I've been on here once before ages ago regarding this matter. I can't remember my former ID for this. I've had a name change since.
2 years ago, we bought a 4 bedroom house. We have 3 young kids ranging from teen years to baby. The verbal agreement was that my mother, who lives in the States, would sell up and move in with us giving us a proportion of the proceeds from the sale of her bungalow to help us pay down our mortgage and allow us all to stay in this house where she'd be looked after until her death. The idea is to never have to put her in a home. We made a commitment and over the years, mom's stays with us have gotten longer and longer. This last time, she stayed one year.
It's not easy, but it's not terrible either. We get along very well, husband especially loves mom, possibly more than me because I get the brunt of the carer stuff. Her mobility is reduced and she is 80 and in not such good health, so this is not easy, but she's not completely immobile yet and can still bathe herself and walk up and down the stairs. She's a warm, loving person but never, ever does anything for herself. Her hobby is me. I find this draining at times, but she's always been this way. I knew what I was taking on when we offered her to live with us. We did not make this decision lightly.
The thing is, in order for this to work in the house where we live, we need a proportion of mom's money from her house sale. She agreed to this, giving my brother a smaller proportion so that he has 'something'. This was discussed and agreed between mom and me/hubby two years ago. She has never discussed it much since. She went home to the states to stay with my brother 4 weeks ago and rang me the other day to say she's coming back in July. We're not ready to have her back. But basically, the long and short of it is, my brother and his wife- who have been living a marvellous champagne lifestyle (they are older with grown kids- this is his second wife, married two years)- are broke, skint, and now have to downsize into a flat and send my mother back here to stay with us (we so needed the breather after having her here so long and we anticipated she'd go back to stay with my brother for several months. That's how it's been the past 5 years.
My husband's stance is, no she can't come back until she deals with real life. She can't keep coming back and forth, living out a suitcase while everyone supports her financially. She needs to go home and decide what to do with the house she hasn't slept in for over 5 years. She just goes back and forth between my brother's in the States and my home here in the UK. She has left her house to rot. But in the past year my brother has been frantically doing up her house, without involving me in any aspect. I have no idea what's happened to mom's contents. She won't discuss her house with me at all other than to say, my brother is dealing with everything. He has now written to me to say that he is broke and downsizing. He can't have mom stay with him anymore and he's sending her back to me and renting her house out. He says she can live with us and live off the rent from her home.
Financially, this doesn't work for us because the idea was that we'd be able to pay down our house with mom's help and in return, support and house her until her death. She wouldn't need to pay for anything extra while living with us. She would not live like a tenant, paying a portion of the bills or anything. Life stuff would be on us. My husband has become terribly pushy about mom's situation. Basically, we have to sell if she doesn't come in on this house with us financially. And although she agreed to this verbally, I did warn my husband that while my brother did not agree to this, my mom would wax and wane, which is totally what's happened. Basically, she wants to make me happy and my brother happy. The long and short of it is that she keeps saying, "Yes, I'll invest with you" but has made no motion to do so. She does come and stay but hasn't shown us that she wants to 'live' here, if that makes sense. My brother does not want her to sell and give us any proceeds. He wants her to rent out her property and live with us but feels we should be able to support her without proceeds from her house. We would not have bought this house if we did not think she was going to invest with us. We wanted to buy a smaller house on the same road and that was the house we were going to be gunning for. But when mom said she would live with us and offer a lump sum to help with this, we made sure we secured this house. Everything would be put into place to protect her investment. We would make sure that if anything happened to my husband or to me or if we divorced, mom's investment would be protected.
Me? I don't want any of it anymore. It's all so messy. On the one hand, I feel like we're just sniffing around my mother's money and on the other hand, I see my hubby's point. She did say she'd like to sell her house and give us some not all of her proceeds in order to allow us to keep this house where she too can live. The bottom line is, we bought this house thinking she would go in with us on it because she wanted to. Now she just doesn't want to talk about it. She wants to come and stay but not discuss her future at all. The whole year she was here, we couldn't talk about it. We will have to sell and downsize because we can't reasonably sustain this large property without her help. This leaves her a bit stranded. But at the same time, it will make my brother happy because he did not- and he made this clear- not mom investing with us. He did not explain why or what his issues were, no matter how many email exchanges we've had. He just has made it clear that he doesn't want her investing with us. I don't know what he thinks is best for mom.
Mom is now very cagey about what she wants. I said to my husband that it's like we're communicating in Braille. We're all very civilised and nice to each other. Not one harsh word has been spoken. But behind each other's backs I am certain we all feel frustrated. Mom wants to live with us but I don't think she wants to invest with us. I would LOVE to house my mom for free. I hate needing money from her to make this work, I simply hate thus situation. It's become entirely about money.
My brother has taken over the refurbishment of her house completely and he ignores any emails I write discussing her home or her plans. He'll respond to my jokey emails where we discuss superficial stuff. But with regards to mom's finances or future, the wall goes up. And as I said, mom wants to live with us without discussing anything financial.
I feel like I'm the bad guy here. We have not pushed mom to sell. We have not pushed her to make a decision. But it's sort of crunch time for us. We have to decide how to manage a property we bought thinking she was coming in with us on it. I've told her not to come in July. I've told her we need to decide the way forward with our house. The possibility of selling is very real. As of April 2016, my husband will have a £15,000 income drop as well. So this came as a shock only two weeks ago.
Please tell me if I am unreasonable. I cannot see the forest for the trees and I need some honest advice and opinions, even if I come out looking bad.
My husband is angry. My brother's emails are becoming curt. And I feel like I'm just trying to avoid a huge family bust up. My mom is footloose and fancy free. I don't think she's given anything much thought. And I feel a bit angry with her for this. It's all about "Where will I go now? I want to avoid the California summer. I think I'll come back to England." But she's not understanding that she's dealing with children who have their own worries and need to make long-term plans with or without her on board. Thank you in advance.