WWYD, difficult choice re selling MILs house

[sweetkitty]

Background, MIL died July 2009, left her house to DP and SIL equally. House didn't officially go on the market until July 2010 as it took forever to get it up to spec for selling. We live an hours drive away and have 4 young DC including a young baby, SIL lives 5 mins away, is on her own with on 17 year old still at home so naturally a lot of stuff to do with the house has fallen with SIL although we have helped out where we can.

The thing is say the house was valued at 100K for simplicity. We dropped the price to 95K a few months ago since had 2 viewers.

We are about to start a much needed extension to our own house but cannot until MILs house is sold. The house next door is up for sale at 10K more although it is in a better decorative state.

We are paying house insurance every month for the house as well and I feel the longer it is on the market the less it will appeal to buyers.

The thing is SIL is hesistant to sell the house well we believe it wouldn't even be on the market if it weren't for us pushing it.
I don't think it is the emotional side of things just that she is completely useless at sorting things out. It's just a desperate situation and we don't know where next to go with it.

I have suggested lowering the house another 5K to a Fixed Price to attract buyers, we know SIL won't be keen but if it's about money we would pay the difference if it sells IYSWIM?

SIL buying us out? She has already hinted that she would use the money to invest in another property to rent out. Obviously we would sell our half below the market value but I don't know how she will take it.

She has suggested putting in a new kitchen and bathroom which aren't modern granted but aren't old either. I think it would be spending money we wouldn't recoup.

We really need this house sold but don't want to upset SIL either, just looking for some advice?

Any house will sell at the right price. If it's been on since July it's overpriced.

How many estate agents valued it? I would go for four valuations and go with a price somewhere in the middle if I was keen to sell quickly. There's nothing worse than having a house languishing on the market for ages.

I'm not sure what to suggest about SIL. It's always difficult when there are several parties with differing opinions of the right course of action!

First, sit down with your SIL and discuss the way forward. Ask her if she wants to buy you out and if she doesn't, then don't put in new kitchen and bathroom, price it to sell and stick it on with a new agent if necessary.

Make an effort to spend a weekend up there, cutting grass, finalising any details so that you're not reliant on your SIL to do it. The house may be tired but try not to make it look unloved. State clearly on the details that the house needs some upgrading/modernisation so that everyone who visits is clear and it may attract people (like me) that like projects.

If the house next door is quite close in price, you will definitely have to come down ab bit.

House next door is 10K cheaper which is quite a big difference i.e. both houses not like 250K.

We got 3 valuations all about the same, put it on for the lowest valuation hoping it would sell quickly, dropped it by 5K after 3 months when it had had 1 viewer (SIL wasn't happy but agreed).

I got DP to email SIL (as apparently her phone has been broken for months and she cannot find time to repair it, she doesn't answer her home phone ever and last time we went to visit she was away) so email is the only way to contact her (nightmare I know). We haven't spoke about the house since before Christmas and I feel we have to sort it out.

DP said we need to sell this house so can we drop the price 5K again, look at changing estate agents (they are useless and I am fed up with the "oh it's the market" excuses) yes the market is rubbish everyone knows that well they have to get used to selling houses in this market as it's not going to change anytime soon. Suggested that we give her the extra 2.5K if it sells at the reduced price and suggested she buy us out.

Will give her a week and chase her up (will know that she will not reply soon). It's like pulling teeth, everything is so long and tedious. I think she is delusional she thinks the market is going to pick up. She also suggested that someone may buy next door and knock them together to make a 4 bed house, now would you spend 2 x 100K on 2 houses, spend probably 20K converting them at least for a house worth 160K when you could buy one for that? This is where she is coming from.

Sorry just having a rant.

It sounds like you need to meet up with her and have a proper discussion about the way forward.

She will be emotionally attached to the house so go easy on her. If I were you I would try and let her take the lead and find out what she wants to do.

If you spend money on it your likely to increase the salability but not get the money back iyswim.

Personally I'd sit out this dip in the market and take out a loan to do your extention then pay it back when the market goes up again which it always does.
We sold my nan's house for £34,000 and then 3 years later they sold it for £120,000. That could have set us all up for life.

Tbh I don't think there is much of a slump up here.

4 houses on our estate have all sold within a month. ( for between 100k and 270k)

Do you think it's overpriced?

Can you link to it?

Sounds like the EA isn't even getting people through the door which is half the battle.

Who is doing the viewings? Is there any chance SIL is trying to sabotage them?

I know it's hard with the brood, but I think if you and your dh want to sell and SIL is non committal, then you need to take the lead.

Spend a weekend sprucing it up a bit, change EA's, do the viewings yourselves. It'll mean a tiring month or 2 but hopefully it'll be worth it in the end?

No I don't think it's overpriced anymore if the price was dropped again.

