Selling parents house feels wrong

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Advice please. Both parents died unexpectedly within a few months of each other. Very sad time. I inherited the house and decided to hold onto for a while as couldn't cope with selling the house straight after the shock of losing both parents. Old family home has so many memories and my parents loved it dearly but I do not live in the area any longer. My cousin expressed an interest in buying the house which made me very happy to know it was staying in the family. However, cousin decided not to buy it in the end. I finally decided to put the house on the market and it now has a buyer. I am currently renting and will then be able to buy a house in my area. However, I feel like I am making a terrible mistake. The house is the only connection I have to the area I grew up. I have sorted through some things in the house, still need to sort through the rest but have been putting it off. It just feels wrong to clear out the house and sell it. As a house I love it. I still feel it's like 'home' when I walk through the door. I feel like I'm making a mistake that I might regret for the rest of my life.

What can I do? I could rent it out instead or live in the house? This would mean uprooting my family. I thought finding a house in our current area I might start to feel better about selling parents house. All I have found are overpriced small properties that don't compare to my parents house in any way. I know this in part of breavement, but selling my childhood home feels wrong and unnatural. If you've been through this please let me know what you did eg sold or held onto house? What are my options?

So sorry to hear of the loss of your parents. I don't know what to suggest regarding the house but can fully understand your point about it holding special memories for you. Could you rent it out for a while to give yourself longer to think about it? I wish you well

Would it be practical for you to move there? You say you do t live in the area but how far away are you? Could it work?

When my DM died my family home went to my step dad 😡
At some point he sold the house and I wasn’t informed. He didn’t ask if I’d like to go and take anything as a reminder or anything.
It breaks my heart when I think of my childhood home with someone lose in there. When I think of my mum it’s always in that house.
My advice would be not to let it go.

• someone else in there

Horrible enough I'm going through the same thing :( with us though there's siblings so will most likely have to sell eventually, although Covid has put the brakes on everything right now so given us a breather/reprieve.... If you don't need the money I would think about renting it out until you know better how you actually feel? Or just keep it for now as a second home, again until you're sure of whether or not you can get rid? This second is what I would do but I guess it depends where your parents lived and if you'd want to stay there!

Try and remember that your memories are in you, not in the house. The house can prompt memories, so you may want to take photos / films of stuff you don’t usually take pictures of like wallpaper and curtains / flooring.
Other than that, it is probably better for you to sell the house and invest the money in your own home and your own life. It is hard though.

Please pull out if you can. You sound far too raw to be making such an irreversible decision.

You could always rent it out or move into it, but if you haven’t got any financial pressures forcing your hand, just take your time and wait until you’re ready

And sympathies. You’ve had an awful year, I can’t imagine how tough that much be, losing two parents in one year.

I've not been in your position yet, though will be in the next 0-10 years.

I'd sell unless you are going to live in it.

Keeping it and renting it out you will see strangers in your home, wanting to make changes you don't like.

Better to try to accept that things move on, your parents no longer need the house, nor do you, let someone else enjoy it. You still have the memories.

Where are you in your life stage at the moment, do you ever think that you will be wanting to/ in a position to move into the house? Dh sold PIL house because our lives were not there and never would be. My parents house went on care home fees. If youcan see your life moving back there then you could keep it and rent it out, but maybe get a good management company because it might be hard going into their house if something needs to be fixed and seeing other people's lives continuing in there. If you can't see yourself going back I would either wait a year and sell it when you have had more time to process the loss.

Going through it here too. I go to DPs family home once every 3 weeks to check it (and have a nice chat with my late parents - if anyone heard me they'd think i'm barking mad!). I've taken a load of photos of the house and I will be v upset when it goes on the market next week but it needs a new family living in it to appreciate it and love it like we did growing up. It's just feeling too sad now seeing it empty and unused. I suppose I'm at the point in my own bereavement that I want to move on with my life. It sounds like you don't feel like you're at that stage yet as it may be too soon. Could you delay for a little longer financially until you feel more ready? Or rent it out?

We bought our home from a family going through the same process. I think it was a comfort for them to know that we were making it our family home and would love it like they did. From my point of view I love that this home was loved and has wonderful memories in it, we have kept many of the features that made it special ie the height measurement marks in the cupboard.

