So my mom has a house in a depressed area of the south suburbs of Chicago. Mom is currently in an assisted living place in Socal where I relocated her. Prior to that she lived in her 1950’s house under the care of my bro and his wife. Mom ended up in a coma, dehydrated and malnourished as a direct result of their care. Sister-in-law died one month later of a drug overdose.
The house is worth at most 10k (really) after real estate fees and gutting of stuff. It costs 600 bucks a month for maintenance and insurance. I want to sell the place but my two brothers want to keep it in case Mom gets better (not going to happen, she is blind almost deaf and has dementia). In reality, one bro wants it for his teenage kids to flop in and the other has delusions that some day it will be worth something.
They are driving me crazy. I have told them to take what they want from the house within the next 3 months and then I’m going to toss the rest. They are horrified that I have no ties to the “family (ghetto) homestead”.
I have mom’s POA and told them I would deed the house to the both of them but they don’t want to do that either because they don’t want to pay the utilities and taxes.
I hate my family. I am at my wits end. I am ready to cancel the insurance, utilities and just let nature take it’s course.
My feeling is that if you really don’t know what to do with a house, you should rent it out or sell it. Offer first choice to your siblings, but if they can’t be bothered to pay for upkeep, then screw them.
Gosh that’s a depressing story, sinjin. If it were me, I’d get rid of the house. It’s essentially worthless and sucking money off of you for upkeep. So the fam wants to keep the house, but they don’t want to pay for the upkeep and maintenance. They want you to keep the house for them to use. Ugh. I’d sell it, or abandon it or whatever, and let the chips fall where they may as far as the family goes. At least I think that’s what I’d do. Good luck.
Thanks for this. Houses all around my Mom’s have been leveled and the lots are now being maintained by the city. I will look into this and I have considered donation, but don’t know if anyone would accept it. The house itself is in OK condition it’s just in a terrible area. The house across the street sold for $500.00.
I am sorry for your position. Been there but lucky enough that by then Her Ladyship was an only child.
SELL! For Medicare and lots of other reasons just get out from under that hassle and be done with it. Anyone who would take offense, offer then a “sweetheart deal” at like 5K and when they don’t cowboy up suggest nicely they pound salt. It’s about YOUR MOTHER and YOU and what is best in the long run for you both. Keeping it or walking away isn’t ----- so its time to sell.
Do not under any circumstances deed the house to your relatives. If your POA is a durable power of attorney, you are obligated* by law* to take care of her finances in the best way possible, and that includes not giving away her house.
You need to consult a lawyer before you make a move.
When my mother needed to go into assisted living and I took over managing her finances, her lawyer told me not to sell her car cheap to one of my cousins, as that would be a violation of the law.
I don’t know what the situation would be about making a charity donation, see a lawyer.
Your relatives can sue you and take control of the POA if you don’t maintain it in the best interest of your mother. However, there’s squat they can do other than be annoying if you well manage it on her behalf.
I’m so sorry your mother has been having a problem. Equally sorry your family is not being practical about things here. For $600.00 a month, it would be better to invest that long-term in IRA or 401(k) than spend $7200.00 a year to keep a place which has no practical use. Allow teenage boys to stay there? Please, that’s highly insane, don’t let them bully you.
You have POA, which means it was given to you because you were the mature one here. This is what I think you should do. If you talked to a realtor and can’t sell the place, I would talk with a real estate attorney and see if it’s possible that you could donate the property to charity or the city, just some thing which would put a value on it so you could get out from under it and hopefully take a deduction on your taxes. I donated an old car to a charity and was able to deduct the value of it from my taxes. It was win-win, because selling it privately would have been a pain plus I wouldn’t have gotten much for it. It just wasn’t worth the time, and that’s your situation too.
Talk to a real estate attorney, explore options. Then just take care of things. As to answer all the insane family members tell them, you discussed this with the attorney and this was the only thing to do. In the event your mother does need to live someplace else, you can always get her an apartment in a much nicer and safer area.
One more thing, I wouldn’t try to rent it out. If it’s in such a bad area you are highly likely to get people who will trash the thing, be late on payments or skip out on you entirely.
