When you discover your parents are broke
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Anonymous
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In-laws have a history of poor financial decisions. When times were good, they spent their money.
Now they are 70 and, surprise! We just found out FIL has years of back taxes he owes, and has no savings. They have a little retirement, and they both still work PT. I believe my FIL owes $100K +. My husband has a brother, and they all do have a good relationship. But the FIL is very proud, and has kept everyone (including my MIL) out of the loop for this for years. My husband is curious to know what is going on, and has a slight concern for his father’s mental state, but is now also concerned for his mother who claims she has been ignorant to this entire thing and feels betrayed, confused, etc. (There are lots of layers to this entire thing.) Details aside... what is your BTDT advice, and what was a success when you found yourself aware of a major family financial explosion like this? This is not just about finances / bills / repayment plans, etc but also concern for emotional well being, pride (who will he agree to talk to about this?), concern for my MIL and whatever nest egg she expected. To further illustrate their level of planning: neither of them has a will. Thanks for reading. |
Anonymous
| No advice, just want to say I’m dreading my parents being in this situation. |
Anonymous
| MIL is in this situation. Tens of thousands of dollars in consumer debt. We are directing her finances. Slowly paying it all off on her fixed income. |
Anonymous
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I am in similar situation with two divorced in laws.
Every situation is different. My advice: first, slow down. This situation was years in the making; it’s not going to get fixed quickly. I understand it’s upsetting- it is- but you need to accept that it’s not going to readily disappear. Two, before you commit to helping them, really reflect on your personal finances, wants, and how the family dynamic will be affected. In my case, two siblings who contribute nothiglnf are big critics of the support we provide saying it should be more. It’s ruined the family dynamic entirely. I don’t know that we could have avoided that outcome, but it hasn’t been pleasant in any respect- other than we feel we are doing the right thing by the in law parents and our own family needs. |
Anonymous
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Despite being born to a wealthy family and receiving every advantage in his life my FIL is in this position. The only decent thing he has ever done in his life was to divorce my MIL in time for her to get her finances in order (she is very responsible with money). We helped him sign up for medicaid and find subsidized living and eventually moved him to a medicaid facility. As far as financial help we only provide clothing and cell phone coverage. We all make choices in life and have to live with the consequences and he is no different. He complains bitterly but DH and I are not compromising our family security to support him.
If my MIL or mother needed assistance we would help them because they were great parents and made good life choices. That said, they are responsible so don't need any assistance for the foreseeable future. |
Anonymous
| it seems like a financial intervention is in order. I would not help until all finances are released. How did you find out about the unpaid taxes? |
Anonymous
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We saw that coming with my in laws and we sat them down when they were 60 and said, "you can't live with us and we won't support you".
We agreed to help them get a house they could afford meaning we put $$ down for them (big mistake). They just refinanced, pulled $$ out and went on a cruise. 10 year later they asked to move in with us. We said NO! Now they have no money, live in a tiny house in Southern Maryland somewhere... don't know, don't care. OTOH, my parents are very responsible ... never over spent, we bought my mom (with the $$ when we sold the family home) a condo in a retirement community. All her expenses are paid with retirement/SS. We do not give her access to her money because she has scammers try to scam her yearly. She can have as much $$ as she wants but she has to ask and no she can't have $9000 to pre-pay taxes for her Publisher Clearing House win. (True story.) She can access $500/month without asking, we track that to make sure nobody is taking advantage of her. |
Anonymous
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Been there, done that. Will be kicking myself for the rest of my life that I didn't find out sooner what a total disaster my parents finances were. If I had acted sooner, perhaps the damage would have been less and I could have averted some of the loss.
They owed several hundred thousand to the IRS. I guided them through a process called an "offer in compromise" where we demonstrated that they had no ability to pay. The debt was written off. They owed several hundred thousand to banks and credit card companies. They had to declare bankruptcy (and I guided them through this process also, doing all the paperwork for them). Those debts were written off too, meaning that they lost their house as part of it. And oh by the way, in going through their papers I discovered that they'd been making awful financial decisions their whole life; credit cards taken away, properties foreclosed on, etc. I knew nothing of this at the time. The only good news was that they had long term care insurance, so we moved them into an assisted living facility, where they are to this day. The main lesson is that you MUST be pushy and find out EXACTLY what the situation is, because it may very well land in YOUR lap. I spent hundreds of hours of my life dealing with their problems at the same time I had two kids under 5. It was tough. |
Anonymous
| My parents are in this situation. I make enough money to pay their rent now. Not sure how long that will last. |
Anonymous
Op here. How did you decide to pay their rent? As in, what were the circumstances of their financial hardship that you decided paying their rent would be your contribution? |
Anonymous
You didn't buy your mom a condo. Your mom bought herself a condo, with the proceeds from the sale of the house *she* (not you) owned. |
Anonymous
Oh, come on. They obviously meant they performed the transaction: found a property, worked with a real estate agent, did due diligence. They might have even had POA to sign all the documents. Let’s not fool ourselves about how much handholding our elderly parents need at times. |
Anonymous
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I would like some feedback from anyone in a similar situation —
My parents don’t have secret debts and they are generally good and decent people, but they never focused on finances, lived in an ultra low cost of living area with modest jobs. They have some retirement savings — less than 500k, and social security. The immediate problem is that they want to move to be closer to one of my siblings and grandkids. I am generally supportive of this — they live in this big, old house now where things are constantly breaking and the house is ill equipped for their current lifestyle. I think they would be best served moving to a 55+ del Webb type community — while in decent health, there are some problems lurking beneath the surface (bad knees, diabetes, etc) and I think both of them would benefit from the community that these del Webb places offer. The problem of course is the $$$ — no way the current house is going to cover everything. I am inclined to help especially if it means they get a nicer place with a community as opposed to an old shabby house in a random subdivision in a new town where they don’t know anyone. It just feels like the latter option can contribute to further health declines (both parents can be prone to sedentary lifestyles unless you prod them). So that’s the short term issue. Do I help with this? BUT the long term issue and the one that has (literally) been keeping me up at night — they have no game plan when it comes to long term care, nursing homes, etc. They never purchased long term care insurance and obviously their modest assets will not be enough to cover long term health care costs should the need arise. Neither of them have given this any thought — the plan is that they will both die before this becomes an issue or I will figure it out when the time comes. This is not a plan. I have a relatively high income ($400k+), wife, no kids and none in the future. I could obviously do more to help them but it is hard for me to figure out what I should be doing now. I have hired an elder law attorney to help protect assets for Medicaid. Should I just take the position that choices have consequences, they are likely headed to Medicaid someday, and it will be about just finding the best Medicaid option? Or should I be touring nursing home and continuing care communities myself, have all of my homework done way before anything is necessary, have a firm sense of the financial commitments, and start planning now? My wife is not opposed to helping but also becomes frustrated when I am spending all this time researching things and my parents response is “we aren’t discussing nursing homes; never bring up the subject again.” I really appreciate any other perspectives. |
Anonymous
My grandma recently died. My parents were in the same situation as you. The Medicaid facilities that were open were AWFUL. my parents had my grandma on a waiting list at a sunrise facility and were paying 10k/mo waiting for a spot to open up. In the meantime grandma died. She had blown through all her money (what you have to do to qualify for Medicaid) but in the meantime while they waited for a decent place to open up, they shelled out 100k in under a years time because grandma had gone broke and they weren't going to put her in an awful shit hole |
Anonymous
Better to start your own thread so OP can continue to get answers to her question. |