Trying to be fair to adult child when you want to move and they are at home

[Wanttobuyahouse]

DH owns a house. Outright.
Worth 250K. Adult son has always lived at home. Pays a token rent. House is 3 bedrooms. Son is 25. Works full time earns over 25 K, has 20 K saved.

DH and I rent - he moved in with me and my 2 children who are younger. We have a deposit and some savings but the cheapest 4 bed house is about £200 K more than we can raise (we are over 55) . So we need to sell the other house to buy.

Adult son will not move out. Does not want to. Likes cheap rent and saving and does not want to move out and rent as it is ‘not affordable’.

We live about 45 minute drive away. He comes over x2-3 a week for dinner. He likes this as it is ‘free’ although he moans about paying for his petrol.

He has enough for a 1 bed room flat to buy via deposits and mortgage.

DH has tried to talk to him but he doesn’t want us to use the house to buy a bigger house in our area as he doesn’t want to pay to commute (he can drive) 45 minutes to work.

He has said no. House in DH name and paid for by DH. Adult son’s mum died a number of years ago.We have suggested we sell the house and buy one we can all live in - as our rented house is too small for this. Our rent is twice what our mortgage would be.

Am I missing anything? Has anyone been in this situation? Moving with adult children living at home?

our suggestion is we ring fenced the money made for the sale of DH house and buy a new one - but ring fence the money for adult son - it’s his inheritance.

I am slightly younger and will work for longer and put more into mortgage and I have a deposit.

is there any solution I am not seeing?

Adult son has no social life he is ASD works in a job 25K and has a degree. Will not move jobs either saying ‘I can’t’ . He has been saying this for 3 years despite a first class degree. He will not move jobs or area or apply.

He struggles socially (even with us) we see him x2-3 times a week. Even then he will not help or volunteers to cook or wash up. - separate issue.

His solution is things stay as they are. He won’t move out or rent or house share or buy something?

has anyone been in this situation?

DH was hoping we could talk to him reasonably and explain the financial implications for us, and adult son would agree but it’s not happening, we don’t want to sell the house from under him. We really don’t or fall out with him.

ideally we want them all living away in their own homes. I have one at uni and one that is at primary school. So we can’t move area and DH and I both work local to where we live which is nicer and we want to retire here in 10 years.

Post at 18:51

@LilacTurtle thanks I missed that -

Ok here’s an update.

We have met with DSS and talked through facts and figures.

Turns out he has saved massively more over the last 4 years then we thought….. not surprising maybe as DH has paid for most things and I just never thought if I was paying for cinema for my children, I just brought him a ticket too. He has not paid for anything. We haven’t charged him rent or anything and in fact he only took over the bills recently. So he can afford a 2 bed flat where he is - on his own. He has a large enough deposit to do it and buy it with a mortgage.

He has turned a bit of a corner and said what he’d like is for us to sell DH’s home and buy the new house (we did show him the new house potential buy on Saturday) provided he gets 50% in the will. We are happy with that. We will get that legally drawn up a 50/25/25 split for inheritance.

Not to drip feed and it all goes back to inheritance but actually I am putting the deposit and my savings in - all of it. I will get a huge lump sum in 10 years and that would more than pay off the mortgage. Never mind any inheritance from my parents (which you never can count on care home fees etc ) so my long term ‘money’ and amount of money I have coming in over the next 10 years is much higher than DH. DH will ring fence his sale of his house to DSS in a will. But we have discussed the need for any potential inheritance to me (my parents are still alive and have a number of properties) goes straight to my children to make it fair on all of them. DSS admitted he can’t cope with a 3 bedroom house and doesn’t like or want to do housework. So he said he wants a flat. He doesn’t like the house and is not attached to it. None of them did - it was a stop gap until retirement.

Long way to go here. The spreadsheet helped. But him seeing we are spending £300 K to £400 K on rent in the next 20 years helped him.