EA is doing viewings, it would be utterly impossible for us to do them, we are an hour away and DP works long hours etc and the DC have the usual school/nursery/clubs/dancing commitments. If someone wanted to see it there is no way we could drop everything and rush down there.

mamatomany - we cannot afford to take out a loan for the extension until the house is sold so waiting it out is not an option.

SIL does have an emotional attachment as we all do but it's been 2 years now, she is an ostrich head in the sand sort of person, she's so disorganised it's frightening, the front door needed fixed so she said she would get someone to have a look at it she knew but he was on holiday, he wasn't available, honestly it went on for weeks, DP took a morning off work, phoned a local locksmith and had it fixed in a few hours.

DP emailed SIL last week saying we need to get moving with this house thing. It was at the bottom of a general catch up e-mail.

No reply yet, things like this really piss me off, I think it is really disrespectful not to send your brother a short "got your e-mail haven't had time to think about it will get back to you, things fine here" sort of thing.

We are her only family, both parents dead now, only one brother, 3 neices and a nephew. SIl is divorced and has two grown up children, one still lives with her and hasn't had a job since she left school 2 years ago and basically gets treated as a child and gets everything she wants whilst SIL moans about her, I have given up trying to advise her on that subject though.

DP is off next week and I think we are going to have to take a trip down hopefully give the house a bit of a tidy and talk to SIL about it.

Be strong!

I would send an email saying that you want to come down next week and asking for a time that is convenient to her as there is a great deal to discuss. I suggest meeting at the house itself or somewhere neutral rather than her home.

hi just a quick update for anyone interested. DP wrote SIL a quite strong email about her lack of contact in general and mentioned the house again. SIL came back and said "well it's only been on the market 9 months"

4 viewers in 9 months is IMO a bit rubbish. It's 10K under the next door neighbours house and we want to reduce the asking price another 5K to make it 15K under the neighbours house which we believe is overpriced anyway. We asked about coming down to tody up/cut grass etc but she never replied. I said to DP we should hire a gardener to tidy it up every fortnight or so over the Summer, DP agreed but said SIL would have to pay him etc and that would be too much for her given her job (she is away a lot).

It sounds grim. I think you want to sell it to pay for your extension, she doesn't want to sell it for some reason.
Could you rent it out unfurnished until the market picks itself up? We have a house in Salford which we own, no mortgage. We've tried to sell it three times but each time it has failed.
It is a little place, but living out of the country we had no idea of value. One estate agent said 125k so we had it on for that for 8 weeks with no viewings. Changed EA who valued it at 105k, still no viewings, third EA said 95k so you can see a vast difference even in six months.

I think she doesn't want to deal with it, she's definitely a ostrich head in the sand type of person. She told us in January her mobile phone was broken, apparently it is still broken and she needs to take it 5iles away so they can send it away to get fixed and she's not had the time. 3 months and not had an hour to spare.

Renting not really an option we need the money out the house now no other way to get the extension built.

Who is the executor? DH's mum died recently. DH is executor. We had an offer on her house over the weekend and SIL would not reply on whether she agreed to it. DH as executor has taken the decision to accept the offer and e-mailed SIL to say he's done that.

Perhaps the executor needs to get things going - let's hope it's not your SIL!

Executor is one of his Mums friends, she doesn't live close and is quite elderly.

The thing is we have said to her "OK we want to reduce the price, you don't, we are desperate to sell, you aren't so if we reduce the price 5K and it sells at that price we will give you the shortfall 2.5K, so don't see what her problem is?" If she doesn't want to sell the house but keep it as an investment we have given her the opportunity to buy us out at a lower than market value. Surely she must understand that we desperately need this extension?

I honestly don't think it's not that she doesn't want to sell but she cannot be bothered thinking about it and doing anything proactive (story of her life really).

We have to pay insurance every money as well so we are losing money each month it's not sold. Also it's just hanging over us and it would be good to just have it sold and wrap things up instead of the constant reminder IYSWIM?

Do you need her to speak to EA or can your husband independently? If so, I would write one clear email saying: The house has been on the market 9 months, we need to sell it. It will stand much better chance of selling at #xx amount so we will be instructing the EA to reduce the price after the Easter bank holiday unless we hear from you. You will still receive xx amount from the sale but we do not feel comfortable having money tied up in an empty property and are therefore very focused on selling the house. If you would like to buy us out, then we would be more than happy for that to happen - please suggest a price that you think is fair - but, if not, we will take on the responsibility of communicating with the EA and getting a sale through.

If you want the money from the house sale then I'm afraid that you will have to travel back and forth a bit cutting the grass and collecting the post rather than rely on your SIL but at least you will have a bit more control of the process.

Also, there is the Capital Gains Tax problem as well if not sold I think.

