Sorry this will be long.
my mother has decided she is moving, this seems to be sudden the reasons she has given are 1) there might be a war with Russia 2) house prices are going to crash 3) she is going to give her kids money now because we need it.
She is a spend thrift who is incontinent with money, it’s like she is allergic to it, she will buy a coffee for 2 and tip 20 quid, someone comes to mow the lawn she pays for the mowing and tips 50 quid. She has debts we have paid off for her, but has more, all the money my Father left her (and her parents and so on) has just disappeared with just a new sofa and redecorated house to show for it.
As far as I can tell she likes her home and is managing, she says she is. She has enough room to have people stay, (ie her kids we have all stayed within the last year so we do see her,) has spent a lot of money making it nice for her (redecorated, new kitchen, garden turned into just lawn) she has a cleaner, gardener etc. She lives near all her old friends albeit that they are starting to pass on, get dementia etc.
she has decided to move a) further out of town to a new area (she doesn’t drive) b) into a small flat with a warden from 9-5 M-F c) to a much smaller home obv.
I don’t think she wants to move.
i offered to buy her house she instantly replied oh can I stay here until I die then? Wonder if I can afford the rent. (Hence my thinking she doesn’t want to move)
i can’t afford it mostly because of stamp duty!
I have offered to buy small amounts a year eg 5%, this drip feeds her the money she needs and allows her to stay there but she has replied she won’t sell it to me because house prices are going to crash. Partly based on the fact that we are going to war soon.
I forgot to mention she hates people! She moved away from this area before, hated it and nagged and moaned until she could move back 10 years later. It is beyond my belief that she will stay in the flat, she will spend 60k moving then nag and moan about moving back but that would be out of the question. Stamp duty and fees and so on will cost her 10% of the proceeds. She does seem to have some deluded ideas about the price she will get, the fact that the purchasers will wait for her to clear the house and so on.
I am stuck, whilst I want for her what she wants I can only see this move as being a personal and financial disaster. Compounding all of this is the fact that I live overseas, work full time and have a child about to undergo surgery with a long rehab process which I am already having to delay so I can go and see her later this month.
If anyone has any wise words I would really appreciate them!
Thank you if you have got this far!