Reasonable charge for Daughter moving back home.

gizmo111

I've got my daughter with me, following break up.  I charged nothing for 1st 3 months to get her on her feet and she gives me £200 per month now.  It is on condition that she saves at least £500 per month (1/3rd of take home) towards her own place.  

Retireby40

Why does she want to move in with you with alk that money? 

Is it for emotional support as opposed to financial gain?

Has she said how long its for? If its a couple if months I'd ask her just to maybe help abit with gas/electric bills and maybe she buy her own food. 

itsanne

Presumably the money banked from her house sale will be used for her own accommodation at some point and moving in with you is temporary? Assuming that's the case, the amount of money she has is irrelevant. How much she earns isn't relevant either.

While your desire to keep things equitable between your two daughters is understandable, sometimes life gets in the way of that. It may be that at some point in the future your other daughter needs assistance too. However, at this moment in time you have one daughter in need of help and want to help her. You shouldn't have to base your help on how your other daughter might react (which would be be a problem in its own right).

So how much to charge? Have you discussed it with your daughter? If you haven't, I would suggest that you offer to just charge what it costs you, at least for a period of time. That would help her to save and get back on her feet more quickly. You could then revisit the question if she stays for a prolonged period of time.

silvercar

Are you aiming to cover your extra costs or make a profit out of your daughter moving in? 

If you can’t financially manage without charging her the extra costs of the home, then I would do that, otherwise I wouldn’t charge a penny. She is family and family are meant to support each other at time of need.

Mojisola

silvercar said:

If you can’t financially manage without charging her the extra costs of the home, then I would do that, otherwise I wouldn’t charge a penny. She is family and family are meant to support each other at time of need.

She's not 'in need' - she's got £100,000 in the bank and a full time job.

I would hope my children would want to pay their share of the household costs if they moved back and not expect their pensioner parents to cover all their living costs.

silvercar

Mojisola said:

silvercar said:

If you can’t financially manage without charging her the extra costs of the home, then I would do that, otherwise I wouldn’t charge a penny. She is family and family are meant to support each other at time of need.

She's not 'in need' - she's got £100,000 in the bank and a full time job.

I would hope my children would want to pay their share of the household costs if they moved back and not expect their pensioner parents to cover all their living costs.

If that £100k came from a house sale, I would consider that protected money for a future purchase, rather than money the parents can eye up.

The "times of need" I spoke of meant the lack of immediate housing rather than money. The idea that offspring could come and live with their parents for a short time due to circumstances, shouldn't immediately be thought of in terms of the money it will bring in. There are positive social aspects of an adult moving to the home of elderly parents.

Mojisola

silvercar said:

If that £100k came from a house sale, I would consider that protected money for a future purchase, rather than money the parents can eye up.

The "times of need" I spoke of meant the lack of immediate housing rather than money. The idea that offspring could come and live with their parents for a short time due to circumstances, shouldn't immediately be thought of in terms of the money it will bring in. There are positive social aspects of an adult moving to the home of elderly parents.

I don't think there's any indication that the parents want to take any capital from their daughter.

Again, I would expect a healthy working adult child coming back to live at home to pay their share of the household bills and do a share of the household chores.

I would be questioning my parenting skills if they didn't want to do that!

SensibleSarah

My mid-40s brother lives with my mid-70s mum (just the two of them since my dad passed away) and she charges him half of all bills, including food. He also pays 100% of stuff that only he uses, such as Sky Sports subscription. She also charges him a nominal amount for 'board'. Works out at about £500 p/m currently for everything, but obviously will go up as the bills do this autumn/winter. They share housework (not equally, may I add) but he does more of the physical stuff that she's starting to struggle with a bit, like mowing the garden and he might cook once a week for both of them. 
Obviously, that's a lot cheaper all-in than renting would be for him, especially when considering he gets use of a 4-bed house with 2 bathrooms and a large garden, in which he has a separate home office since Covid in one of the spare bedrooms. He won't be moving out IMO, but if he did then my mum has said she will downsize. 

Brie

I'd say add up all the costs including the increases due to her moving in and divide by 3 - assuming that's a fair divide.  I mean if she's a filet steak every night type and you and your wife are beans on toast then that needs to be accounted for.  

My brother lives with our mom, he has the proceeds from a very nice house, gets a full pension, pays no bills and mom pays him to live with her.  Now that's not fair.

pickledonionspaceraider

nickcc said:

Hello.
Both my Wife and I are in our seventies and our 50 year old Daughter is moving back home after Divorce.  My Daughter works full time for the NHS and has about £100,000 banked from her house sale,  my Wife has the state pension based on my earnings, I have the lowest state pension but have a very good company pension with annual increase based on the RPI up to 7%.  We would like to know what amount would be considered reasonable taking in to account that everything will be supplied by us except Alcohol and her personal expenses and her car running costs etc.  We would expect treats such as meals out etc to be excluded from any rental.  We are trying to be fair to all parties concerned as we wouldn’t want a fall out with our other Daughter thinking that her Sister is getting more than her.  Many thanks.

I must admit, the comment about wanting to keep things fair between the two daughters, seemed a tad strange to be one of the first considerations in this scenario - how it will affect your other daughter, y know the one who it has nothing to do with...the one whose life hasn't just fell apart. 

I am assuming this is temporary as in all, it likely won't be a welcome long term solution for any of you

I'd charge her for her food / tell her to do the food shopping and maybe a few extra quid for energy.

I think you guys need to discuss this well in advance of her moving in, and how long it will be for - but it seems the die has already been cast