Why am I so upset about this

Mum_marion

Please be brutally honest with me. My parents moved into a bungalow more suitable for their elderly needs, when they told me and my 3 siblings I felt rather sad because it was the end of an era and we had so many memories attached  to our family home of 50 yrs+ but they were keeping the house,  they took out the contents they wanted and left all other nic nac memory  belongings intact , then let one of their 10 grandchildren move in the next day for a peppercorn rent.
 This is where I started to get privately upset all my nostalgia emptied every room , every memory I would have liked to relive and sort of say a lovely farewell to it just didn't feel like we were ever a family there. 1yr on absolutely nothing about the sale has been talked about between any of us no questions or answers I also think it was really unfair that the other 9 grandchildren including my own3 didnt get the same leg up . We are truly and honestly a large happy family but I feel this is my elephant in the room and I'm trying so hard to box it but instead I'm just getting 😢 resentful, do I carry on keeping quiet and accept that the whole thing was just convenience all round and I can't change the outcome or am I justified  to feel like its been unfair and get the whole thing of my chest just to make me feel better and justice for the other9

jackieblack

It may or may not be fair - fairness is subjective - but you can’t change what has happened, only your response to it.

My thoughts (as you’ve asked for opinions):

It was your parents house to do with as they wished. They got to move into a new home that is much more suitable for their needs and avoided all the stress and hassle of finding tenants who were strangers or of finding buyers on the open market. They also avoided having to pack up their whole house and move out of one home and into their new one on the same day, as is normal for most house moves. It was also up to them how much they sold their house for - to be brutally honest, that’s none of anyone else’s business.

You can’t expect the new occupants to live with all your parents ‘nic nac memory belongings’ remaining ‘intact’, like some sort of shrine? It seems entirely reasonable for the new occupants to box everything up and store them on the garage - they could have just got house clearers in, then you wouldn’t have had the opportunity to sort through the boxes at all! Equally, the new occupants would have been wanting to get settled in their new home, not have a stream of relatives trailing through the house sifting through (and potentially arguing over) all the ’nic nacs’.

Would you be feeling the same way about the ‘fairness’, or not, had it been one of your children who’d been invited to move into and subsequently bought the house?

It’s natural to feel a bit sad/melancholic when the family home is sold.  Alot of people have to deal with this whilst also dealing with bereavement. You and your siblings have been spared this.

‘Getting it off your chest’ might feel cathartic to you in that moment, but could potentially cause a family rift that would never heal… 

Keep_pedalling

I agree with the above, you sometimes can’t help the way you feel but keep it to yourself rather than causing a family rift.

Going off on a bit of a tangent are your parents aware that they are likely to have a capital gains tax liability on the sale of the house? When selling to a connected person, as is the case here, the calculation is based on the market value rather than the discounted sale price.

https://www.gov.uk/tax-sell-property/work-out-your-gain

The calculation gets a bit complicated when it was your main residence for many years so if in doubt they should take professional advice.

pinkshoes

In the 8 years that this grandchild lived in the home, did either of the 4 siblings or the other 9 grandchildren ask if they could also  rent the property for a period or buy it?

Ultimately, it was your parents house and they did what was convenient and easy at the time and rented it out to the grandchild who no doubt ASKED. 

It always feels sad when family homes are sold on but that's life. The woman who bought my grandad's house (was in the family for many decades) ripped out every bit of character and turned it into a soulless white box. But I still have photos and memories, and some of their ornaments and pictures scattered around my own house!

I'd personally just let it go as family rifts are awful. 

sheramber

 What you parents do with their house and their money is their choice.

They do not need to give equal gifts to anybody else.

My mother gave my sister money to get her csr repaired.She didn't give me , nor did I expect  her to give me,  the same amount.

You will always have your memories no matter where you are.

bluelad1927

Everybody is correct it's entirely up to the grandparents to do what they wish with the house. It is, in my mind however delusional to think that others would see that as a particularly nice thing to do if they are on good terms with the rest of the family.  I could never imagine myself not treating my children/ grandchildren as equal

Savvy_Sue

If you can't get rid of these feelings, it may be worth you speaking to a counsellor to try to resolve them. Your feelings are valid, it's a kind of grief because even though your parents are still alive, you have 'lost' the family home, and you didn't get the chance to say goodbye in the way you think you'd have found helpful. 

What you really don't want to do, as you're a large and happy family, is risk these feelings bursting out at some inopportune moment and causing a real rift. 

