[quote=eavesdropper]…Very often the parents have also put themselves at extreme risk by remortgaging their homes to the point of foreclosure, depleting their retirement savings, and maxing out a dozen credit cards to deal with their child’s demands and financial screw-ups…[/quote]
Great post, eavesdropper. As to the above, I’ve seen a LOT of this in recent years, done mostly for “children” (aged 30-40) and their children (grandchildren of near-retirees). These “codependent” parents have virtually, in some cases, rendered themselves near-destitute in their looming retirement years financially “helping” their able-bodied adult children. After being widowed w/o life insurance, divorced one or more times or never-married with multiple children, these “adult children” move back to their parent(s) home or even live in an RV or small granny flat on their parent(s) property, using their (often “better”) address for school attendance purposes and using the parents home for laundry, cooking, hot showers, cable TV purposes, etc. The returning kid (now parent) typically comes “back home” with no job, no assets, expensive cell phone contracts for they and their child(ren), maxed out CC’s, car payments and sometimes even student loans they have deferred into oblivion.
The boomer parent(s), now 60+, were often newly retired or just on the brink of retiring from their often longtime jobs when they received all these needy family members back into their homes for a “temporary” stay (ostensibly to “get their feet back on the ground”) which ends up turning into years. The parent can’t downsize (too many people) and move to that 2 br cabin in the sticks they’ve dreamed about now (proximity to schools an issue) or travel, which they may have been waiting their whole lives for without upending their minor grandchildren’s (previously unstable) lives.
In almost every domestic (dissolution) case in SD County that I’ve prepared forms/pleading on since 2000, one or both parties stated to the court that they were moving in with friends/relatives indefinitely.
I’ve also seen in recent years MULTIPLE married couples under the age of 40 being deeded (FREE AND CLEAR) land, houses, a duplex and a small biz commercial property by one of their still-alive parents, only to almost immediately mortgage it into oblivion solely to extract cash and continue to use the property, live in it or collect rent from it. They typically made 3-7 mtg payments and then let it slip into foreclosure.
In the case of one vacant lot, the couple actually DID build a 4 bdrm house on it, but contracted the work themselves and did not grade the lot properly. As you can well imagine, they had MANY problems during rains and with getting in/out of the property, etc. They eventually lived as long as they could in it (after attempting to sell it for $1.4M w/no price reductions) before succumbing to foreclosure.
Cost of 2 AC Lot: $0 (deeded 2001)
Cost of Plans: $900 (nine hundred)
Cost of Mat’ls: $138K
Cost of Permits: $21K
Cost of Engineering: $0 (but should have hired one)
Total of loans taken out by couple by 2006: $996K (1st, 2nd, HELOC)
Length of ownership: 5.5 yrs (incl vacant lot)
Length of mtg-free living before losing property: 13 mos.
When this “party” was over, the couple promptly filed (Chap 7) BK and divorced (his 2nd/her 3rd). They share two kids. He moved into one BR apt and she moved (where else?) back in with “mom” (now widowed) with her now 4 “pt time” children (3 minors) after already receiving her own parents land which had been in their family for many years and squandering it.
Current age of couple: abt 42
Current age of mom: abt 69
No, I did NOT do any domestic legal work for this “land-gift” couple!!
I’m not saying ALL the “under 40” generation is like this. But why should a typical older parent who is cutting corners by doing all their own household work and gardening, wearing clothes mostly given to them, not buying any disposable items and rationing gas and utils in order to live within their means feel compelled to take on the responsibility of an adult child who repeatedly digs their own grave? ALL of these young couples’ problems were caused from gross overspending due to grandiose and unrealistic expectations given their educational and professional “station” in life. I don’t believe the majority of older boomers and the WWII generation (who typically married young) have or had these HUGE expectations in housing, vehicles, public or private schools, etc, while raising children.
These young families COULD have had a better quality of life and kept so much more of their earnings and assets were it not due to their constant WASTEFUL expenditures and and an all-too-prevalent “disposable” mindset.
