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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I  know a family who did this and it's worked out well.  Same scenario - husband is an only child with a wife and 2 children.[/quote]

We are living this situation as well, and it's working well [i]for us.[/i] But the reason it's working well is because everything was completely transparent -- we knew my in-laws couldn't afford to keep a roof over their heads anymore and needed us to help support them, and DH and I made the decision together that it made more sense for us to buy them a house we could eventually sell (and hopefully recoup what we'd paid) than to throw away money on years of rent. We also chose the house ourselves, something modest that we were comfortable we could afford in addition to our existing mortgage, not just whatever my in-laws wanted (and believe me, they wanted something much bigger/more expensive than we were willing to pay for). There was no pretense that we were buying this house because it was more financially savvy for us to do it than them, it was out of necessity. That kind of honesty and transparency is completely lacking in OP's situation, which is why I'm one of the people who has strongly recommended in this thread that OP not go along with her husband's plan without at least getting more/better information from him about what's really going on.[/quote]

Glad to hear it is working well for you.  I'm interested to know more-- how did you get them to accept your terms?[/quote]

We got them to accept by making it non-negotiable if they wanted us to pay for their housing. DH and I sat down and talked it all through just the two of us after they asked us for help, and came to decisions on our own about what we were willing/able to do. My in-laws initially balked at our proposal (they wanted us to just give them cash that they could use as they saw fit), but we were firm that this was what we were comfortable offering, and while they certainly weren't required to accept our help, they couldn't dictate the terms of the help because it needed to work with our financial/personal situation. When we didn't back down, they went along with it because they realized they had no choice. We weren't assholes about it, though. When it came to choosing the house, we found two that we thought were acceptable (reasonable price, sound fundamentals) and let them choose based on their own personal preference. So it's not that they had no say, but they could only choose from between options we'd already selected as acceptable. I won't pretend that it didn't create tension for a while or that it hasn't affected the relationship at all, but we all still get along well enough. More importantly, though, none of it drove a wedge between us, because we prioritized our marriage and our/our children's financial needs instead of robbing Peter to pay Paul.[/quote]

I should clarify that last part, it created tension for a while with my in-laws, not between DH and I. The tension obviously was harder on DH than on me, but he didn't blame me for that or otherwise let it come between us because he was on board with the reasons why we did it this way.[/quote]

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