[Deleted User]

No it wasn't unfair, it was the obvious practical solution at the time, to your parents and the grandchild.

  It is always hard to leave a family home, or see it go. That is true even when it has been one's own decision to move, it is grief for the way it always was, and how you in particular fitted into it, but no one can take away the memories, honestly even if everything connected with your past went tomorrow it's still all there in your head, I have no doubt that you can mentally 'walk through' the old home and see where everything was, and who was there at the important  times. 

I would stay on good terms with the grandchild who has the house and ask very nicely if you could pop in one day just to say a final personal goodbye to the house and the memories you have of it. But it is still in the family, which it would not have been if it had been sold on the open market and any profit split between the 10 grandchildren, probably not enough to give them much each. 
 

_Penny_Dreadful

Mum_marion said:

Please be brutally honest with me. My parents moved into a bungalow more suitable for their elderly needs, when they told me and my 3 siblings I felt rather sad because it was the end of an era and we had so many memories attached  to our family home of 50 yrs+ but they were keeping the house,  they took out the contents they wanted and left all other nic nac memory  belongings intact , then let one of their 10 grandchildren move in the next day for a peppercorn rent.
8 years down the line the same grandchild and her husband offered to buy it and my parents agreed, they said they both got an estate agent to value it and both parties were happy with the price but I'm not sure how true this was as compared to others in that street it was approx 60k under value. So that was that, all the contents had been put in boxes by the grandchild probably helped by their friends and family and my brother told me and my 2siblings we could sort through the boxes in the garage. This is where I started to get privately upset all my nostalgia emptied every room , every memory I would have liked to relive and sort of say a lovely farewell to it just didn't feel like we were ever a family there. 1yr on absolutely nothing about the sale has been talked about between any of us no questions or answers I also think it was really unfair that the other 9 grandchildren including my own3 didnt get the same leg up . We are truly and honestly a large happy family but I feel this is my elephant in the room and I'm trying so hard to box it but instead I'm just getting 😢 resentful, do I carry on keeping quiet and accept that the whole thing was just convenience all round and I can't change the outcome or am I justified  to feel like its been unfair and get the whole thing of my chest just to make me feel better and justice for the other9

Being brutally honest you had years to take any sentimental knickknacks out the house that you wanted.  You're lucky that the current owners have boxed up the knickknacks instead of binning them or giving them all to charity.  I can understand that going through the items stirred up a lot of memories for you and it's alright to feel nostalgic and emotional about items that remind you of your childhood.

As for your parents allowing a grandchild to live in the house for a peppercorn rent and purchase it at what you feel is an undervalued price, well it's your parents' house to do with as they please.  You might feel that this grandchild has had more of a leg up than the other 9 and that might be true.  Does the grandchild who bought the house see their grandparents more often and do more things with and for their grandparents that the other 9?  You don't know what you parents' wills say, it could be the case that having helped one grandchild the other 9 will be the beneficiaries of the estate once your parents eventually pass which includes the bungalow, then again the estate might be split amongst you and your siblings or all 10 of the grandchildren or left entirely to charity.  If it bothers you this much, don't let it fester, speak with your parents. 

Mum_marion

Thank you all for your replies, every single one of them has helped me clear my head and I definitely  did need some opinions on the matter. The general consensus is a potential family rift would be horrible and I agree I really do not want that to happen,  re the contents I need to let it go and go back to the happy memories  are all in my head and the nic nacks are physical not emotional. As for the leg up of 1 not the others I still feel it wasn't fair or justified as previously they have all been loved and treated equally , its not something I could ever do to mine but it is their house and choice so I'm going to try and keep it in its box and not dwell on it being any kind of favouritism.  Thank you for the feedback xx

Malthusian

The house sale isn't a leg up because they hired an estate agent and - as far as any of us know - paid market value.
How much other houses in the same street went for is neither here nor there. After 50 years in the same family it is likely to have needed extensive renovation to bring it up to the same value. Online valuations from Zoopla and the like should be ignored.

Unless the value they claimed for CGT purposes is more than what they were paid, or if HMRC has assessed it to be sold for less than market value, you can assume there was no leg-up there.

So what the grandchild actually got was 8 years of "peppercorn" rent, which could mean anything from £1 a month to a modest discount. If the latter, it was a nice helping hand but hardly egregious favouritism. 

If the parents have given a leg up to the grandchild, they might have taken it into account in their Wills.