Legally, you are all in the wrong as you all committed fraud on the mortgage company. You are all guilty of a crime.

Morally, yes, OP, you are in the wrong. For the favor HH provided to you the bare minimum notice should've been 3 months, but 6 months preferred. Your husband should've gone to Utah to start his job without you while you stayed on for the extra time so that HH could find new tenants.

The whole premise of this situation is stupid.

Helpful Helen - or anyone for that matter - doesn't just buy a house for their friend. They bought the 2nd house for themselves for whatever bizarre financial planning scheme they devised. OP had nothing to do with it and her needing a place to live was just coincidental.

OP - you did nothing wrong legally or morally. Helpful Helen didn't buy a house for you. Stop letting her tell you that and stop believing it. She will either find renters when you leave or she will sell. The clause about living there as their primary residence is true in terms of not paying fed taxes on the sale. (Less than 2 yrs you pay taxes on the sale).

I hope you aren't mormon cause your mormon card would be revoked

OP, I live in California too. I don't know what part you're in but in SF and Oakland housing is completely nuts - if they wanted to sell they'd get above asking no question.

I think you should offer to help them with the transition. Find qualified renters for them, or offer to list the house or pay someone else to do it, etc.

If you want to move I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but HH and Mr. HH did do a huge thing for you and it would be right to help her back now that you're in a better financial position.

OP, DC is one of the most judgmental places I've ever lived. You can see by the responses. You should find somewhere else closer to where you live to post about this.

It was not your choice to make Helen buy a house, you did not force her into sending all the info to a lender, to lie on mortgage docs, to take out a 2nd mortgage. I'm not sure why everyone is putting this on you. Helen bought this house because she thought it was a good investment. Calling you wrong for moving is like calling a company and yelling at them for their stock going down. When you make an investment there is inherently risk. The paying tenant moving out is the risk.

It sounds like you feel very guilty OP. And it sounds like you should.

Anonymous wrote:I have literally never heard of a law requiring someone to live in a home they purchased.

It sounds like Helpful Helen wanted to defraud the state of California and get some sort of tax benefit by claiming the home was her primary residence.

But you, OP, you are a horrible person nonetheless.

My guess is helpful Helen told the bank it was a primary residence in order to get a lower mortgage rate. Second homes and investment properties usually come at slightly higher %s. The bank probably had some statement about living in the home for a period of a year.

I think 30 days notice is pretty awful considering what they did to help you.

I don't think you are morally bound to live there forever. however I think you are morally should have treated them with respect and tried to make it as painless as possible - lots of notice, helping them find new tenants or fixing up what they would need fixed to rent it out again. Act in a way that shows your appreciation for what they did for you.

I have literally never heard of a law requiring someone to live in a home they purchased.

It sounds like Helpful Helen wanted to defraud the state of California and get some sort of tax benefit by claiming the home was her primary residence.

But you, OP, you are a horrible person nonetheless.

Everyone above seems to be assuming your friends did you a favour - and perhaps they did - but perhaps try just saw an easy way to get into the landlord business without having to pay a management company, worry about utilization, etc. Maybe I'm just cynical but I find it hard to believe someone would buy a 2nd house for a friend purely as a favour. I've bought friends dinners, even plane tickets and such, but a house?

Now, because they are friends and because they did help, I'd have offered them a years rent as backstop for them to get another renter. But you can't put your career on hold because your friends were hoping you'd rent for fifteen years.

But I agree that just taking the POV that you have no legal obligation is a shitty thing to do.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is op so wrong? Did helpful Helen think she was going to live in the house for the full term of their 30 yr fixed rate mortgage (or whatever it was). If Helen wanted renters for a specific period of time they should have disclosed that to OP.

OP lived there at least a year. Maybe she should have given more notice...2 or 3 months? Instead of 1?

I don't think Helen is screwed over. Presumably she wanted to invest in real estate anyway and she still owns her investment and has a year plus paid down on the mortgage. I saw nowhere in here that Helens finances were dependent upon OP living in CA forever

Helpful Helen took out a SECOND MORTGAGE to help lousy friend OP. Like others stated, good luck finding a friend like HH.

Presumably hh took the second mortgage because it was financially sensible to do so. It's not ops fault if hh can't manage her finances and makes stupid decisions.

I don't think 30 days notice is enough, but otherwise I don't think there's anything wrong.

They were pretty stupid to think you'd stay there forever. Did you imply you would?

OP apparently sent her very good friend Helen a letter giving 30 days notice, and left her a voice mail. It doesn't appear that there was a contract between them, specifying that they would live in the house for X years, or what would happen in the event of a move.

But a better way to do it would be to talk to Helen, tell her of the plan to move, and discuss dates. Find new renters to move in, and give Helen plenty of advance notice (and veto power of the new renters). It would have been considerate for OP to do it that way. But she didn't.

OP is awful amy

Anonymous wrote:Helpful Helen lied on mortgage documents, that's probably why she's so ticked, they're going to get found out.
Are there no forums a couple of thousand miles closer to you than this one?

How are they going to find out? Plus no one cares if people lie on mortgage documents. All they care about is if the mortgage gets paid.