agonyaunt | (no subject)

Dear Care and Feeding,

My three older sisters and I are in the process of distributing my father’s trust/estate. He left a paid-for house worth about $600,000 and another $300,000 in cash. Here’s the dilemma. My older sister and youngest sister live in the house (the house is a four-bed, two-bath) and my niece lives in the back house with her husband and three children in a small (one-bed, one-bath) duplex. If it were up to me, I’d file a partition lawsuit to force the sale of the house, but I know my sisters would scramble to find a place to live. So my next idea is to tell my niece she needs to find a new place so I can rent out the duplex.

I know this will cause a rift with my sister (her mom) but I’m trying to make the best long-term financial decision for my wife and kids. I understand it’s hard for many people out there right now, but for my niece and her husband, it’s been eight good years of not paying rent, having Disney yearly passes, driving new cars, and eating at nice restaurants. My sister never talked to my niece about her careless spending or suggested she start saving to buy a place of their own. While I could also offer to take a buyout, which is what my middle sister is doing, I don’t exactly need to pull my share of the house. I would like to leave it and use it for rental income (as well as force some responsibility in the process).

—Greedy but Responsible Child

Dear Greedy but Responsible Child,

I’m afraid it isn’t your job to teach responsibility to your niece (much less force it on her), nor is it your job to take your sister to task over how she raised her child and continues to enable her dependency. I suggest you employ my favorite Polish proverb, the translation of which is “Not my circus, not my monkeys.” The only part of this circus that’s (partly) yours is the property you inherited jointly with your siblings. Your middle sister is taking the high road here, which I strongly suggest you take, too, because the “compromise” you suggest, the one in which you magnanimously allow two of your siblings to remain in their home while evicting your niece and her family, will not only result in a rift between you and one sister but will no doubt send shock waves through the whole family. Taking a buyout is a perfectly reasonable thing to do—unless your ultimate goal is to sever your connection to the circus and its monkeys. If so, go ahead and be greedy. (I’m assuming you don’t believe in karma.)

https://slate.com/human-interest/2023/04/niece-eviction-inheritance-care-and-feeding-advice.html

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1. Given that Dad left one house, I do wonder which of the siblings was doing the bulk of the eldercare. Are you the responsible one, buddy? Are you really?

2. Putting that aside, because I guess we just don't know, even if LW was totally in the right, this position would still be assholeish. Some things are not worth causing a huge family blow-up over. They're just not. Take the buyout, and call it an act of charity.

3. Upon reading the comments, I saw that many people caught what I missed - LW seems to think that they're entitled to the duplex rent. Like, 100% of it. LOL, no. It's shared property. You get 25% of it. You're better off taking the buyout.

Edited 2023-04-23 22:11 (UTC)

Are you the responsible one, buddy? Are you really?

He's the man, which makes him automatically more right than any silly little woman, donchaknow.

I’m stuck on the fact that LW apparently thinks a family of five living in a one-bedroom, one-bath place is somehow inhabiting the lap of luxury. Also, if this is a market where a two-unit building with 5 bedrooms is worth only 600k, how much rent can a 1b/1ba possibly bring in?? Is LW really prepared to destroy family bonds for 25% of, what, $400 a month?

Looking at all the "me me me" in the letter, I'm inclined to agree with the commenters at Slate - LW doesn't quite believe that they're only entitled to 25% of whatever income there would be from selling the house or renting out the unit.

I would have sympathy for LW if they desperately needed the money for food/healthcare/rent,

but it sounds like the money is secondary to their desire to "teach their niece a lesson."

LW sounds really unpleasant and vindictive.

Can someone help me understand the architecture here? What does "lives in the back house in a small (one-bed, one-bath) duplex" mean? How do you have a back house that's a one-bed duplex? Does somebody else own the other half of it? Is there a second apartment standing empty? Is it mostly a garage or something and they're in the attached apartment? Does he mean it's connected to the main house? Are they using "duplex" in some other way?

