Reply to Co-owning the second home

Forum Index » Family Relationships

Reply to "Co-owning the second home"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Co-owning a summer/weekend house like this is the end of so many family relationships. It is always a tension point, at best.

Can you afford to pay for 1/2 of the furniture? If so, just do it. [b]If you literally can't afford it -- it will seriously harm you financially[/b] -- then that is the answer. "We can't afford this kind of expensive furniture and decor. We can't pay for half of this. You chose to do this, and we would not have agreed to it if you had included it in the expense accounting for the year." You didn't say in your OP that you can't afford it though ... which I'm guessing you would have if that is the case? In which case there is just a lot of judgment around the choice to spend so much? If that is so, just pay for half to maintain the relationship.

Oh, and if you sell to them? NO DISCOUNT. Sell to them for FMV only. [/quote]

So you allow people - family - to lie to you and take advantage of you, and only push back if it will "seriously harm your finances?"  DO whatever you want, but I hope OP and her husband have enough sense, and self respect, to draw the line well before that.  [/quote]

You are way overreacting to what I wrote, for who knows what reason. Not sure why you think there are "lies" involved here. Bottom line is that if you have plenty of money, you don't let something like this blow up. It is not worth it (and could end up costing you more than 1/2 the cost of the furniture would have). [/quote]

No way. It doesn’t matter how much OP has. Not the point. Say no-nicely, firmly, clearly. Expenditures need to be approved in advance, especially something as discretionary as new furniture. Do not engage in argument. It wasn’t on the list, no reimbursement. [/quote]

DP, this is fine if you don’t want it to work out. You can use this approach with contractors and vendors and anyone else you don’t want to share a beach house with. But if you want to keep sharing the beach house, this is a very bad strategy.

It’s perfectly okay to just decide not to keep it. Maybe the uncle will buy them out. But if you want a shared vacation house like this to work, you all have to be willing to flex a lot.

If it really is too expensive for you, I think you can mention it. Say you’d like more input next time. The uncle can graciously agree that it’s an expensive table and withdraw the bill and just pay for the table himself. You will grumble that they are extravagant and they will grumble that you are a freeloader, but you can go on with a happy face.

But it will never work to approve all expenditures in advance. Houses need maintenance and stuff and nobody involved is on the payroll. Deciding what dining room table is “extravagant” is pretty arbitrary. OP thinks crate and barrel is fine, but why when there’s IKEA? What about when you need a stove, or a dishwasher, or a coffee maker? They’re supposed to coordinate/deal with all of that and also let OP be the arbiter of extravagance? 
[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics