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?

How old are the kids? Are you single? Do you prefer the area the house is in? To me it sounds like it might make sense to move in. Kids move schools all the time, unless they’re in exam years I wouldn’t worry about that.

If you are renting currently surely your parents would have wanted you to buy, or use the money for a deposit on a house if your own.
I think sometimes we get memories of people and places entwined. Selling my Nans house was hard, we spent about a year going through her things. The guy who bought it invited us round to see how he renovated the house it look, it was totally different and in a way part of the grieving process for us, the memories of my Nans house is now in my head with the memory of my Nan, so it’s like they are together again. Probably sounds a bit weird, she lived her whole life in that house. But we should move on. Sorry for your loss OP

And I still walk past my grandparents house from time to time, I was taking pics of it when the new owners (new it’s been 25 years) came out, I quickly explained and apologised she did recognise me as she grew up over the road, where her parents still lived so she invited me in to have a look, they’d pulled down a few walls, which we always said is what we would have done too but it felt the same.

So sorry for the loss of your parents OP. Very sad, and such a shock to lose them close together.

I am gently observing that you didn’t settle or move back to your home area over the last few years. So must have some good reasons to be where you are now.

COVID will not be for ever.

I do understand your feelings. To lose the house and parents all in one go is a lot. Many of us see our parents move away from our childhood home long before we lose our parents.

With all this going on I would suggest not uprooting your whole family while you are still grieving. Moving schools etc.

Does the house not enable you even to have a big deposit for a mortgage?

Would renting it give you an income that you can save over 5 years and add to the value of the house?

What do you think your Mum and Dad would like to see you do?

Apologies: you did say you would be able to buy, albeit a small place.

But can you buy a bit bigger if you use your current rent expenditure on a mortgage?

Honestly, if your parents were your last connection with the area, what will be there for you other than the house? Could it feel lonely? Do you have friends and a network where you are?

Op the same thing happened to me 3 years ago, my mum and dad died 11 weeks apart. I never made a decision on their house until last year, I just couldn't. In the end I decided to sell it, as I couldn't cope with keeping going back to the house, seeing someone rent it, I just needed to move on from it. I'm so glad I did. I'm sorry you're going through this too.

You’re not ready. Maybe wait til spring and things feel more hopeful with covid, weather etc

Sounds like the process would be really sad for you so why put yourself through it. Just wait a few months x

I am in the same situation, just had an offer on our family home mum and dad bought in the 1970s and it is so hard to let it go.

I have cousins who felt the same and keep their family home in the small hamlet they grew up in and got into such a state of disrepair it became a burden.

I try to think the house needs another family in it making their own memories. But it is still very hard.

We lost our last surviving parent in the summer.

The house had been home for 30 years. I dragged my feet about selling it and drove my siblings mad. Clearing it was very, very hard work.

To reassure you - now it's gone - it feels fine.

Another family have moved in. They will make new memories and enjoy all the things about it that makes it such a good family home.

However, I love where I live and like the flat that I live in.... sounds like you need to take a bit longer to decide what to do.

I'm in exactly the same position. My Dad died last November and my Mum died 3 weeks ago.
We are in the process of tying up their estate and looking to sell.
I know I won't move there and I don't want to rent.
They had lived there for 30 years, I lived there for 10 years so it doesn't feel completely like my childhood home as I loved there when I was 11 and moved away when 21.
I'm just trying to motivate myself to begin the process of clearing out. There is just so much stuff !!
I'm so sorry for your loss, it really is just awful. I wish we were helping them move and not for the circumstances that it is.

I'm just trying to motivate myself to begin the process of clearing out. There is just so much stuff!!

And it takes so long to do as there are so many things that bring back memories and while you don't want to chuck, you know you have to as there is just not enough room in your own house.

I found my mums huge stash of knitting needles and patterns in the loft. We spent ages going through them, remembering being shown how to knit cable patterns and wearing the jumpers (and knitted leg warmers 🤣) and then had to get rid off. Move onto another box, and another trip down memory lane.

One tip - take photos of the rooms before you start clearing, and take photos of items that bring back memories, but need to go.

I think renting it out IS a good option!
Not all tenants are horrors... We've been very decent tenants for many years 😁.

You sound too raw to make irreversible decision. You sound understandably attached to the home.

This option gives you the opportunity to live in it in the future.

Sorry for your losses. That must be so tough, losing both parents in such a short space of time. I went through something similar but the house was 3 hours away from where I was living and I knew I wouldn't move. It was hard clearing the house but cathartic too. I used the sale money to help buy my own house and put down new roots. I felt like my mum was 'with me' in my life moving forward, invested in my home that would see marriage, children, things that came after her passing. However, what was right for me may not work for you. Allow yourself time to process, weigh up pros/cons of selling, renting, living there. The emotional ones as well as the practical.

I am so sorry you have been through such a tough time. I remember helping DH through it a few years ago after MIL had died and he was responsible for clearing and selling the house.

Not at all easy, but in their case three siblings were to benefit equally so the only realistic way to achieve that was to sell it, which may have made it slightly easier. It was also a retirement home, not the one they grew up in as children.

I am not yet in this position but I do have two very elderly and frail parents who are both regularly very ill. My sister and I dread having to go through their house. They bought it in 1970 when I was just coming up to 4 and she was a year old. It was our childhood home and they still live there with carers coming in and out.

Their intentions are for it to be split equally, and again, the only way to achieve that properly will be to sell it.

It won't be easy though. I know I will find it a wrench even though I haven't lived there for over 30 years. It is still a childhood connection and a connection to my lovely parents, full of memories. The finality of it when it has to go is something I already dread.

You have my sympathy. I think few people are ever really "ready" for this sort of thing even when we have known for years that the moment will come.

Hello - I found your post as I am facing the same dilemma you have. Mom died a year ago and I have done nothing with the house. Had it on the market received an offer but took it off. Was a really good one as well. Got a quote to do it up but put the builder off. Now I just go from day to day swapping from selling it to keeping it even tho I know I don't want to live there. I hate going back but I'm ok when I'm there. It my mom and dad's house but they are not there. I have been like this for three months now and I'm driving myself and my daughter's crazy. I don't know what to advise you. Just wait until you are sure I suppose but please post your decision!