FiL wants DH to buy his house. How awful an idea is this?

[batvixen123]

I'm not sure if my knee jerk response is fair or not. FiL is in his late eighties and is pretty frail. He's never been good with money - DH says he's the kind of guy who will win £10,000 on the horses and then invest it immediately in some hair brained scheme set up by a mate of his down the pub. He did have a fair amount of money when he retired but decided to invest it in a couple of business ventures set up by "mates" which promptly failed and left him in a financial hole. As a result, he took out a mortgage on his house a few years ago, which was apparently fine because MiL did have a civil service pension which covered the costs of the mortgage.

She has since sadly died, and in addition the fixed rate on his mortgage has come to an end and he is now struggling to make repayments. He has therefore asked DH if he can buy the house and get a new fixed rate which he thinks will bring his mortgage repayments down to something he can afford. I think the idea is then that DH gets the house when he dies. He's also putting a fair bit of pressure on DH - comments about 'not being able to keep your mum's home that she loved' and 'this place is all I have left'.

I'm freaking out a bit. I don't even know if it's legal - I think it highly unlikely FiL will be a fit state to remain living independently for the next seven years - and if it is legal I am very worried that he'll get himself in a state, stop paying the mortgage, tell no one and put our house at risk. DH, I think, is torn between my anxiety and his feelings towards his DF.

Can anyone talk some sense into me, either way?

If you were to extend your own mortgage to pay off his £80 mortgage, you could get a Deed of Tenancy (I think it's called) which states that you have invested in your FILs property 1/3 of it's value. Then if it's sold or your FIL dies, you get that 1/3 of the property value before the rest is split between inheritees. I did something similar with my late DM, as she was struggling for money. This was some years ago now so I suggest speaking to a solicitor to see if it's still an option.
Obviously, this assumes you can afford to up your own mortgage.

It is really rare for there to be no life insurance with a mortgage.

Can FIL explain why there is not? Some lenders absolutely require it, others may be more liberal, but they'll all be talking about the need in terms of it being a necessity. So has he actually overlooked something?

It might also be worth looking into misselling- mortgages to pensioners are extremely rare to the point of never happening, for pretty obvious reasons.

If those are both blind alleys, then t is the simple questions n that you do not want to buy the house. If FIL needs more money in order to continue to outpace be there, then how much is his monthly shortfall. Because it might be better to just I've him the money, rather than muck around with the stress and risk of the hairbrained remortgate/purchase plan.

You of course get no sure-fire return on that spending in cash terms (if he has to pay care home fees, value of house could be wiped out), but your DH will have t what he sees as his filial duty.

As your FIL has hairbrained schemes, don't rule out that this is an attempt to divest himself of assets. If he sells a house and continues to live be in it, it might still count as 'his'. Which could mean you take in extra debt and still feel you have to sell something (ie 'his' house) to allow him to meet his obligations, whilst losing further chunks of its value to taxes and fees

I think he needs to downsize. He’s making unreasonable demands on you and at the end of the day he got himself into this mess

Can you suggest your FIL ring Stepchange? They can advise if he's struggling with payments and also on equity release,etc.

FIL could nominate your DH to speak on his behalf if you think he'd struggle.

Could your FiL look at equity release, he could use it to pay off any outstanding mortgage, assuming he can afford to live in the house if there is no mortgage.