What are your buyers like, can you see the continuation of the home through them?

Renting it will be much worse than selling as there will still be strangers there changing things but you will still be involved. You are likely to feel badly towards the tenents which will make decisions emotionally charged and challenging. If you get nightmare tenents who trash it you will be heartbroken.

Other than schools etc. what are the barriers to moving? Jobs? Support networks?

I'm not sure that renting it out is the solution. How would you feel about someone else living in your parents' home? It sounds like you will have to sell it eventually in order to buy a home for your family (as moving areas isn't practical and hanging on to it will be expensive wrt running costs - insurance and council tax for empty house/2nd home). You are just trying to delay the inevitable due to your grief.

Take photos of the house, remove items with special memories which you could have in your own home and take photos of others that it's not practical to keep. Get a house clearance co in to clear the rest if you don't feel you can handle the emotional side of it. Get an estate agent to handle everything else so that you don't have to keep going there. Move on with the happy memories.

And yes I have done this after my DPs died within 2 years of each other and had lived in the same house for 53 years, although I had 2 siblings so had no option but to sell. I was the one who had lived in that house the longest and I was also the one left to clear the house (due to distance). It's not an easy job but it's part of the grieving process.

One other thing about moving in.
If when you say 'uprooting the family' you are including a partner, then think how hard that might be for them, living in your old family home rather than something they feel 'equal' ownership over.

I went through this last year - mum and dad died within a month of each other, and the house they bought in 1967 when they married had to be sold, and it was my only connection with the area - but its too far from me to have as a rental and needed a lot of work anyway.
I'm very comforted by the fact that a family who desperately wanted to stay in the area have bought it, and are doing the work to bring it back to a vibrant, loved, family home.
Thinking about how my parents bought it to be their family home, and now it was entering another era as this new families really helped me. I have all my memories, and the house as a rental or whatever would have actually eroded those I think

To me it’s bricks and mortar - your memories are yours.
We sold our family home decades ago- I went back 4 years ago and it was so nice to see what the new family had done with the place and the love they’d shown it. Better than an empty shell of old memories

My DF died young and then my DM was killed in a car accident. I had to clear and sell the family home of almost fifty years. It went up for sale in October and I handed the keys over on Xmas eve. That was tough.
I dug up several plants and roses and planted them in my own garden which give me comfort every year they pop up.
As for the house, I've only driven past it twice in the last four years. The thought of it doesn't upset me half as much as I thought it would.

It is tough and you're right, this is part of the grieving process.
When my Mum died I found the prospect of dealing with a house sale on top of everything else too much so rented it out. But, it had never been my home, only Mum had lived there. I didn't need to sell it and the income has been useful. But, it's very odd seeing someone else in your parents house and I think you're too attached to this house to do that.
I think you should let it go. Moving there yourself would be trying to hold on to something that has gone.

I’m going to have the same problem. My dps bought it in 1965, and by pure coincidence all my friends have now moved to the village so I’ll be there all the time. It is in a pretty area though so I have wondered about Airbnb. DH wouldn’t want to live there which is ☹️.

If it doesn’t feel right yet, don’t do it.

Think about all the reasons why you don't live in that area still. Do these still hold good and outweigh going back there? If so, then you have your answer about moving back.

I wouldn't rent. Tenants (generally) do not look after a property the way you would your own and it may be more upsetting to see it being neglected than letting it go and having the benefit of the proceeds.

If you can I'd move in. So many jobs can be done remotely now. You clearly love the house.

Thank you all. I'm so torn. I have friends in the area but I left for better work opportunities. Now with covid I am living in a big city but have been working from home for past year and paying high rent. I rarely see houses I like and I love the layout of my parents house, it has a lovely feel when you walk through the door and big sized rooms etc. I would get nothing around here for same money. But would we realistically move back?? I can't see that happening right now as DC would need to change schools but maybe in the future. My head is saying sell it but my heart is saying definitely not. If I don't sell I'd have to take in renters and like many of you have said it will probably be worst option. We also wouldn't be able to buy a property around where we currently are although even with the sale would be able to buy something small anyway. I know the memories are inside me and it's just a house, just feels wrong. I was also born in the house. It's so difficult...

