Parents upsizing - AIBU

[100157ab]

Parents are retired in their 60s. They have a 4 bed detached in a nice area (not south). They sold recently for 680k. They’ve discussed all
sorts about where to move and at one point said they didn’t need the space but now saying they are actually going to upsize as they want more space and so are making an offer on a house 100k more (so 780k).

I know there will be posters saying awful things about me saying this and I do accept that. I know what I’m about to say sounds money grabbing. But… we have two dc and will struggle to pay off our mortgage for many many years despite being in reasonably paid jobs and working hard to progress. I guess it’s easy to say when it’s not actually the situation but I can’t imagine doing this instead of giving the extra 100k to my kids to help them with their homes when we’d paid off our mortgage and didn’t actually need the space in our current home!! Probably being unfair simply because it’s their money and their choice but I just can’t imagine doing that in their position!

YANBU, OP.

I cannot imagine doing this. Why the fuck do an ageing couple think they need even more space than a 4 bed detached house?! And meanwhile their kids are struggling.

I couldn't do that to my kids - I would always want to help them more. Obviously I am not suggesting older people should leave themselves short of money... but this situation is far from that.

That generation were massively lucky when it came to house prices. It's time we stopped pretending they worked any harder than we all do (millennial here).

Ditto. I am the same...my parents did the same. It is absolutely beyond me why they don't help their kids, because we all have huge mortgages, while they are sitting with their amazing boomer finances, rattling around a 5 bed house ... While we are living in a 3 bed semi with young kids, battling the mortgage increase and cost of living. I will definitely share what I have with my children if I have plenty. You can't take it with you.

We upsized when my mother died and I turned 70. She had done her darndest to spend the millions left her by her parents 50 years earlier. Pretty well succeeded too. In your later years, a bigger house is surprisingly useful. Room for family, guests, hobbies - painting/writing/model making, U3A groups. You forget that you are actually at home so much more than when you are working, and that extra space is great. I have a huge garden and orchard - and i supply the family with loads of fruit and preserves. I've given the DC money as they need it too. They will inherit in their time, as every generation does. Hopefully, that is.

but I'd feel completely unreasonable to assume I'm entitled to any of the financial security they've worked hard for

Maybe that’s why I am comfortable with it. My parents worked hard of course particularly after arriving with nothing. However the vast financial security that was built up was due to astronomical housing gains, it wasn’t anything they did.

Good on you. I am also a 2nd generation immigrant. We moved away from where we had links and started over with a new baby to build our own financial security. It would have been years before we could have bought anything without parental help, so we considered the opportunities available as new grads, and took the one we felt gave us the best chance to make a go at it. Families support each other but not every family can support with things like house deposits. Mine couldn't. You're very lucky.

100%

OP They helped you with your house deposit!

They are only 60 years old - why should they forfeit a house that they will love?

I'm sorry - but I really dislike the entitlement.

When we were looking for our house, we searched for 2 years (2 years of offers and purchases falling through 😭). We were looking for 4-5 bedroom properties with 5-35 acres of land, outbuildings for conversion, etc in the £650-900k range.

In those 2 years and probably 30 properties all over a whole region of the UK, I think we came across one other family with young children. Every single other buyer we met was, I’d guess, a couple 70+ looking to buy a bigger house and more land. Our neighbours recently sold their house, 4 bedrooms with 28 acres. The couple who bought it are in their 50s (and lovely!), but we saw them through 18 months of viewings and lots of chatting with potential buyers because they don’t live locally and the estate agents were clueless. With the exception of one couple in their 30s, they were all easily 65-80 years old.

My sense is that lots of older people have the money and feel like they will because they can! Which, sure, is fine…until you realise how much work it takes to manage 30 acres of land with no farming experience, no tractor, barely able to drive. My mum and her partner, for example, sold up in their 70s and decided to spend their equity instead of saving it. They currently pay £2500 a month in rent instead of living in a mortgage free house. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Their choice. I don’t expect an inheritance anyway because they don’t like me very much 😂 but no way would I be putting myself in such a stupidly precarious position in my later years.

And yet recently there was a thread on here where a couple on modest wages and living in a council house were paying for three holidays a year for the man's daughter. And loads of people on here were telling the wife (stepmother) to just suck it up even though they were short of money as a consequence, as it was so lovely for him to do that for his daughter, that's just what parents do for their adult kids... yadda yadda.

@100157ab , as it stands 24% of respondents appear to agree with you. I think they and you are horribly money grabbing, self absorbed and clearly unable to imagine providing for yourselves. Pretty shameful to say the least. 🤢

What are you really cross about here?

Are you cross directly at your parents?

Or is it a more general realisation that no matter how hard you and your DH work you will not be able to be in the same position as your parents at a similar age? You dont begrudge your parents wealth but you wish that you had the same housing choices that they have?

