AIBU to let my adult nephew move in after rent rise from my sister?

[YearsOfLife]

My nephew is 24 and has been working full time for about a year after finishing university. When he first started working full time, my sister was charging him £500 per month to live with her and her partner. She has now told him he needs to pay £800 per month which he isn’t happy about as he is trying to save for a house deposit as well as having other costs and wanting to socialise. He spends a lot of time at work or with his girlfriend and friends so I do think £800 is a lot.

Our children are similar ages and my nephew has asked if he could live with us, paying £400 per month. We are happy for him to live here but it is causing a huge problem with my sister and her partner. They don’t think we should allow him to stay with us.

On the one hand I can see why my sister thinks we shouldn’t get involved, but on the other, he’s our nephew and an adult and if we’re happy for him to live here, he should be able to.

My sister has accused us of trying to make money from him which is untrue as we don’t charge our own children anything to live here and IF we take anything from our nephew, it won’t be £400 per month. This isn’t about money for us. I agree with my nephew that £800 is too much and want him to be able to have a life and save like my own children.

AIBU to say he can live here?

If you want your child to be able to save for a mortgage then making them move out into rented is likely to make that impossible in many areas though. He’s only 24 not 34. If you’re in the South it can be much better to let them have a couple of years of saving and building up a house deposit. I’d rather my child did that than hand their pay check over to a random landlord.

Agreed. It’s a 75% increase.

Wonen do it all the time sadly it is popular

You haven't explicitly mentioned but presumably you'd talk this through with your own children before agreeing, if they're already living there at the moment. As adults living there without paying rent themselves presumably they don't have complete veto power but if they would prefer to keep things just as your nuclear family, or if they dislike their cousin but have politely not mentioned this before, you should take the chance to talk this through before making commitments.

I definitely think your sister is out of order here. She should be happy nephew has found somewhere to live where he is still able to continue to sabe for a house deposit. The fact that she isnt happy for him means she was hoping to make more money off him and that hasnt worked out.

It's more likely he's going to live properly independently if he's able to save up a deposit to buy somewhere. Should he instead move to a private rental, there could be any number of times he's stuck between short term tenancy agreements with a couple of weeks in the middle, LL decides to sell up sooner than expected or similar, and end up needing to come and crash with his mum/OP.

Basically, it's in the best interests of everyone in the family for him to be able to get a deposit to buy his own home asap. Except of course if Dsis doesn't want to lose the income.

Yes this is a possibility. Or that she's just trying to prepare him for the real world- he's mid twenties now!

Can't understand most voting YANBU... its so clear you are overstepping!

Your sister sounds controlling. Help your nephew.

Similar happened to my friend. Her DS was happily living with his dad who suddenly started upping the rent to ridiculous amounts. My friend’s DS moved back in with her and his dad kicked off massively saying he couldn’t. Errr if you are going to charge market rent then the person paying it is well within their rights to find somewhere else to live. Sounds like your sister is making money off her son, and he’s perfectly entitled to vote with his feet.

The real world is not mummy deciding where you get to live when you're closer to 30 than you are to your childhood. The person overstepping here is Dsis.

That's what everyone on MN claims to be doing though!
Honestly OP, if your intention was to throw your sister under the bus and have mners reverse over her, repeatedly, then you've certainly achieved that.

Yes. What a horroble woman trying to.make money out of her own son. I thinkyou should help your nephew and tell your sister to stuff it. Why would she not want him to take an opportunity to save a bit of money. How horrible. Doesnt she care about his future.

No I don’t think it’s to force him to live independently. He has already lived independently at university for 4 years. He works full time, cooks, cleans, irons, does his washing and is living at home while saving. I think that is perfectly fine for a 24 year old. Just because others don’t have the luxury of living at home to save to buy a house, doesn’t mean you need to be bitter about those that can have that opportunity. Isn’t life hard enough? It’s not mollycoddling, it’s just helping your loved ones in my opinion. I’d rather my children did really well and thrived rather than just managed. I don’t think this is about my sister trying to do him a favour. He doesn’t need that, he’s already a responsible person. I think she wants more money and sees him as a way of getting it.

You can’t get much from a relationship with an unreasonable person.

I'd feel like you do OP, I can't imagine talking that much from an adult child unless finances were desperate. You wouldn't be ruining the relationship with your sister, she's doing it to herself.

Yes this.

Your sister is so mean! Does she not like her son? How can she charge such an exorbitant amount from him? And it is really your nephew's choice where he wants to live. He isn't prepared to pay his mom £800, so he has found somewhere else to live. So why does she care? She should be happy that he is living with family. She can't dictate who is allowed to house him.
You should have a honest conversation with your sister and nephew and really get to the bottom of the issue.

Family is family. You need to think long and hard about burning bridges.

Nephew is family too.

I would have him stay and save the £400pm for him, then give it to him as a surprise at the right moment. Then if DSis is getting into financial trouble and needs help he could choose to help her, if he wanted, or much better choose to use it for his house deposit. Make sure neither your nor he tells her about it though or she will be trying to snatch his money!

If we're making assumptions about burning bridges, there are more family relationships here than just OP and Dsis. DN already knows OP has room, was considering it and was going to speak to his mother. If she now refuses after that conversation, it'll be obvious why, and there's the potential for it to negatively impact on all the relationships involved.

And all because Dsis wants to veto where her well into adulthood aged son lives.

I would also ask what his alternative plans would be - will he pay her the £800 or move out? If the latter I would definitely let him stay as he will end up worse off as will she if hr had to rent privately and that would be stupid.

So the nephew is a mirage?

I'd charge £400 per month then put as much of it as you can afford in a savings account. When the nephew is ready to buy his own place, gift him the sum in the savings account.

Sister is a CF to be charging her own child £800

Yes he is. She could help to find him a house share. No reason to upset anyone here.