We sold my parents house after they died. It was the only house they every had and I was born there too.

I understand exactly what you are saying, it feels awful as the house is part of your childhood. But just like you, I had moved away...I left the area when I finished University and only ever came back to visit. Things had changed, realistically I wasn't ever going to go back and live there. And how would I feel about living in the house my parents had bought? Changing the rooms, redecorating.
Which bedroom would I choose to sleep in, the one I was a child in? My parents' room? It would feel all odd as an adult.

So no, it was sold. New owners have gutted it and done it up, it doesn't look like the same place. Sad, but no-one can take my past away from me and we benefitted a great deal from the sale. Personally in your situation I would sell.

Im sorry for your loss OP.
I was having this conversation with someone yesterday about selling the home my late DH and I shared. Obviously I wasn't born in it or lived in it as long as you did but I was so torn about selling it because of the memorys. However once it was packed up and empty, I realised I would take all the memories with me and really the house was just a shell at the end of the day. What would they have wanted you to do?

I'm so sorry for your loss, you've been through a really rough time and it's not surprising you feel all over the place emotionally . Of course you feel really attached to the house, you have so many happy memories there and it feels like a connection to your loved ones. Don't ever feel stupid or wrong for feeling that way.

I would just echo what some of the other kind posters have said, that it's very normal to feel a lot of nostalgia and melancholy about your childhood home (or other places that have a lot of emotions attached to them) if you can no longer go back there, but what you are actually feeling sad about for the most part is that you can't go back to that time and to those people you were happy with, not usually for the place or the house itself. That is what is so sad about bereavement, you can't ever turn back the clock and put things back to how they were no matter how closely you recreate the physical conditions of how things were...

Physical objects can bring back a lot of memories and evoke powerful feelings but they aren't actually the same as the feelings themselves, you can not have the object but still have the memories, if you see what I mean? So although I know what you mean when you say the house is your last link to the area, it really isn't, you have a really powerful link to the area in the form of your memories of growing up there and all the other happy memories of your parents. Nothing can take that away.

For that reason I think personally I would sell the house, unless you do have a lifelong dream to live in your parents area and selling the house closes that option off, which doesn't sound like the case really? If you do decide to move back at a later point you will have the money from the sale of the house to do so? I definitely wouldn't rent it out unless you are in dire need of the money, for the reasons others have said, being a landlord entails a lot of expense and hassle and even an above average tenant will probably not look after the place as if it was their own, and things like the garden will probably get neglected or worse. Plus you will still have to deal with all the emotional consequences of 'letting go' of the house without any of the upside.

I know it's so hard to let go and I felt exactly the same with my parents house, I was desperately doing sums and trying to make it work for us to live there - I even persuaded manipulated my DH who absolutely loves where we live now that it would be worth it but I'm glad we didn't in the end. It was 100% grief talking and not me rationally thinking it would be a good thing for me or the family, had that been the case we would have moved back to the area 10 years before. Obviously each person is different but I really think when you are grieving a major loss is not the time to be making major, life changing decisions.

I honestly found it a bit easier with my parents place once all the 'stuff' was out of the house - once it was stripped of so many of the things which I remembered it looked different and I found it easier to think of it as 'just' bricks and mortar. Also it looked really quite forlorn and unloved as most houses do when empty, and although that was said I could then be happy (ish!) that someone new was coming in to look after it and make it a home again. It helped that we sold it to a nice young couple who were planning on making it a long term home (or so they said, I chose to believe them anyway). I did do a bit of a cheesy thing of walking around saying 'goodbye and thank you' to the house which although unusual for me (I don't usually talk to inanimate objects!) made me feel quite a lot more at peace with letting it go. You don't necessarily have to sort through all your parents possessions/stuff in one go, I think in many ways that is the really hard thing emotionally, I know some people are dead against this but if you need more time could you rent a storage unit near you and put everything in there, then you can sort through at your own pace and do as others have said, take lots of pictures of the things you can't keep and find good homes for things that still have life/use left in them?