bit of a long rant here, but seeing your responses to other peoples situations i am hoping some of you have the patience to read this and offer a little advice.
we have lived in our flat for 5 years now. it is a lovely two bed, overlooking the park and we have become very attached to it.
it is kind of owned by my dp. what happened was when we decided to move into our first place together his parents sold two flats that they owned and put the money into this (bear in mind the flats were in eastern europe so not worth a great deal..but enough for a very generous deposit)
dps parents had both been bought the flats when they first moved out of home, using money from previous property which had always been used by his family to give their children a good start. this tradition goes back many generations, with each adding a little more 'to the pot'
we were lucky to get quite a bargain for the part of london we are in, and the flat needed a lot of renovations which we have lovingly taken care of over the years. the mortgage has been in his parents name, but we have been in charge of meeting the repayments (being students and then first jobbers there was no way it could be in dps name at the moment). when we were both at uni we did this by having flatmates in the spare room and making up the rest ourselves.
our current flatmate is due to move to new zealand in october, but this is ideal as we are expecting our baby in november.
only problem is my dp is still on a fairly low wage at the moment and i will only be getting state maternity allowance, so money will be a little tight. i know we can manage, but my dp is convinced that we should still rent out the room. perhaps i am being selfish, but i do not see it as a 'luxury' to have our own place with a newborn, more of a neccesity! and we will obviously need the room in a year or so when the baby has grown a bit.
to make things even more comlicated his parents are in the process of a messy divorce and his dad has decided to sell up and cash in on his half of the flat. this is something that has really upset my dp and his family, who are disgusted that he is taking money that was never meant for him. his dad is not a bad person, but he does have a new girlfriend who earns several times his wage, and is often taking them on trips around europe..she even wants to buy a yacht!, so i can only assume he wants the money so he can feel a bit more equal in that relationship.
our options now are
..to sell the flat entirely, in which case we could put half the profit into another place and start again (but we would probably have to 'downgrade' if that happens.
...to accept his mums offer to buy out his dad and then continue as before with a higher mortgage payment (and tbh..even talking about this as a possibilty is driving me crazy, she wants us to ask estate agents to 'devalue' the flat, and they are using myself and dp as mediators, refusing to speak to each other.)we would prefer not to get too much more financially entangled with her really.
...to gain accept her offer, but rent out the whole flat, which would cover the mortgage and then rent elsewhere (but we are in london, and even a studio flat will be more to rent than the mortgage on this place, though in this situation at least his mum will be making a bit of profit back by renting)
...to tell them to sort it out themsleves, and just find our own place (again..will cost us more..but may save us the trouble)
another issue is, all of our family are at least 200 miles away. a good way to get out of this financial bind would be to move closer to them, as it would be markedly cheaper than in london. i also feel that being around family will be essential with a baby, and can imagine myself going craxy here while dp is out at work. dp is dead against this, and says he will do anything he can to stay in london, he sees moving back as 'failing' in some way, even though i have said it doesnt have to be forever. all our friends , and of course our family are behind me on this one, but he won't budge. fair enough there is more to do in london, but i'm not sure that thought will comfort me when i can't get the pushchair down the three flights of stairs just to go out shopping, or try to cram onto a packed bus full of ignorant unhelpful people on my own.
then again, having this baby was unplanned and he has wholeheartedly thrown himself into the situation, and i don't want to force another big life change on him if it will make him unhappy.
so what to do? this is something we need to sort out asap, and i just cannot come up with a good plan. my family and friends are very biased in what they want, so cannot offer impartial advice.