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?

Is this a British way of thinking?
The approach to houses, and in many cases family, over here seems markedly different than in Ireland.

Very true TammySwan... I had a mortgage when I was aged 20 and pregnant with my first. It was a lovely 2 bed terraced in Nottingham. I was earning 7K per annum and my partner 10K. We bought the property for 32K.

In spite of paying the entire deposit and for most of the appliances and furniture I signed it all over to him stupidly thinking that I'd be able to get a mortgage again if I wanted.

Pillock.

Oh it’s the fault of immigrants and working women, but Brexit will fix it?

Wow. I have no words. You know the tories have just handed back a ton of money to the treasury, set aside for building new homes, because they just didn’t do it? But sure, blame immigrants.

TammySwansonTwo

Yes more income meant higger offers on property and caused the massive rises in prices in the 90's and 00's

The reason the biggest increases happened in those times was stock decreased due to immigrants and demand meant duel income families offered more becuase they had the money.

And when the grandparents are no longer healthy, and are very elderly, and have no money left to make life easier for themselves because they've given it all away, will you find it sad when their healthy, not elderly grandchildren absdolutely won't look after their grandparents at all?

IWell I'd expect the children to help, not the grandchildren, considering that many grandchildren are about 10 when granny and grandad start to need help and yes, if someone took the help of their parents in looking after their kids, and then refused to help out when they were no longer healthy, I wouldn't just find it sad I'd find it deplorable.

Also not sure where I said about giving money away?! I don't actually agree with the OP re the money aspect. At all

I just think it's sad when you have grandparents perfectly able to look after their grandkids but refuse to. I'm lucky with my ILs that they adore watching ours and my nieces and nephews, they find as much pleasure in it as the kids do. My own Mum point blank refuses to watch them for every 20 minutes, and yet she can't understand why she doesn't have a bond with them like their other grandma

Because they worked bloody hard so why shouldn't they live where they like?

There was a similar thread to this a few weeks ago where a poster suggested that people living in social housing that was too big for them should be made to downsize to make the properties available for families. The general consensus seemed to be that they should be made to move into smaller places. How is this different? Why should anyone who has lived and brought up their children have to move because someone else thinks they should ?

Tell you what if I have earned my house and spent years raising my family and paying the bills I am sure as shit not selling it unless one of my kids was absolutely desperate and there was no other way. I would consider it well earned, full of my memories and my home that I would want to keep until such times as I am unable etc.

AIBU yes you are!!!

Livnatmum
They didn't pay or work for those houses, they are for the social good so should be opened up to british families in need.

Let me get this straight - so it wasn’t the people buying up property to rent out / flip for profit that was the problem, but immigrants?

That’s quite some revisionist nonsense you’re peddling.

There was a similar thread to this a few weeks ago where a poster suggested that people living in social housing that was too big for them should be made to downsize to make the properties available for families. The general consensus seemed to be that they should be made to move into smaller places. How is this different? Why should anyone who has lived and brought up their children have to move because someone else thinks they should?

This is because people in social housing are not fully human, and are judged by different standards to those applied to private renters and homeowners.

Hmm. Throw out an - at best 'entitled' but more likely - 'goady' OP, and then disappear.

Of course YABU and ridiculous if not just taking a lazy opening for an article you can't even be bothered to write.

I don't see how the two are connected. We had negative equity with our first house and rented a tv and video, had hardly any furniture apart from what we were given, and we were earning professionals. The inflation in the early nineties was horrendous and we paid most earnings into the mortgage - before the mortgage rates came down to low levels like now.
Times were different, you did have to make do very much, which is forgotten now. It was a big event to buy a CD player etc. We didn't have central heating- I lit a fire every day in a woodburner.
That's not to say I have a problem with that - but before it descends into Monty Python just setting the record straight. Most people who have houses now were broke and had to wait ages to get things back in the 80sand 90s.
So I don't understand why nowadays it's a thing to expect to have everything from your parents OP? We had to graft and earn, save and make do as well. Now we have to work until age 68!

TammySwansonTwo
You don't think immigrants need houses so people bought houses for them to rent, taking stock out of familys hands and therefore increasing demand and price.

Let me get this straight - so it wasn’t the people buying up property to rent out / flip for profit that was the problem, but immigrants?

Us immigrants, up to no good as usual by both taking up all the council houses and buying the houses so that no British people can afford them, whilst simultaneously scrounging all the benefits and taking all the jobs.

We're a tricksy lot! Good job Brexit's going to fix us all, as long as everyone ignores the land border with the EU.

HolyShmoly
You didn't buy them you took council stock and needed to rent places, leading to people buying buy-to-let to rent to immigrants and British people that now where not able to get into council stock.

Leading to huge increase in demand and pushed up prices that now two income families could afford.

This is because people in social housing are not fully human

Waves.

It's true you know. We're not. Not anything.

Oh fuck I need to go to bed.

Blaming immigrants is insane. Blame Thatcher for selling off all the council housing stock. Blame greedy bastards buying up first time buy properties to rent out with someone else paying their mortgages. But no, let's not address a modicum of thought to the issue when we can blame Johnny Foreigner. What a crock of shit.

intheblackhole this is exactly what I’m talking about. I’m sure it was difficult when interest rates were higher - the point is that you could actually borrow enough based on your salary to buy a property in the first place. That’s not the case for most people these days and god knows what it will be like for my kids. And at what age do you think they’ll be able to retire on a state pension, if ever?

I genuinely think that some people of my parents generation do not understand the current state of affairs with all this “we worked hard for what we had”. Do you honestly think people aren’t working hard now, often in less stable jobs? My mum worked for the same company from 16 until she retired in her 50s due to illness. She passed away at 61.

I know that my kids will have to work their asses off and will likely never own a home until we are gone and they inherit ours, unless we do something to help them out, because that’s the reality for the majority of young people in this country right now.

And this isn’t about me being entitled. I wasn’t expecting to inherit a penny from my mum (she had a huge interest only mortgage outstanding after remortgaging repeatedly when her health deteriorated - her life insurance covered it with less than two years until her mortgage was due to be repaid). I stopped working so that I could care for her through an horrific battle with cancer. Once I left home at 18, I never asked her for a penny, nor did I expect it. But having been through all that, if there’s a way I can live comfortably and help my kids get on the ladder, I’d rather do that then wait til I’m gone.

Bluelady

If people didn't buy buy-to-let where would have the immigrants lived?

Oh I see - those buy to let moguls weren’t just after a quick buck, and weren’t motivated by having very poor people essentially buying them a house.... no, they did it because immigrants needed somewhere to live!

It all makes sense now! Why didn’t I see it before?!

Well said "bluelady"

TammySwansonTwo

In 2010-13 when prices crashed you should have bought, house prices went as low as they cost in late 90's you could have got a bargin.

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

What can they do? Give you their house? Sell their house and give the money to you?

Whilst some of you are suggesting that us BB's had it easy in the 1960/70's, think about the crippling interest rates we paid. We worked hard (yes we bloody did) to pay off our mortgages and save a bit of a nest egg. We did this by scrimping and saving, nobody gave us anything, we managed on low wages, without help, mainly because our parents had nothing to give us! And what do we find now, this hard earned nest egg is dwindling away because the interest rates are so low....don't me laugh, you who are criticising don't know the meaning of gong without!