Retired parents UPSIZING house

[toastlover100]

I’m pretty sure IABU.

My parter and I are late 20s, renting, good careers but still waiting for salaries to increase much.

We are engaged and trying to save for a very small wedding, we know we could just go the registry office but that’s not what we want.

We are also trying to save a house deposit, but it’ll take a long time on current earnings. Hoping to maybe get there by mid thirties.

We would love to have children in the next couple of years but the likelihood is we will still be in our rented flat.

My parents are retired from reasonable jobs but never high earning at all. Through some luck, paying off their mortgage, house price rises, they are about to buy a house worth around a million. This is a huge upsizing.

AIBU to begrudge them this?
We are struggling to make any headway financially, spending thousands a year on rent, wanting a family but not being in the right position etc, whilst my parents are about to spend a huge amount of savings I didn’t know they had to upsize to a large family home they really don’t need.

I understand what you are saying @toastlover100 and empathise a great deal. I think that younger generations have been dealt a very poor hand compared to their parents/ grandparents.
I can't imagine not helping my children as much as I good (assuming that they were also working hard themselves).

My parents gave me a substantial deposit ( I got it in my 40s though) so I can see why you are a bit miffed but it is their money and you will more than likely inherit from them when they pass away, they have worked hard and deserve to enjoy their lives.
Have they given a reason for wanting to upgrade

@Meowandthen I do agree with this. There seems to be a lot more crap to spend money on too these days but I agree that people could easily cut back more and don’t.

People do feel the need to keep up with the current generation I think. Also boomers were often raised by parents who had been through the war and therefore had some of that experience passed down from them.

However, when my mum balked at me spending £30 a month on my phone bill telling me she only spent £7 on hers, I had to point out that was because she could afford to buy her probably quite expensive iPhone outright.

I have a friend who I would never have known came from money. She lives in the same street as me, same kind of house, almost identical. One day we had a few drinks and we were talking into the night about families and life etc… turns out her parents are filthy rich. Literally like stately home rich (I’m talking there was reference to a Wing!)

They absolutely just cut their children off after Uni. Still close, visits, lots of love.. but absolutely no help at all despite Vast wealth.

I don’t understand this at all. I don’t understand anyone who wouldn’t set their children up for a happy, easy, lovely life if they could.

Immature? Simply a statement of fact.

I'd say that once you've made that choice, you lose the right to put yourself first but judging by other posters here, you can claim it back when your children reach 18 no matter how well or badly they may be doing.

Are you mental? Paid to put you through uni, is this even a thing?

My mum and dad raised me, yes. They let me live at home until I was 20, in my third year of uni (I was a home student as I couldn't afford to live in halls in a different city as I subsisted on my loan and PT job earnings, worked since I was 16 throughout HE and FE). They had an excellent standard of living, mortgage free and about 7-8 holidays per year (which I was really pleased for them about!) And I never got a penny of support until it came to renewing my 6 month lease and I was hit with a huge price hike that I couldn't afford. They gave me £200 pcm for 6 months, which was a huge, huge help. This is the entire extent of my help from my parents during my time at uni, which I was very grateful for, but hardly 'paying me through uni'.

When I bought my first home in 2020, they loaned me 2k to cover solicitors fees, which I paid back to them.

Why do you assume people get lots of help from their parents?

For what it's worth OP, YANBU. it's shitty and selfish to watch someone else struggle when you have more than the means to help them. Nobody NEEDS a £1m house, no matter what MN would have you believe.

No generation is responsible for that though - it's governments!

It is not a statement of fact. It's just silly.

Other than accidents (which in themselves are choices, but just of a different kind - not to use contraception or to have an abortion) it's silly to say that having children is anything other than the choice of the parents (virgin birth excepted of course).

I think you are being disgustingly unreasonable .

