tell your sibling that you have an emotional attachment to the house since your parents lived there until death, you want to move in with your family and live there until retirement, and then pass it on to your kids, but alas, you do not have money to buy her out, if she can consider giving you a very loooong private morgtage with no interest for the rest of her life. when she says the heck no, you say to her the heck no for the same reasons. this is going to be a mess down the road. the short answer is that if your sister cannot afford a 3 million dollar home, she does not get it. as simply as that. "emotional attachment" is not a currency that buys such a house. what if your sister dies with no kids, and her then husband inherit the house (with the long, no interest mortgage to you), marries a strangers and have kids with the stranger in that house. would you be ok with that? I agree with others. your sister is unreasonable, and the least painful solution is selling the house now. unless your sister can come up with the money to buy you off, she can't have the house

Anonymous wrote:Not to be morbid. But with options one and two, what happens if your sibling dies or gets divorced? It will get even more complicated.

Rip the bandaide off now.

It is a little heartache now vs a lifetime of drama and headaches later.

+ 1,000

Sell, and your dead beat sibling needs to live with in her means

As someone who went through this with a sibling - you've received some very good advice here. My brother and I inherited our family home. We held it for awhile and rented it out. I later decided to move in and bought him out. We were able to do it without any drama.

One thought might be to consider renting out the house for awhile to give everyone time to be clear about making decisions. That way the asset is not just sitting and you can take your time. There is a market out there for high-end renters. I think what helped us is that we didn't make any final decisions about what to do with the house until two years after we inherited it.

If you can't come up with a fair deal, please just sell the house. If you let the sib live there and just retain 50% ownership, you are guaranteeing a fight in the future. Especially now with in-laws and kids, you two need to unencumber (untangle) yourselves from each other and make it clean.

With my brother and me, I inherited the house and my brother inherited the fair market value of the house in stock/cash. The estate planning documents provided that if there wasn't enough stock/cash to cover the value of the house, that I'd take out a mortgage on the house to pay my brother off.

If that wasn't enough, I would have used my savings to pay him off. If that didn't do it, I'd take out another loan. Or rent the house and pay him off. It needs to be clean.

If I couldn't swing all that I would have sold the house.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sibling needs to buy you out, but at a good deal. Maybe not market. At least half of what parents bought it for, adjusted for inflation, plus half of what money parents put in.

Totally disagree.

#1

Who is paying to have the research done, particularly what parents put into the house? What if the siblings disagree on the ultimate value? Word to the wise, never put your children in this in unwinnable situation. Always state that an asset such as the house be sold and the money split between heirs. If sibling B cannot afford a $3 million house, many others cannot either

Anonymous wrote:Sibling needs to buy you out, but at a good deal. Maybe not market. At least half of what parents bought it for, adjusted for inflation, plus half of what money parents put in.

Totally disagree.

OP, do not let your sibling move in, rent-free. Either they move in and pay rent to you (in addition to being responsible for utilities, and most of the property taxes).

But I think the sibling should buy you at at a fairly assessed value, or you both sell the house now, or you both hold on to it (maybe rent it out to someone else so you both get some income).

In an ideal world, siblings are kind and understanding of each other, and don't take advantage of situations. But this is not an ideal world, and situations like this can bring out some surprisingly selfish attitudes.

Anonymous wrote:"I think B sees this as her home at least until retirement"

"Emotional attachment" to the house is BS. I mean, what about Sibling B's emotional attachment to Sibling A? What B should care about is people - people being treated fairly - and not causing resentment between families that could last generations. Who does B think she is? Getting more than her share. no.

If they can't afford it, they can't afford it. Done. Period. Sell.

Yes, this. Sibling B needs to realize that this a monetary asset that dies not just belong to her.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So what amount of a mortgage could the sibling afford?

Right now? If you count her fiancé's income, maybe up to $500k, but I think even that would be a stretch.

No offense intended, but that is not much at all. At that income I'd question their ability to even pay property taxes and for the proper msintenance on a $3m house.

Is there a chance you could rent the house out for a while? Get her used to the idea of letting it go? It has to go. She can't even come close to affording it. With the money from the sale, she and her fiancé could buy a 1.5m house and own it free and clear. Even in the dc area a 1.5m house can be really nice.

It sounds like sibling A could lose money if B lives in the house without immediately buying out A. And as PPs have noted, there are just way too many ways this could go sour.

OP, it seems like you are A. What are you inclined to do?

Sell the house or sibling B needs to buy out sibling A. This prevents problems down the line.

Who pays for upgrades/maintenance to the house? What if the house is trashed and sold in 10 years for half today's value?

If you sell the house, sibling B will still get a nice amount of money to buy a great house.

Anonymous wrote:What neighborhood with 3 million dollar homes has bad schools??

DC

Anonymous wrote:If sibling B can't afford the house, they don't get the house.

+1

Anonymous wrote:So she wants to live for free in a $3m house and send her future kids to private school, when she could only buy a $500k house on her own? Wow, me too! Talk about champagne tastes...

Right?

OP, you need to sell. There are so many variables. My father's family was ripped apart by a similar scenario. My dad did all the upkeep (out of his own pocket) on a very valuable historic house and was eventually screwed.