Moving house - MIL being a nightmare.

Slinky

Has she got £50K to give you so you can buy a house in the village?

Whilst your MIL has a right to be fearful of her own situation, you have the right to protect your family in the best way you see fit, particularly given your own health issues. Can you point out to you MIL you don't want to saddle your wife with the stress of the extra mortgage given what has gone on previously?

It strikes me you are being very thoughtful about everybody else in this situation.

YoungBaker

Why not just say you simply cannot afford the size of house in your current area, and financially also need to move. Which isn't exactly a lie.

onlyroz

Really, 20 minutes is nothing.

Regarding extending your house - can you extend upwards into the loft/attic? Or backwards into the garden? (E.g. a conservatory can become a dining/living room freeing up one of the other ground floor rooms to be a bedroom).

You also need to consider how you would go about moving schools for your children, and what they might think about this as well.

And are there bus routes so that your MIL can come and visit you in the new location, rather than you constantly having to do the running around?

Gra76

You have to make this decision for your kids future, not your MiL's. Think worst case scenario and what happens if you're not around or able to pay the huge mortgage. Then what?

This was what made my wife come round to looking at houses that didn't end up with us having a large mortgage. Originally she was looking at houses upwards of £300k before I managed to talk some sense into her!

Whilst your MIL has a right to be fearful of her own situation, you have the right to protect your family in the best way you see fit, particularly given your own health issues. Can you point out to you MIL you don't want to saddle your wife with the stress of the extra mortgage given what has gone on previously?

When I've tried to broach the topic with my MIL she goes into shutdown mode or starts finding fault with things I say, so I've left it up to my wife to talk to her as although I get on with my MIL pretty well, I know that there's only so many times I can listen to the same irrelevant comments before I pipe up and say something I might regret. I'd rather keep my relationship with her civil if at all possible!

Regarding extending your house - can you extend upwards into the loft/attic? Or backwards into the garden? (E.g. a conservatory can become a dining/living room freeing up one of the other ground floor rooms to be a bedroom).

You also need to consider how you would go about moving schools for your children, and what they might think about this as well.

And are there bus routes so that your MIL can come and visit you in the new location, rather than you constantly having to do the running around?

Well, the footprint of our property isn't exactly large and our back garden is the size of a postage stamp as it is. I've had a brief look in the loft and even if we could board it out and convert it to another bedroom, there's no real space to put a stairwell in due to the layout of the house. There's certainly no room to put it anywhere on the landing and that means it'll end up in one of the bedrooms, which isn't ideal as the bedrooms aren't big as it stands.

Regarding moving schools, I've asked my 7yr old son about this as it's really only him that's of school age anyway (the other two are 3yrs and 1yr) and he's happy to move schools, so that's good news at least.

If my MIL wanted to come and visit she's got a car and doesn't have any problems driving so she could come whenever she wanted. With it being 20 mins away it would mean another 18 mins or so to drive. I'm half tempted to 'accidentally' take her for a day trip there to show her how close it is.

cutestkids

I would not involve her in the decision, you and your wife should do what is best for your family and when the decision is made then let her know.

In all honesty when I saw the thread title I thought you were moving hundreds of miles away from her not just down the road.

Mojisola

Gra76 wrote: »

If my MIL wanted to come and visit she's got a car and doesn't have any problems driving so she could come whenever she wanted. With it being 20 mins away it would mean another 18 mins or so to drive. I'm half tempted to 'accidentally' take her for a day trip there to show her how close it is.

That's not a bad idea but get your wife to do it.

I do feel for your MIL and understand how she feels but, in your circumstances, you have to make sure your family are in the best position they can be for the future - which I hope includes you for many years!

Your MIL is an adult and will have to make her own decisions about her future. It shouldn't include emotionally blackmailing her daughter in stay in the village.

LandyAndy

How big is the house your MiL lives in? Does your wife have any siblings?

If the answers are 'big enough' and 'none' what about a house swap?

CH27

LandyAndy wrote: »

How big is the house your MiL lives in? Does your wife have any siblings?

If the answers are 'big enough' and 'none' what about a house swap?

I was just going to suggest this

Gra76

LandyAndy wrote: »

How big is the house your MiL lives in? Does your wife have any siblings?

If the answers are 'big enough' and 'none' what about a house swap?

There's only 3 problems with this idea.

The first being that her house wouldn't be big enough as it is as she also owns a 3 bedroom property, although it's on a half decent sized plot. With some careful planning I'm sure this could easily be turned into a 4 bedroom property as I know she has a much bigger loft space than we do and there's certainly room to install a stairwell. The problem I have is I really don't like the house though and it doesn't get anywhere near meeting the list of 'must haves' that my wife has put together anyway.

The second one is that hers is a bungalow and ours is 2 storey. With her problems with mobility getting up and down stairs already being a bit of a problem she wouldn't be much use living in a 2 storey property unless we installed a lift.

The third and possibly the biggest problem is that my wife has a sister who has already voiced her opinion on things. It's fair to say she's not entirely reasonable at the best of times! She's already mentioned that she needs money (her financial situation isn't great) and that if her mum sells up she's expecting something out of it. That was almost enough to cause an arguement with her mum and that was only a very brief discussion. The less my wifes sister gets involved the better!

Sambucus_Nigra

Gra76 wrote: »

Anything more than 2 mins away is going to be an issue as far as I can tell.

She expects you to be 2 minutes away from her at all times? Really?