There's much more screwed up things going on here but I can't get over going head-tilty at that and what it means for why he thinks it needs to be rented out. (...does LW own and live in the other half of the duplex?)

I was also confused, because that’s not a meaning of duplex I use, but I think he means an ADU attached to the garage.

ohhhhh that makes sense.

I mean I'm still confused and not sure I believe in LW, because nobody would describe a family of 5 in a one bed ADU as "good years" for spoiled people. In fact I am pretty sure that comes under any governmental definition of poverty, in the US.

Yeah, "attached to the garage" is also my best guess, but that's still not a duplex! This dude is not qualified to be a landlord, to start with.

I don't think LW understands what a duplex is.

ETA: SO points out to me that some people use duplex to refer to any part of a house that has a separate entrance. :shrug:

Edited 2023-04-23 22:57 (UTC)

I still don't see how that would apply here though? It's not a separate entrance to the main house, because it's off the "back house", and I can't see how it's multiple apartments in the back house or even something like a mother-in-law suite, if there's only one bedroom total... surely you wouldn't call a one-bedroom home a "duplex" just because it has a front and back door!

I think he's using duplex because it's a second house on one property, which is not how I've ever heard duplex used, but I can see how he got there.

Maybe he means it's a duplex that's a big front house and a smaller back house (which sounds more like a MIL unit to me, but whatever).

If he takes a buyout, that basically means he gets all the cash and the other two siblings split the house, doesn't it? Which since all their stuff is already there and they want to stay makes sense. And they might want to rearrange now that dad is no longer around. Seven people (counting niece and family) across five bedrooms makes way more sense: niece and husband share a room, two kids share a room, everyone else gets their own room. If LW wants to own rental property, he can go buy a $300K condo and rent that out.

EDIT: No, wait, he said three other siblings, so the math doesn't work quite as nicely. He would get (assuming I've done it right this time) $75K in cash and $150K buyout of his quarter of the house, so he gets $225K cash. Other sibling getting buyout would get the $75K left over and then the two siblings who live in the house would have to come up with the other $75K, possibly by putting a small mortgage on the house.

Edited 2023-04-26 05:22 (UTC)

Actually in some cases like this, instead of taking out a mortgage, the siblings agree to split the cash four ways and all four names stay on the deeds, and the people living in the houses slowly buy them out over time. If the other siblings proposed a deal like "we settle the estate with everyone still on the deed and then we each pay you ~$1000 a month for three years to finish the buyout before you sign it over to us" it kind of makes a little more sense that he thinks "in that case why don't we just set up the carriage house as a rental property instead" is a reasonable alternative.

Like, it doesn't make a *lot* of sense, but I can follow the train of thought in the letter better.

Yeah, take the buyout! It's like owning a share of the house except not having to argue with anyone over what to do with it! Why is this a hard decision?

If there's all that cash, I don't see why the two who are using the house can't just keep using the house and the other two split the cash.

if you're going for equitable distribution of assets, the math on that doesn't work out -- the two in the house inherit $300k/each, and the two who split the cash inherit $150K/each. With four people and about $900k, everyone should end up with about $225K. Thus the need for a buyout; you need to get about $150K total out of the houses to give to the other beneficiaries of the estate.

Frankly, the LW needs to get in the sea.

It's very clear that he's judgmental and vindictive as well as money-grubbing, and I'm horrified at his willingness to turn family members out of secure housing in the current (god-awful) market.

It would be one thing if a buyout wasn't an option, but it IS, and his desire to own an investment property doesn't trump that it's the HOME of his sisters and niece/her family.

Also, as noted above, a family of five living in a one-bedroom place is NOT the lap of luxury. He undoubtedly thinks that poor people should have zero joy in their lives, and that any expenditure beyond bread and gruel is "irresponsible" and "spendthrift."

There are likely VERY GOOD reasons for the above living situation, and it's inhumane that he won't just take the cash and leave his niece and her family alone.

cash is an option, take the cash. easy