To wonder how to help MIL...she's stuck

[FortunesFave]

She is 73 and still works 3 days a week in a busy shop. She'd like to stop...she gets very tired and she also babysits for SIL who home eds her child. We're in Australia.

What's stopping MIL from retiring is her mortgage. She lives alone in a house which was part of her settlement when she left FIL. She and FIL are on good terms but he won't help her financially. The house was paid off when they split but she's taken money out of the capital.

She had it valued as she thinks she'll have to sell it in order to retire. She was very disapointed at the price...it was valued at 550.

She thought that as it's in a very nice area, she'd get more like 70 or even 80. I knew she wouldn't as the house has never been updated at all since it was built in the early 70s....same kitchen cabinets and same tiles etc.

Since the valuation she's been distrssed as she can't afford to stay in that area near SIL and FIL (who she is good mates with) and she's lived there all her life.

She COULD buy a very nice house near DH and I though....and have change. But she's reluctant as SIL does rely on her...she's a lone parent and they are close.

She asked FIL if he'd let her build a house on his land (very big) and he refuses point blank.

What she's now doing is paying out to improve the house...she's updated the ensuite with new tiles and toilet and now she's asking DH to build her a big pergola thing off the back of the house onto the patio.

The trouble is, these improvements won't raise the value of the house will they? People will just see the old kitchen and the dated doors etc?

She's wasting her money and she's still knackered from work. DH wants to tell her plainly that she's got her head in the sand and that she's just putting off the inevitable. There's no way she can stay in that area...when we've asked her how she'd feel m,oving near to us, she was positive about it but keeps swinging and getting cold feet. I really feel for her as she's obviously very worried....

I really dont think it's your responsibility to fix this for her. She was set up but took money out for holidays. That's her decision so now she has to work until her mortgage is paid. Or she can sell and get something smaller or in a less expensive area. Its not like she was left in the shit and bas no options.

FIL has basically given her a slap in the face with his response - "yea...i expect you to care me and SIL and DGC but i'm not helping you in any way to make it easier"

Why on earth is FIL the unreasonable one? He's already giving her free accommodation and paying all of her bills for her. SIL isn't a dependent child - she's a grown adult with her own dependent child. Just because an adult would like their parents to support them financially for life, it doesn't mean they have a right to expect it. The only person she has a right to expect financial support from is her child's father, if he is still alive.

FIL seems to be being treated as a golden goose by his (still legally) wife and daughter; just because he has a load of money doesn't give them the entitlement to take him for every penny, especially when he's already spent so much to put them in very privileged positions.

Just a word of warning, though: you say about nobody caring about inheriting from MIL as FIL is so rich, but I can see it a mile off that, when he dies, SIL will throw her arms up in horror at being expected to give up or share HER lifelong home - as well as the entitlement to all the necessary funds to run it for the rest of her life (and probably her DC's whole lives as well); and if MIL is still around, she will expect anything that SIL does grudgingly concede.

SIL will see it that she needs it whereas you don't - all because, when you became adults, you started to live like adults and take on adult responsibilities - which she has never felt the need to consider doing. I also agree with the PP that she and MIL sound like they share a similar sense of entitlement and a right to be looked after financially for life. That's very probably the cause of their spikiness towards each other - their personalities are too similar and neither wants to share being the centre of attention.

Sorry, I said child (singular) a couple of times, when it should have been children - but it all still stands.

SIL will throw her arms up in horror at being expected to give up or share HER lifelong home

FIL has privately spoken to DH about this and has made it clear that his estate is for DH AND SIL and that SIl will need to move out in order to sell the house. I don't care to be honest...I've told DH that he should expect some tantrums when the time comes but in all
honesty, I think it will be fine. What can she do? Not much really.

FIL has shown DH his will and told him where to find it.

Good for you both standing firm on that, however much she will try to paint you as the bad guys. She could have accepted the lesson of being an adult gradually - and it sounds like she has been given a huge amount of leeway with which she could have eased herself in gently over an extended period that the vast majority of people aren't lucky enough to have - but she has actively chosen the massive shock to the system and (as she will see it) being forced to start all over again from scratch in middle age. It's not just the financial support from FIL; I bet she'll be wailing about everybody having a duty to step in and help her with childcare if/when MIL dies, or at least becomes too ill to continue providing it (the latter of which doesn't sound too far off, from what you say).

Even splitting FIL's estate 50/50 isn't really fair, considering all that she's taken from him over the years that your DH has been an adult and provided for himself and his children. She'll likely be hugely affronted to 'only' get 50% and won't have any idea that her fair share would realistically be way less than that.

Roll she really has no idea. I feel for her in some ways though because she did have some mental health problems when she was much younger...and they impacted her ability to move out and get a life.

She has friends though and a part time job and is confident to speak her mind and so on. She's just...stuck. I think it would be an enormous shock to her system if she had to manage her own place, the bills and maintenance that comes with that and pay for everything herself.

She's always telling us how she saves up in three different areas...one for herself for spending, one for the future and one for 'emergencies" though since she's never had to buy a new boiler or washing machine, I can't imagine what emergencies she's saving for!

It winds me up really...but I try not to be bothered by it and see her good points. She's bossy though...so it's hard!

Is the block big enough to subdivide? When I lived in Sydney, I lived on an average size block in an older suburb, and it actually surprised me that it would have been large enough to subdivide.

She could think about selling half the land or keeping the minimum legally allowed for herself and putting a granny flat on it.

@billy1966

I also think you should step back.

You sound very kind but she isn't interested in hearing what you have to say.

She could get an estate agent in to tell her the facts re investing money in a house that will most likely be sold as a site.

Stop engaging and giving advice a wait it out.

She has options, she just wants different ones.

You put it better that I was thinking, but stay out of it

Has she looked into what price she’d get selling the land with a DA in place for a new fancy house?