My neighbour is 84 and talks about how hard life was for her and how easy young people have it. She was a teacher for about 17 years, then spent another four as a deputy head before taking early retirement for a medical condition which, in the 80s when she retired was considered inoperable but which a few years later they fixed. So she was medically retired but healthy and well in her 40s on a comfortable pension. She and her husband have both inherited from their families. He was a middle manager at BT and was paid off at the age of 55 with a generous redundancy and pension package. She worked just over 20 years and has spent the rest doing pretty much what she pleases. He managed more like 35 working years. Yet apparently I (who will have worked 43 years by the time my state pension comes through) am the lucky one...

I had far less money than that and I downsized to help my DS onto the housing ladder. I think they are very selfish indeed.

For what it's worth OP, YANBU. it's shitty and selfish to watch someone else struggle when you have more than the means to help them. Nobody NEEDS a £1m house, no matter what MN would have you believe

The OP isn't struggling though is she? She wants a more expensive wedding, to be in her own house when she has children, when literally millions of people raise families in rentals. You have to cut your cloth. Also, she hasn't even asked her parents for help.

Literally no-one on MN has said anyone needs a £1m house. Have you considered that where they've bought is what they all cost?

You honestly are the epitome of entitlement and selfishness.

You are weary. Be happy for their secure financial position.
Perhaps you could really down size the wedding and have one on a budget.
After you marry, and show your parents that you do not waste money on enormous wedding celebrations, would you feel okay to ask whether they would let you live with them?

Could you live with them for up to two years, paying low rent and having no holidays, while you save to buy a two bed house that you can manage?

You need to make a plan. It won't look like your parents' plan thirty years ago.

As opposed to parents who feel entitled to create other human beings and then abrogate all responsibility for them once they reach a certain age.

Where did I say that?

I'm just saying it as something that nobody ever seems to mention on these threads. We only-just Boomers lived for years getting letters telling us the huge shortfall there was going to be in our endowment policies to pay our mortgage, while at the same time paying so much in childcare and rearing children that we couldn't do anything to mitigate against it.

I referred in an earlier post to the stagnation in salaries.

But hey, we had it soooo good!!!

Are you sure you only want/need 1 or 2k? That’s not going to make much difference to a house deposit is it?

MNetters will love to tell you that you aren't entitled to be jealous and that you should suck it up and be grateful they brought you into this world and they owe you nothing. I, however, would like to think the world revolves by us as human beings helping each other out and that we should look at our families for support and help, however that help maybe. I don't think YABU at all. I know that my parents have been fortunate enough to help me get on the property ladder and I will do my best to help my children how I can when the time comes.

It seems strange your parents are up sizing especially at a time when people of their age generally down size. A builder friend of ours told me that he did work for a couple who purposely changed the layout of their brand new house to make sure there wasn't space for their kids to stay over when they came to visit. People do surprising things....

Are you close enough to your parents to ask them kindly but frankly why they are upscaling to a bigger house?

It's just beyond stupid to think that the children you choose to give birth to shouldn't be financially independent at some stage of their lives! Wise up!

Not necessarily for the OP though. My parents are giving everything to charity. Inheritance should never be expected.

Assuming too that they will own it as tenants in common to reduce what can be taken for care home fees. Maybe they feel that property is preferable to banks for a decent return.

How unreasonable to want a stable roof over your head before having children.

If someone complained that they were given two months notice to move out of their rental while having children, I bet you’d say they should have kept their legs closed before buying a house.

Yes YABU, it's not your money so you don't get an opinion on how they spend it

I do think parents who can afford to help their children buy their first home should do so, regardless of their generation. It may not and need not be a huge amount of money, but just something to make it somewhat easier to get started.

That said, it's depressing that so many on here seem to think that once you turn 50 you should be shrinking your life down to make way for the next generation.

Also, prioritising saving £5000 for a wedding over saving for a home doesn't send a convincing or powerful message to parents that you're in need of a helping hand. You can do what you want as regards your wedding, obviously, but that may be exactly what your parents are thinking: "Yes, we could downsize, but that's not what we want."