My sister and her husband have been living beyond their means for years in an incredibly expensive neighborhood. It culminated in them buying an extremely expensive house, and then they started defaulting on the payments after tearing out the kitchen and both bathrooms.
They called upon my mother to bail them out, and guilted her into co-signing a refinance of their house to the tune of a million dollars for the mortgage, plus cash to live on, plus cash to fix the house, plus back payments.
They say they’re going to “fix it up” and sell it. Mom is to get back her money while they take the profits and buy another house in the same neighborhood, another house they can’t afford, another house they want her to co-sign for, because they like it there.
I don’t know which one of these staggering chuckleheads deserves my venom the most, but I know which one I’m angriest with. Sister, you disgust the fuck out of me. You do nothing. You have never had a job. You spend like there’s no tomorrow. And now you have whined and wheedled until Mom signed those papers, papers that you know screw her over ten ways to Sunday.
All because you are a fucking snob who wants to live amongst the rich people.
You are the same person who once said in my presence that there must not be any poor people. I was too ashamed at the time at the time to admit it was my sister saying such a stupid thing. But now, you don’t even recognize that you are the poor people.
When I asked Mom if she was doing it because she felt sorry for you or because she wanted to get rid of you, she said it was 50/50. There’s your legacy, idiot. That’s what your fucking mother thinks of you.
I know your useless ass won’t fix the house. You’ve never met a project you couldn’t fuck up and make twenty times more expensive than it has to be. You’d think this would be a wake-up call, but I know it won’t be.
I never really believed I could love someone and despise them at the same time. Congratulations, you proved me wrong.
I will never understand people like your sister. In my family, you are expected to be prudent and live within your means. Mortgages are a necessary (and sometimes useful) evil, and unsecured debt is perilous.
People lose their shirts, they end up homeless, or subsist on scraps, in poverty as their miserable and deprived old age drags on and on. Those are the consequences of taking on mountains of debt that can never be discharged without hitting a lottery jackpot.
What does she think the consequences of her choices will be? Money doesn’t grow on trees, it won’t just be there whenever she needs it. It drives me CRAZY when people act as if someone will come to save them. Everyone who thinks like me should get bumper stickers that say; "NO ONE IS COMING TO SAVE YOU. PAY YOUR OWN DAMN BILLS."I would have to put mine on a guitar case or something though, because I don’t own a car - I can’t afford one, and I don’t have things I can’t afford**. A novel concept, I know, but simple enough for me to grasp. And I don’t even have a college degree!
**Disclaimer: I have been known to take on short-term debt, which I pay off promptly.
From your desciption it sounds as if your sister thinks she’s going to “flip” the house - reselling it at a profit.
That’s a big gamble (expecially with the housing market going down the tubes). I feel sorry for you Mom as it sounds as if she’s going to be the one holding the bag here.
I agree, I find it repulsive when adult children expect their elderly parents to subsidise their pipe dreams.
A friend of my dad who is well into his 50s has his parents paying his mortgage, the interest on his business loans, all his bills, and private school fees for his children. He’s had at least three failed business ventures and is embarking on another one. His parents are paying several hundred thousand dollars a year so he can play at being an entrepreneur. I’m sure his siblings enjoy seeing what would have been their inheritance getting flushed down the drain too. This guy likes to flaunt his McMansion, his designer polo shirts, his Rolex … you know what would be more impressive? Manning up and supporting his family instead of leeching off his retired parents. :rolleyes:
I hope for your mother’s sake that things work out and your sister doesn’t end up becoming another failed flipper or, God forbid, Casey Serin.
It is exactly like people like Casey that the market is in the situation it is in. The ridiculous rates they were giving out make people like Casey more and more common. So people sold property because the market was hot earlier than they would have. People bought property before they would have because the market was so hot. The slowed market has screwed so many real estate speculators, and traditional home owners as well.
The house across from me was purchased about a year and a half ago. They intended to flip it as soon as it went on the market. They had allowed the previous owner to live there for 6 months. She basically trashed everything they had replaced when they bought it. They bought it when the market was hot and 6 months later, when they were able to sell, it tanked. The house is still for sale. So is the one next to it. So is mine.
Your sister is in a situation that many, many people are in. It’s a damn shame she is using your mother, but your mother let it happen. I don’t imagine it would be easy for a mother to “reap what you sow, motherfucker” their child. Your mother may know better, but your stupid sister is still her daughter. Cut your Mom some emotional slack. She probably feels responsible. Unfortunately, when you are talking about things like Moms, we ultimately feel responsible for every shortcoming in our children. The fact you turned out good doesn’t disprove her guilt. You were just lucky.
Your sister seems to be her own worst enemy. I hope she wisens up. If it is any consolation, we bought a house we could easily afford 7 years ago, and because of property taxes and insurance hikes, we can’t afford it now. We also make more than we did then.
I have a very small mortgage compared to the value of my house. I’m swimming in equity praying to sell. Even if I paid off my mortgage today, my monthly payment would still be more than it was when we moved in. I pay more for my homeowners insurance monthly that I do for my house and that isn’t counting the mandatory flood insurance, special tax district and taxes.
Maybe your sister should visit with a financial advisor. We met with one once and it was very helpful. He ended up telling me what I knew, we needed to make more, but gave us a lot of positive aspects to decisions we have made. Overall, it was a quite positive experience. Maybe you could arrange one for her and her husband?
Oh come now. I have a friend who’s mother and brother are in a similar sort of situation as the mother/sister in the OP. The brother is a wastrel who doesn’t see why he should have to work, the mother keeps bailing him out even though she has run out of the means to do so… of course we can ask ‘why is the mother so dumb’? It’s because she’s the mother, it’s what they do. Hey at least in the OP there was some glimmer of recognition of the situation from the mother.
