It's now worth about a million pounds.

My great grandmother's house sold in 1973 for £6k. It's now worth £1 million.

Another family member sold a house in London in 1980 for £80k. It's now worth £4.5 million

Prices are so high only because there are people prepared to pay that much. As a nation, we are far wealthier than we were 40 or 50 years ago.

gillybeanz.
I don't think the North/South divide matters though

The reason I was able to give my children a lump sum was because we moved to the SE in the 1980s and then moved back up north to retire and downsized. The difference in house prices freed up a lot of equity.

This chart is interesting, showing the cost of mortgage repayments in proportion to income over the last 35 years. Affordability has gone up and down, but is not as much higher now as you might think, due to interest rates being so low.

£10k a year for 24 hour care? What planet are you living on? My mum's care home was over £1k a week. Had she been cared for at home it would have cost around £700 a week. There would still have been heating, food, council tax to pay. Suddenly it's not looking like such a bargain. And she'd have been in splendid isolation which would have been awful for her. And I certainly wouldn't have had time to manage it all. No CQC checks either.

I think our plan of hanging on to our money is a much more sensible one. All our kids will have to do is move us into the home WE'VE chosen and arrange the direct debit. Better for them, better for us.

10K might pay for LA carers to come in twice a day to dress you and put you to bed for 20 minutes at a time.
My granddad was often still waiting at 11am for his carer to sort him out for the day and then some days they would arrive at 6pm to put him to bed. Times varied constantly

Full time round the clock care would be three carers at full time wages to cover weekends and holidays and day and night shifts - and an awful lot of coordination x however many years.

What advantages are you talking about ? Renting until you could afford a mortgage with three children to raise , waiting until your youngest child is four before you get your first car , going out to work nights when husband gets home ? The advantage of only having child benefit for the first child or no income support , no help with nursery child care ? Do you want these advantages ?

bluelady
10k would be currently the top contribution for a twice a day call from LA careers and a midday meals on wheels. Not for 24 hour live in care. We can easily afford this from income ( presumably we wouldn’t be going out for fancy meals or taking holidays at that stage) we could probably afford to contract more hours and have some overnights.

You have already said that you opted for a very luxurious home for your Mum that probably wasn’t on the LA list of choices.