Thanks DP is going to speak to the EA Friday and is sending her an e-mail tomorrow asking if she has had time to think about the email we sent 2 weeks ago.

The EA is useless, they phoned up saying they had a viewer but that someone had come in and taken the key away, noone has so they admitted they had lost it, when DP phoned up a few days later and spoke to the main man a few hours later it was found again, EA don't open at weekends and they don't have a letterbox (when we wanted to drop a key through the letterbox).

Just wanted to give everyone who gave me their opinions an update and have another rant.

So the upshot of all the toing and froing over price is that SIL reluctantly agreed to drop the price another 5K so the house is now 10K under the home report valuation (Scotland).

We were finally able to go and see the house today, this is the first time I have been in the house since MIL died. SIL lives 5 mins away and we said to her we were coming down etc and DP was going to cut the grass/tidy the garden. She said oh I have done it etc and made every excuse going to try and stop us coming down. Anyway we did and what a shock I got. OK she has cleared a lot of the clutter out, got 2 new beds and dressed them but the house is dirty. I mean there was dust in every corner of the floor which had dirty marks in places. The hall carpet and indeed every carpet in the bedrooms upstairs was in need of a good hoover and a good clean really. The whole house just looked in need a a good clean. The grass was cut but the rest of the garden was untidy, silly little things like cans and litter in it. DP did about an hours weeding and I brushed all the floors (no hoover) and washed what I could whilst looking after 4 DC, one of which is cruising.

The kitchen and bathroom aren't that bad, again in need of a clean basic things like stained toilet and dirty bath.

DP sent SIL an email just saying we had been done and that he thought the house needed some work doing on it, he was very careful not to upset her feelings as she has said she is tidying it and in all honestly she probably thinks she is but to be blunt having seen her own house her idea of clean isn't that high. I just cannot believe she thinks that the house is clean enough for buyers to look round.

I looked around the house like a potential buyer and just thought it looked dated and dirty and I would have to redecorate throughout.

I honestly think she does not want to sell the house at all. Which is fine if that is what she wants but DP owns half of it and he does want to sell it. I'm also a bit annoyed at the estate agent who keeps saying "oh it's fine" and just blames the market.

DP is going to try and find a day and go down himself and sort it out but it is going to be obvious that if he turns up with a hoover and bleach that we think it dirty!

auction?

No way she would agree to an auction.

Can you get a cleaning firm in to give it a really good going over then paint the walls magnolia?
We had our house cleaned in preparation for tenants after the EA reported it filthy. IIRC it cost 120 pounds. Painting a couple of rooms shouldn't take more than a day.

The walls are all white they actually look OK, well they have that aniglypter (sp??) paper on them painted over.

A cleaning firm would be a good idea but them of course SIL would need to be there to let them in the house and that would be a huge hassle like the door situation. She kept going on and on about the door needing fixed and that she knew someone who could do it but he was on holiday (for about 4 months) DP got fed up phoned a locksmith, then phoned her to arrange for her to pop along, the locksmith had it fixed in 20 minutes.

Anything is like this huge big hassle. If we mention the fast it needs a good clean she is going to get mega offended as she has said she has been cleaning it and will probably dig her heels in even more.

We are an hours drive away with 4 young DC and no one to babysit, it's not like we can pop over once a week. I am so sick of the whole thing now I could cry. It was quite upsetting being in MILs house with our DC the other day, at how dirty it was and also taking DS in there as she never got to meet him and the other DC asking why we were at Grans house if she's in heaven

I think that when people put off and put off a little job like that, it's a sign that they're not feeling emotionally ready to deal with it. I know you don't feel this is the case, though.

But, looking at it from your SiL's point of view, it seems that she doesn't really want to sell it, whatever the reason for that might be, so it's not surprising that she's not wanting to make the effort to mow the lawn, vaccuum and dust regularly, and so on. You're the ones who want to sell it, so whatever little she does, she's really doing just as a favour to you.

I think that if your DH wants to sell, he has to accept that his sister doesn't, and that she isn't going to actively help him sell it. I don't see why he shouldn't give it a day giving it a really good clean, though - wash down all the walls with sugar soap and so on.

It's not just that she judge puts off things to do with MILs house she is like it with everything. For example her boiler broke 2 winters ago she didn't get it fixed for a year, lived in a freezing house with a fan heater. Same with her car. At Christmas she said she had a leak in her bathroom it got worse and ended up flooding her house, she's not redecorated so doesn't want us to visit. She has the money to get these things sorted but doesn't.

I know it's hard for her to let go of the house and if there was another way to build the extension we would be doing it. The house is lying empty and we are paying insurance on it every month. Even if we could rent it I don't think she could cope with someone else living there maybe breaking things et c I know she is attached to the house.

DP is going to go down and sort things. SIL won't want him to I think she wants to do everything or not as the case may be.