whippet
Tara
So there are so wise, well spoken, amazing individuals here...and I need your advice. I am stuck in a hard position and don't know exactly how to proceed.
This involves my parents and seems harder than when I came out of the closet. LOL!
So my parents offered Lauren and I a deal about 8 months ago that sounded pretty good at the time.
They are in their upper 50s. The laws have changed for government assistance with long term care. All assets (such as property) need to be out of their names 10 years (vs 5 before) before they will not count as part of their assets. So they wanted to transfer the farm into my name, and have "life time rights" to the farm. They wanted us to take over the large 1800s farmhouse while they built ( and we paid for with the loan in our name) a new place by the pond on the farmland. They said they wanted to downsize. The property includes ~6 acres of horsefield with indoor riding arena/barn area, 3 acreas of house with the farmhouse and a large garage (like a 6 car seperate building) to turn into a herp house that is right on the water, dock and all. (access to the chesapeake bay directly). All for 200,000.
Sounds pretty good...except well. Things have changed a bit.
Now they want to build a 2,500 square foot house with a basement (in an area that doesn't do well with basements...and again makes them have stairs) for at least 200,000. So since they want to spend more than we are giving to build, they want to keep the horsefield in their name for the equity. Thus only giving us 3 acreas. We can of course use the horsefield...but they gets to choose how we use it.
And now of course they will have the farm fields, the new house on the pond, and the horsefield in their names. Thus killing the idea of saving property if they need longterm care.
And the thing is...
The house is old. It was upgraded quite a bit in the early 90s...but needs a ton of work still. All floors and all walls need redone. Kitchen needs upgrading. Laundry room and upstairs bathroom have not been touched. It has the typical problems of an older home..rodents, drafts, whatnot. It needs a new heating/air system (and it has two now, one for each level). It would take about 50 grand to get it where we want it. *adding a master bath/laundry upstairs. Another issue is how often the power shuts down out there. We would have to get two full system generators. One for the herp house and one for ours. We could never have very temp sensitive creatures such as a salt water tank..cause when power goes out it often goes out for days..even weeks in the past!
The property is on the water...which is lovely, but means very high taxes. We don't particularly want waterfront.
The garage can be made into the reptile barn of our dreams but it would be about 20 grand to do so. It currently has no electric or water.
And the thing is...we will never be able to move (to the mountains we both prefer for example) because this farm has been in my family 7 generations and if I sell I will be the bad guy. So we would have to wait til they died...thus giving the best years of my life to a place I am jury-rigging to make work.
Other factors include that Lauren and I want to have children. In Virginia where the farm is...we can't both be on the birthcertificates. We can't both be parents legally. That scares the pants off of us.
BUT on the plus side. If we move and they stay there...we will never be able to vacation again. We will buy a small 5 acrea or so farm in western MD and have horses/goats etc in our dream farm. Without my parents nearby we will pretty much kiss anything more than a daytrip somewhere goodbye.
So the best solution is to have them move with us....and get one large property in a state/condition that suits us both.
They were going to do this before years ago but liked the idea of staying better. My father really doesn't want to sell the farmfields he shares with his brother but my mother is pretty sure they would have to to get the property they want elsewhere.
Confused yet? Yeah me too.
Here is the kicker. My father's parents owned the farm before they did. They sold it to my parents for too much and built themselves a dream home on the corner of one field (sound firmilar?) and my parents really resented them for YEARs and even to this DAY for doing that to them. THey were POed that my grandparents got a new home and they got an old heap. But now they seem to want to do it to us!!! I can't even conprehend that one.
So yeah...basically we want out of the deal.
BUT how do I tell them?
How do I express this. If I do it in person (like at dinner) then I might loose some points to our argument. If I do it in a letter or email it seems so impersonal. Should I go to them with notes in hand? Lauren and I will be breaking this to them in the next couple of weeks (after the new year). Any advice from the wise folks here would be helpful. They are so excited at this thought of us taking over and them living it up....gah.