For posters saying I don’t like him or that his Dad has moved on with his new girlfriend etc you haven’t appreciated that actually DH and I have put him first for 4 years. I do like him and he likes me.

He is going to move into the new build but we have said we help him buy or he moves out within 12 months. Hopefully this is a good compromise. Plenty more steps on the path.

Well, that sounds like a positive development, OP. That's good news.

How does he justify the 50% inheritance when there are three children though? Is that fair?

I’m Autistic, two of my sons are autistic, so I know that can make change difficult.

However, change is a part of life and he is clearly capable of living on his own and organising his own financial affairs so this situation you’re in is wild, he’s clearly being controlling and manipulative.

He doesn’t get to say no. Just sell the house.

This. It’s not his decision to make. He’s not paying for anything and it doesn’t belong to him. I would inform him the house is going on the market after Christmas (or whenever is close convenient to you), give him notice that he will be moving out and present him with options e.g. annex at new house, buy own flat with some of the equity

He really needs to learn you can’t get what you want all the time and it’s not all about him. His dad has been tolerant letting it go on this long. DSS is entitled and selfish. I am neurodiverse and my father died young but magically l need to stand on my own 2 feet and pay my own way

This is true. But in the this case all 3 ASD children can and will live independently. Choosing not to, is valid as is not being able to afford it, as is having a disability. DSS could do his own shopping and cleaning etc and perhaps DH hasn’t been tough enough. But I didn’t want to get involved. He is tight with money and laughs about it (DSS) so he knows what he is doing. But he needs to adult. We hope we can gift him something from my saving and take out a bigger mortgage. To make his mortgage lower. At that point we will work out exactly what we have each put in and split fairly. As time goes on - if I end up paying the mortgage off in full - the split needs to be adjusted to reflect this.

Actually as it stands if I die my estate goes 50/50 children except the 500 K life insurance which goes 3 ways. DH comes to me - will be change this legally. We will try to make it fair. No one is entitled to an inheritance but we are trying to help them all.

You can argue about money until the cows come home what is fair what isn’t. But him living there until he is 55 and we are 85 is not fair. His Mum left everything to DH. His Mum wanted DH to find someone else and get married again (he wasn’t even 50) and she wanted DSS out. Her feeling was if she didn’t make him go - he wouldn’t ever go.

His father only has one child though. The 50% is from his father.

But realistically, it means nothing because Wills can be changed. He's not even going to get his mother's half of the current house. If his father dies there is nothing to stop the OP from doing what his father has done - marry someone else and invest the money from that previous relationship into a new one. It is very possible he will get nothing from either of his parents.

Hang on, I’m confused by the division of assets.

Your DP is selling the three-bedroom house and ring fencing that money for his son. Is all of that money going towards the new house purchase then? Wouldn’t it be easier to give a chunk to his son now for the flat?

You're also putting all your savings into the new house and will eventually pay off the mortgage with an inheritance.

Long term, who will contribute more to the new house, you or your DP?

The new potential current house we will take that value and that’s the % we will use.

Say DH puts in 200 K I put in 50 k and we find a mortgage for 150K which we pay off - 50% of the 400 K is his inheritance and he can have it. The rest will be split 50/50 between mine. Eg a 200K 100K and 100K split.

That seems fair. Yes - but let’s face it. When DH pop off - hopefully all of ours have brought. We are just moving the money from the current house to a new one. DSS agrees now - although he did say he wanted 5 years to find and buy somewhere and we said 12 months. He laughed and said he just wanted to live cheaply for a few more years. We said no.

Some of the money goes to DSS now to buy a flat, but he also has a mortgage and quite large savings himself.

long term - I’m younger so might pay more. But we will try to do it so I pay off the other half and that goes to my kids.

Gosh - it’s hard but trying to make it fair we will number crunch the exact figures

Good god - why would I take DSS’s inheritance away. He is getting more than 250 K divided by 2. He had no inheritance from his Mum - straight to Dad but I will not take it from it. He’s having 50% of a 400 K house, plus extra and we are helping him buy. We will work out exactly who does what - if my parents die tomorrow and leave me a whole load - it might be he gets some of that too. But we will try to add up the numbers and crunch them. We can’t predict 29 years away.