Acknowledge there is a reason only one sibling has POA. Not an accident it’s one person, instead of all of you. Not an accident that it’s you. You have been charged with this because of your ability to make a fair decision, and act in a timely manner. Again, not an accident.
You’ve given them the heads up about the choices before you. And clearly they are not interested in being reasonable. They want it kept but don’t want to pay the costs. Sorry, but that leaves them out of luck, because there is you, an adult, in charge.
Send them each a registered letter stating what’s on the agenda: either they secure funding to purchase the house and make arrangements to take over the expenses by a set date, or, the house is being put up for sale as of this date. The funds will be used for Moms future care costs, and all of this will be done in line with the POA signed by your Mom. Clearly everyone cannot be pleased as everyone wants something different. This is therefore the decision that has been taken. It is not up for debate. Make purchase arrangements or don’t, it’s that easy.
No matter what you do they won’t like it. So do what you think is fair and don’t worry about anything else. It’s not an accident you were left in charge here, step up and do what you need to.
If for no other reason, this is why you should get rid of the house. I don’t know if the $600/month is coming out of your own pocket or from your mother’s, but either way, you are throwing good money away each month.
I was in the same situation with my grandmother. She had developed dementia and was in a nursing home. She had a lovely old home but it was in a tiny rural town and houses weren’t selling there at all. We wound up selling it to local school district. They divided it into two apartments and used it as housing for teachers. There were no apartment buildings in the area and the teachers were happy to have the rental housing. The school district even purchased the bulk of the home furnishings that the family didn’t want to take, so they could offer the apartments furnished.
In order to assure the court that I was acting in her best interests, all of the proceeds of the sale of the house were sequestered solely for her care at the nursing home.
This exact idea wouldn’t work for you, but perhaps a church or other charitable institution that works with the homeless or another displaced group might be willing to pay you a nominal amount for it. Then you’d have the proceeds, whatever they were, available for your mother’s care and you could write off the difference between the property’s value and its selling price as a charitable contribution.
I agree with the others that you should get rid of it, but send a certified letter to the siblings laying out the timetable for both removing belongings and taking ownership if the want. When they don’t act, proceed as you see fit. Yeah, you’ll still get shit from them - that’s unavoidable - but keeping things as clear and professional as possible usually helps with irrational siblings.
I got nothing to add except that it’s amazing to see the fucking ridiculous schemes that people who have conspicuously not been named POA or executor (obviously for good reason) come up with. Went through some similar shit with people in my family after my mother died - the selfish loonies really showed their hands.
Hang in there.
elbows gives good advice. I think what is meant by “Acknowledge there is a reason only one sibling has POA” is “Acknowledge to yourself there is a reason…” not that you should make it a talking point with your siblings.
My wife was in a similar situation after her mother died. She was the one named the executor of the will and with the PoA. She kept trying to please everybody and it dragged and things like taxes and maintenance were deferred because no one had the money to do it. Ultimately it destroyed most of the value of the house and they sold it for a pittance to the second bidder who came out of the woodwork. A real estate professional who is a friend of the family said they could have gotten four times what they took for it if they had bothered to call him instead. During the long run-up to the sale it was causing emotional stress and conflict between siblings. I advised my wife to set some firm rules and give people clear guidance on what we could/couldn’t do with the property and the costs/benefits associated with it, but she never felt like she had the right to make unilateral decisions or push her siblings to come to the table to make a group decision, so the situation degraded until they were all sick of it and it became a huge source of stress on all of them.
Like elbows and others have said, you are the one making the rules here, and your conscience is the one you have to live with. Your mother trusts your judgment and that’s why you have PoA. Now you may have to make the hard decisions she wasn’t able to and deal with it. Give them a deadline to either buy the property and take over the ownership responsibilities or it will be sold to cover costs of your mother’s care. If none of them is willing to become the new owner of the house then they can come and claim any personal effects/mementos you feel will not need to be sold to cover costs of your mother’s care. If they know a firm timeline and are given fair warning then you’ve done right by them, even if they don’t agree.
Piles and piles of research confirm that when you sell off assets and simplify your life you relieve the mental stress you’d been under even if you don’t realize it when you’re under the weight of your “stuff.” I think once you set some firm and, as best you can, fair boundaries then you will be amazed at how much better you’ll feel and how easy it will be to move forward.