It’s their money ultimately, and their life so I’ve said yabu for that reason (though I agree, I would want to help my children as I know how hard it is comparatively these days). Now if you’d said they should be downsizing ahead of their winter years for the practical reasons I’d have said yanbu, but I’ve seen first hand the impact of older relatives refusing to downsize and seeing their “legacy” falling down around their ears when they are no longer in good enough health to maintain it, and becoming housebound as their health fails because there’s no option to make adaptations, so I’m probably biased. That, coupled with the sadness of seeing 60 years of worldly goods being thrown out in a house clearance in the space of a couple of hours.
I won’t do that to my children and certainly wouldn’t be upsizing as I approach retirement.

@thankgoodnessforpuppies

I know I’m lucky but my point is my parents went without to help myself and my siblings. They could have lived a nicer lifestyle etc but preferred to help push us upwards. I in turn do similar myself and save as much as I can for my dc. I could have a bigger house, better holidays, nice car etc
I suppose that’s why I find the OPs parents attitude so jarring, it’s just not how I was raised.

About £2.8 million, for a main home.

We upsized in our late 50s. We moved to a cheaper area so our money went further and we actually need a bigger house to host DC and their families than we needed to raise our DC. We helped one DC with their house deposit but not the others. If we downsized we could help DC financially but none of us would have a big enough house to host the whole family and we don't all live near each other. That seems more important to us.

Sounds like if they didn’t upgrade you would expect all the money to go to you and none for your sibling.

Just because one of their children hasn’t gotten on top of her own financial situation it doesn’t oblige parents to cough up for them, especially when they’ve already given you money.

As a single mum I’m paying down a big mortgage and it has honestly never crossed my mind to resent my mum
for not downsizing in order to pay down the financial obligations I’ve taken on.

Look on the bright side, they are putting money into a house, so it will eventually come to you anyway. They could have decided to go gadding around Europe for a year.

@ScarlettSarah yep, you get the completely opposite responses depending on whether you are the parent or the child!

I don’t think you’re being unreasonable. Of course your parents should be allowed to spend their money as they want but honestly DH & I are in our 50s and we were just talking about this tonight and how we’ll probably downsize in 10 - 15yrs to help our kids with deposits. I couldn’t imagine upsizing while my children & grandchildren didn’t have a decent space of their own.

@Delphiniumandlupins why did you only help 1 dc?

Honestly, I can’t believe people think this way. Your parents money is not your money. They don’t owe you anything.
When kids are small you feel like you would give them everything. Then as you get older you realise it’s often better for people to stand on their own two feet to a point. You love your adult children but you want to balance them making their own way with helping them out a bit. There are too many cases we all see where adult children are given too much and lose their drive. Also, importantly, you worry about how you will pay for retirement as your children finish school. Every penny went to them now needs to be saved in case of care costs etc so you don’t burden the next generation. . A house can be sold later to pay for care. It can’t be clawed back from an adult child.
If I ever, ever, heard my adult children say something like this I’d skip a generation with inheritance or leave the money to charity.
Perhaps you are thinking about this the wrong way round. You should be cutting back yourself to save money for your own children’s house deposit and uni fees now.

Yes but your parents were in a position to do without to help you. Some parents just have no room to move. I hope you will remember this when they need help in their old age, when they are less capable.

Even though we haven't had any help in the type you have, we do our best to help our children and we have given a lot. Partly that is because we made the choices we did earlier, so have created that ability.

There's also that my kids appreciate it and are grateful. The minute I'm told what I should do with my money or there is a sense of entitlement, I'd want to pull back. Entitlement is a horrible attitude.

The downside of having no help for my parents is that they are now in a position where all their children have moved away from the most expensive city in the country for more affordable lives, and now they are stuck on there own there without family support themselves as they become more frail.

Exactly. I hate the 'They worked hard for it. They earned it' myth. No, we watched our properties rocket up in value. Our first house almost trebled in value. Our second house has doubled in value.

People work very hard these days too and can't afford even a basic family home. Othe rposters are calling OP entitled and greedy but it's just as greedy and entitled to hold onto money you didn't actually earn, rather than spread that unearned weath so it trickles down through society to people who need it. Especially your own children.

they gave you a deposit and you want more?

Whilst you have no entitlement to any help with your mortgage from your parents, and it is their money to do as they see fit with, I find it bizarre when aging couples buy 4+ bedroom houses. A couple in their 50s near us recently moved into a 6 bedroom house. They don’t appear to even have any visitors nevermind anyone staying over. A complete waste of money and rooms.

I don’t understand this attitude at all. We’ve downsized twice and given our DC a share of the proceeds each time. Hopefully, by the time we die, they won’t be in such need of the money from an inheritance. I’d much rather see them enjoying the use of that money now, while they’re just starting out, and need it most.

To people who didn’t have that help it does though. I don’t mean to sound horrible but to those of us who grew up truly poor that isn’t independent.