@Wanttobuyahouse It sounds like you’re getting there now though.

Your DSS can clearly manage his money very well…you did say that he was a mathematician! A two-bedroom flat is an excellent first property, far more than most single twenty-something’s can afford. It sounds like he’ll be fine.

Right thanks all.

I may come back and update. But we are looking at a solution that works for everyone.

To every other step parent or parent of an ASD child - solidarity you can never win, nothing you do will ever be fair. I’ve been accused of not liking him. Before he met me DSS hadn’t been wind surfing, sailing or horseriding etc and he gave me a lovely note last year just saying how grateful he was that I love his Dad and have welcomed him - he has his own key etc like every other step parent particularly of an adult child - I’m doing my best. And yes he did like wind surfing. All three children get on. Yes he is Eeyore but we have a piglet, Pooh and kanga here too - we all are different and we all try to get on.

It's not easy OP, especially when you throw in the individual idiosyncrasies of ND and whatever that means for the arrangements you need to make. It sounds like all has worked out for you though. Your DH's son just needed a bit of time to process, by the sound of it. I'm glad it's all falling into place.

But this is his family home and his mum has died. It's probably his safe space. And has all the memories of his mum there. You should not force him out. Can he buy it off you? Even if it's below market value. It would be very cruel to turf an ASD child out if his family home.

@WomanFromTheNorth See the OP’s update:

DSS admitted he can’t cope with a 3 bedroom house and doesn’t like or want to do housework. So he said he wants a flat. He doesn’t like the house and is not attached to it. None of them did - it was a stop gap until retirement.

"His Mum wanted DH to find someone else and get married again (he wasn’t even 50) and she wanted DSS out."

Very odd for a dying mother to say she wanted her son out. Your first priority would be to protect them and their assets. Very odd indeed.

Odd that the son was reluctant to leave but now very much wants to leave. Hope he wasn't coerced. He's got no one to advocate for him.

And I'm sorry but it doesn't seem like you like him. You changed your tune towards the end of the thread to speak about how great you are towards him. Still nothing nice about him as a person.

Odd that you only have 20,000 saved yet you're due all the windfalls in the future.

Anyway, I don't know if your intentions are good or bad. I do know that what goes around does come around. It always does. Whether in the form of illness, or depression in some form. But if you're as genuine as you claim to be, I guess it may be OK. But it still doesn't sit right.

I also don't believe that you will be in such a rush to get your biological children out of the house when they're in their twenties.

Hope the son will be okay with whatever happens to him. God bless him.

Read the OPs updates :)

You say that now and you believe it. But that might change in the future. If you outlive his father and then end up needing to sell the house for care home fees for yourself, he will get nothing from his father's home (or his mother's death). If you both actually want your children to inherit you should leave your shares of the new house to your own children with the surviving spouse being allowed to remain until death. Otherwise you are just benefitting from the death of another woman.

@BoundaryGirl3939 - are you genuinely wishing illness on a stranger on a forum based on the scant information of one post? Jesus Christ.

Thanks for the update. I'm glad you were able to work it out. You come across really well btw. Hope all the buying and selling works out!

I am endlessly amazed at the astonishing demands made by some ASD adults on their 'loved ones'.

None of you were put on this earth to enable his every demand at your own expense. It's time to lay down the law. It is possible to support him through this but I'm appalled at his absolute selfishness. This has been allowed to go on too long. Expect pushback but hold the line.

You've had some good practical suggestions on this thread so by all means act on them. But you also 100% need to protect yourself for your future.

@Wanttobuyahouse you sound a nice lady to me- the lad may have ASD but sounds pretty smart - in fact smart enough to know you want this and drive a very good deal for himself-

Ah the token poster who likes to act horrified.

Put your glasses on and go back to read what I actually wrote.