Co-signer on a million buck loan? Sorry, that’s not motherly love, that’s out and out stupidity. Gosh, I wonder where sister learned that whining would eventually lead to getting her way? I guess your mother is still paying for her crappy parenting skills. Note to parents: your job is NOT to give junior everything he wants or to insulate him from pain. Pain is good; pain is necessary. Let them feel it and learn from it. Your job is to raise him/her to be self-sufficient human beings.
Your sister’s not the only one who is going to get burned by the housing craze that is fizzling out as we type. Combine greedy people with unscrupulous bankers who offer creative financing and you’ll eventually end up with a disaster. We’re right on the cusp of that disaster. And your mother will undoubtedly be swept up in it.
Please tell me you’ve had at least one honest conversation with your mother, along the lines of:
“I know you are an adult woman, fully in charge of your faculties, and your money and assets are yours to do with as you please, you built them, after all. But you don’t have to be Kreskin to see what’s coming down the pipe from sister. She could easily/will likely lose everything, and leave you holding the bag for her bad finances. My only concern is that you have the wisdom to put aside and secure adequately the minimum you will require for your future needs, medical and retirement. I have complete faith that you are trying to help them, but I don’t want to see your future put at risk because due to kindheartedness, because I love you. It’s my hope that you have consulted a financial counsellor or lawyer about these arrangements before you have taken on any risk. If you haven’t, I humbly suggest you do so now. Thank you for listening to my concerns, I will not bring it up again.”
You Mom’s letting herself get pulled down the rabbit hole, and maybe, just maybe, she’s looking for you to bail her out! She maybe looking for someone to lean on. Who wouldn’t want someone to come in and help them make the difficult choices in life? A couple of honest sentences dealing directly with your concerns will shift that responsibility back onto her own self. Make it clear you are stepping out, on this issue.
Personally, I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night until I’d at least said this much. She may well simply choose to not to hear it, happens all the time. But at least it’s been said. Out loud. Calmly and quietly when alone.
Oh, absolutely. In fact, she came to my other sister and me a couple of days ago and said, “This is what your sister wants me to do.” We had a number of suggestions, ways she could help a little bit without putting her name on the mortgage, even if it was money just thrown away it wouldn’t have had so much risk. So, she was all happy and went off with a plan, and the next day she called to say that she had co-signed the loan and that she knew we (other sister and I) would be upset with her but she had to do it because a year ago she had agreed to help and this is the help they chose and blah blah blah.
I can be frustrated with Mom, but it is her money. She can burn it and dance around the flames and I can’t say boo.
As long as people like your mother will bail them out, these people will not change. I hate to have to see your mother having to pay the loan and/or losing her credit rating if sis and hubby can’t pay (which looks likely, considering their past history).
No. If it did, I’d take her in, no questions asked. Which means that I’m willing to bail people out after stupid financial decisions, too! It’s hereditary! Aiiee!
There’s a reason banks won’t loan money to some people. If someone wants you to co-sign something, run far far away.
Bullshit on the “help” too. There’s help, and then there’s financial suicide. Helping someone does NOT mean you have to put yourself at risk for financial ruin. It sounds like your sister guilted your mom into it.
IIRC, if your mother is the co-signer, the bank does NOT have to notify her if and when your sister defaults. The first inking Mom will have that something is wrong is if she tries to apply for credit on her own.
This is a bad scene all around, and I fear it will end in tears.
“You cannot help someone by doing for them what they could, or should, do for themselves.”
This is the reason you can’t solve money problems with money.
Money problems are about the wrong priorities, which don’t change when someone bails them out. It only reinforces the misaligned priorities all the more.
Too bad, so sad.
It must be extremely hard for you to watch, you have my sympathies.
Exactly. These type of people consider personal loans an extra income source. Not that it is the same thing but my employees were borrowing money from the business for “emergencies”. Soon “emergencies” became vacations and home improvement. I had to put a stop to it when I found out that certain people were no sooner repaying one loan that they were taking out another.
Your Mom isn’t a bank. Believe me, my parents would see me in debtor’s prison before doing such a thing and I know I wouldn’t do it for my son either. I would be too embarrassed to ever ask my parents for money or have them involved in my personal financial business anyway. I guess sis isn’t big on the pride thing.
I’m sorry your mother is in this position.
From within my circle of family and friends:
My ex-brother-in-law gives up a decent professional job to start his own business.
He doesn’t get legal or financial advice. :rolleyes:
After the first bankruptcy :smack: he asks a relative for an unsecured loan (in today’s money) of £120,000 ($240,000). Then he goes bankrupt again.
A friend of mine discovered his mother had been talked into signing over her house deeds as a guarantee for the spend-it-all brother. After the venture collapsed, my friend had to take out a new mortgage to stop his mother being homeless.
The mother continued to say that spend-it-all brother really meant well…
jsgoddess, I would check that your mother is not going to sign her house deeds over as a guarantee.
Can your mom use her co-signer leverage to make sure that your sister gets the work done on the house like she’s supposed to? If she’s a co-signer, is she also a co-owner?
You have my sympathy. I’ve helped my kids out a few times, but I’ve never agreed to co-sign for anything. My husband co-signed a car loan for his stepson once, and there were hard feelings when son couldn’t make the payments.
I have a friend who maxed out several credit cards ($40K worth, mostly mortgage payments) to help her son when he couldn’t find work. The kid’s in his late 30’s and is way too picky about the jobs he takes.
It’s hard to tell kids no, but thankfully most kids take care of business so they don’t have to ask.