What would you guys do?
This involves my parents and seems harder than when I came out of the closet. LOL!
So my parents offered Lauren and I a deal about 8 months ago that sounded pretty good at the time.
They are in their upper 50s. The laws have changed for government assistance with long term care. All assets (such as property) need to be out of their names 10 years (vs 5 before) before they will not count as part of their assets. So they wanted to transfer the farm into my name, and have "life time rights" to the farm. They wanted us to take over the large 1800s farmhouse while they built ( and we paid for with the loan in our name) a new place by the pond on the farmland. They said they wanted to downsize. The property includes ~6 acres of horsefield with indoor riding arena/barn area, 3 acreas of house with the farmhouse and a large garage (like a 6 car seperate building) to turn into a herp house that is right on the water, dock and all. (access to the chesapeake bay directly). All for 200,000.
Sounds pretty good...except well. Things have changed a bit.
Now they want to build a 2,500 square foot house with a basement (in an area that doesn't do well with basements...and again makes them have stairs) for at least 200,000. So since they want to spend more than we are giving to build, they want to keep the horsefield in their name for the equity. Thus only giving us 3 acreas. We can of course use the horsefield...but they gets to choose how we use it.
And now of course they will have the farm fields, the new house on the pond, and the horsefield in their names. Thus killing the idea of saving property if they need longterm care.
And the thing is...
The house is old. It was upgraded quite a bit in the early 90s...but needs a ton of work still. All floors and all walls need redone. Kitchen needs upgrading. Laundry room and upstairs bathroom have not been touched. It has the typical problems of an older home..rodents, drafts, whatnot. It needs a new heating/air system (and it has two now, one for each level). It would take about 50 grand to get it where we want it. *adding a master bath/laundry upstairs. Another issue is how often the power shuts down out there. We would have to get two full system generators. One for the herp house and one for ours. We could never have very temp sensitive creatures such as a salt water tank..cause when power goes out it often goes out for days..even weeks in the past!
The property is on the water...which is lovely, but means very high taxes. We don't particularly want waterfront.
The garage can be made into the reptile barn of our dreams but it would be about 20 grand to do so. It currently has no electric or water.
And the thing is...we will never be able to move (to the mountains we both prefer for example) because this farm has been in my family 7 generations and if I sell I will be the bad guy. So we would have to wait til they died...thus giving the best years of my life to a place I am jury-rigging to make work.
Other factors include that Lauren and I want to have children. In Virginia where the farm is...we can't both be on the birthcertificates. We can't both be parents legally. That scares the pants off of us.
BUT on the plus side. If we move and they stay there...we will never be able to vacation again. We will buy a small 5 acrea or so farm in western MD and have horses/goats etc in our dream farm. Without my parents nearby we will pretty much kiss anything more than a daytrip somewhere goodbye.
So the best solution is to have them move with us....and get one large property in a state/condition that suits us both.
They were going to do this before years ago but liked the idea of staying better. My father really doesn't want to sell the farmfields he shares with his brother but my mother is pretty sure they would have to to get the property they want elsewhere.
Confused yet? Yeah me too.
Here is the kicker. My father's parents owned the farm before they did. They sold it to my parents for too much and built themselves a dream home on the corner of one field (sound firmilar?) and my parents really resented them for YEARs and even to this DAY for doing that to them. THey were POed that my grandparents got a new home and they got an old heap. But now they seem to want to do it to us!!! I can't even conprehend that one.
So yeah...basically we want out of the deal.
BUT how do I tell them?
How do I express this. If I do it in person (like at dinner) then I might loose some points to our argument. If I do it in a letter or email it seems so impersonal. Should I go to them with notes in hand? Lauren and I will be breaking this to them in the next couple of weeks (after the new year). Any advice from the wise folks here would be helpful. They are so excited at this thought of us taking over and them living it up....gah.
What would you guys do?
