Parents being too 'Tight'

Pollycat

SteveVy said:

4) When I mention how bad the house is and how embarrassed I feel they laugh this off and say do you think people really care what our house looks like? 

We are planning to hold a number of events at the house this year such as get togethers and I feel like telling all the guests to come to my house instead.

I am really not sure what else I can do to help them, I now feel I should just 'leave them to it' and just see what happens if they ever do anything!

I understand the concern about things that may harm your parents' health (mould) or compromise their safety (broken locks) but I can't understand why you feel embarrassed about the state of someone else's house when you are not living there.

If they are convinced that nobody will be shocked at the state of the hose, let them host the events as planned.

My parents are both dead now but I helped them a lot with advice over the years.
But I knew to back off when my suggestions were met with 'we're fine as we are'.

Silvertabby

Not unusual, sadly.  My dad simply refused to pay a 'robbing tradesman' to do a job that he could bodge himself.

Whole new damp course - 'rubbish - just need to paste tinfoil around the bottom of each wall, wallpaper on top, and jobs a good un'.  Rotten window frame? 'Nowt that an extra coat of paint won't fix'.  And many more....

After they died the house was in such a bad state of repair it was unmortgageable and so  could only be sold at auction

sevenhills

I am surprised how posters are saying it's normal to be ultra tight. I have a 94 year old relative that is tight and refuses to spend.
His Son has power of attorney but refuses to use it.
Perhaps the leaking roof is the only issue which needs to be done? 

BellaLasagna2018

To be blunt: 
Their house, their money, they can do what they want. 

It must be very irritating,  as you get older,  your grown up children trying to tell you what to do. For that very reason, I would be dragging my feet too. 

Keep_pedalling

sevenhills said:

I am surprised how posters are saying it's normal to be ultra tight. I have a 94 year old relative that is tight and refuses to spend.
His Son has power of attorney but refuses to use it.
Perhaps the leaking roof is the only issue which needs to be done? 

If the relative still has the mental faculties to make decisions (how ever dumb) there is not much an attorney can do. Being a miser is not normal but it is also not that unusual.

Sea_Shell

BellaLasagna2018 said:

To be blunt: 
Their house, their money, they can do what they want. 

It must be very irritating,  as you get older,  your grown up children trying to tell you what to do. For that very reason, I would be dragging my feet too. 

Which is all very well until one day they wake up and realise that the house is becoming uninhabitable around them, and they then get onto their adult children whinging and moaning and expecting that they should "sort it out"!!

RAS

I think one issue is that people in mid-life get their house sorted, reckon to stay and then stop doing things. 

A decade later or more, it might be a good idea to do things but when they find out the price, it's far more expensive than they expected based on their previous experience. So they are unsure whether prices have really risen that much or they are being ripped off.

It doesn't help that some tradesmen have this knack of talking to older folk and women as if they are idiots and frequently lack customer care skills. The tradesman may know more about their trade, may know more about modern methods but may not know more about the needs of older houses or be prepared to discuss options to suit their clients. And they may be more interested in wrangling their work schedules than thinking about their customers. After all, they should not need to go back for years if they do a competent job.

I know two neighbours at the moment; one waiting for a four week job to be finished that started (late) in early January; the other with major problems from a wrongly specified and installed central heating replacement, which an independent inspector has finally seen and declare completely unsuitable. 

Both jobs involved a lot of disruption to their neighbours as well and neither of the house holders was resident for much of the time. So folk often need to move out or live with reduced services. 

NorthYorkie

Sometimes it is not just the cost of the renovations/repairs that puts people off, it can be the disruption, the need to comply with various regulations and the individual's state of health. Its often easier to put off making a decision and the longer it has been put off, the harder it becomes. For years we were debating what to do with the shell of a garage which burnt down in 2012, but for various reasons, including my wife's health, we never made a final decision. Similarly during the 14 years we lived here, we have done no redecoration either.
 I am 73 and recently widowed. I have now grasped the nettle and am going ahead with an extension and other improvements. The reason is that I don't want to leave my daughters with the hassle of an unsaleable house which they have to improve before it can be sold.
Have the parents made wills? My guess would be not. So if they die intestate someone is going to have to apply for Letters of Administration. Alternatively they may need to go into care and someone may need to be appointed Attorney. Whoever that is is going to be faced with the hassle of deciding what is to be done with the house. The OP needs to think carefully about whether he wants to be that someone.

getmore4less

MY take away from that long post

My parents are very well off, with a portfolio of rental properties and a six figure amount in the bank.

They should already have a string of trusted trades people to get jobs done. 

lincroft1710

The reason is that I don't want to leave my daughters with the hassle of an unsaleable house which they have to improve before it can be sold.

Being in need of improvement does not stop a property being sold. It may limit the field of potential buyers and it will obviously achieve a lower price, but any property is saleable. Other than doing essential and necessary repairs and maintenance, any improvements you make should be purely for your benefit.


You could easily live for another10 or 20 years, so the improvements you make now could easily be outdated or not appeal to potential buyers (a house near me has just been refurbished and I would want to rip most of it out and start again).


Some years ago I inherited a property which although clean and in good repair needed complete updating and the garden landscaping. I just sold it as it was and took a slight hit on the price. My parents' house was similar, in good repair but hopelessly dated. It sold and what did the buyer do? He demolished the substantially constructed outbuildings, added a 2 storey side extension, a rear full width single storey extension and reconfigured some of the existing house!