I Own A Home With My Ex-Stepfather (It's Complicated)

Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. So I'm in an interesting situation. Back in 2018, I had purchased a house with my stepfather at the time. And it seemed like a good idea. We were splitting the percentages. It was going to get me into a house. A little bit sooner, I had a growing family. And they were supposed to only do their six months out of the year. Fast forward to a couple years ago, my mother had split up. And at this point in time, now my mother is living downstairs in the in-law apartment, of which I am responsible for all the utilities right now. And it's really hindering my ability to make any progress on my debt snowball and make some progress in the baby steps. And I'm just wondering, should I look to sell this house? My mortgage is super low. My mortgage is under a thousand dollars a month. And I do have some equity in the home, but I'm wondering if it makes sense for me to sell, uproot my kids, find somewhere else to go, either raise my mortgage or even have to potentially get a rent. Or if I should have just a conversation with my mom, start trying to get some utilities from her. It's a sticky situation. I don't know where to go with it. I'm so confused. So let me get the facts straight. Your ex-stepfather is on the mortgage. My ex-stepfather is on the mortgage. We're going to get really weird here. So my ex-stepfather is actually my mortgage holder, and he owns a part of my house. So he is the bank and part owner, but he doesn't live there anymore. He does not live there anymore. So your mom lives there and you're saying you can't pay off your debt because the utilities that your mom isn't paying for are crushing you financially? I'm saying that with utilities, the extra utilities that I have for the house, it's a 2,500 square foot home. I live in 1,700 square feet of it, but I am responsible for all utilities and all expenses of the home, insurance, everything. Yeah, but that's like 150 bucks a month. I just don't want you blaming mom for the $40 extra in water bills, that that's why you can't get ahead financially. So my electric bill during the winter month is over $750 a month. I have electric heat. So my utility bills are in $7,000 to $1,000 range a month. So what's the ideal situation? Your mom pays rent or your mom gets out? That I don't know. I feel like I should get out of this deal. Like I said, my mortgage isn't high. My mortgage is only less than a thousand dollars a month. So I don't want to sell, but I also kind of don't want to be in this deal any longer either. I kind of want to be. That to me, that's worth it to get out of this weird deal with your ex stepfather. But that sounds like the real issue. Hey, George here for Churchill Mortgage. Listen, with interest rates dropping, this might be your window to buy a home or refinance. Building equity through home ownership is still one of the best ways to create safety and security in your life. And you decide when the time is right. And my good friends at Churchill Mortgage will give you a custom plan and a special offer so you can buy or refinance the smart way. Go to churchillmortgage.com slash Ramsey offer. That's churchillmortgage.com slash Ramsey offer. This is a paid advertisement. NMLS ID 1591. NMLSconsumeraccess.org. Equal housing lender. But that sounds like the real issue. Is that the real issue? Is your mom using $500 a month in heat in the basement? No, there's a little bit more to my mom's side too. Don't necessarily want to share here, but it's also kind of affecting my relationship with my mother. Okay. We just didn't want to make this about the surface level, you know, dollars and utility bills. There's more there, which is cool. You don't need to share it all. And then on the, could you, do you want to keep this house? That's step one. If you had it on your own, would you want to keep it? And if you could afford it? I'm 50 50. I love, I love the neighborhood. I love where my house is. I don't with, with the in-law apartment that's downstairs, the house doesn't make sense for me to own it a hundred percent. Okay. But I mean, could, could you go to a mortgage company and buy your ex stepfather out? Just get a mortgage from them, get a mortgage from them, buy him out, get him out of there. And then have a hard conversation with your mom about whether she's going to pay rent or not, or she's got to move out. Cause you're going to hire, you're going to get a real renter in there. I could. I can't, I can't legally rent it. It's not a legal in-law apartment, so I can't legally rent it. So you can't rent a room in your house. It's not a room. It's a, it's a 1100 square foot in-law apartment. But is there Connecticut laws that say it's not zoned for rent? It's not currently set up right now to have someone externally outside of my, my family live in it. It's connected into my house there. It's okay. Well, that's not against the law. That'd be awkward or weird, but it's, it's weird. It's weird. Okay. It could be weird. And again, I've lived in Texas and Tennessee. I could rent my roof if I wanted to, but you may have different laws in Connecticut, but yeah, if you don't want strangers walking in and out of your front door, I get that. All things are pointing to you sell this house. You get out of this weird ex stepfather situation. Mom then needs to go find her own place and you start a new chapter that feels like the cleanest thing to do. Yeah. But that has nothing to do with you because let's say your rent goes to $1,500. I mean, your mortgage comes to $1,500 a month or $1,700 a month. You're still, you're solving for the relationship issues that you got in this deal, but you're going to be dollar for dollar about the same, right? What do you make a month? I take home about $7,500 a month. Great. So even if your mortgage or even if you rented for a while until you figured out where you wanted to buy, you'd be just fine. Yeah. So this is all purely relational. I do have four, I have four kids, so I do, I do need some, some space. Are you single? I'm married. Okay. And does your spouse live in the same house? She does. What does she think about all this? She's about the same as where I am. She'd be happy to, to start fresh new house without all these financial family ties. Yes. Okay. I think you've got your, your homework or home shopping, but I still want to, I want to challenge you at one thing and then I'll let you go. Are you, how old are your kids? Uh, I got an eight year old, I got a seven year old, a four year old and about to be a one year Okay. So you're fully in it. You're going to do six. And again, I know people all over planet earth live in different arrangements and that's awesome, but you're sitting in a 2,500 square foot house. You're going to do life with six people in the 1,500 square foot house or a 1,700 square foot house. That's where I am right now. That's my, my living space is 1,700 square feet. I know, but you're telling me that's all you need and you've got too much house. Do you have too much house for you and your mom to be there or could your family expand to use this, this basement space too? We could expand to use the basement space. It just doesn't, it's, it's a raised ranch, so it doesn't really make sense to downstairs. It'd be kind of hard to split my family up in, in the space. So having both, I don't think makes sense for me logically to buy him out and want to own the whole thing. Um, is he going to be willing to sell if you put this on the market? Yeah, I'm sure. What would he get out of it versus you as far as the proceeds? He's just, he's just going to get his percentage. Okay. Yeah. I'd sell it today. Yeah. I would take what you can get out of that. And if you can't afford to buy a home based on those proceeds that when you want, then you just got to wait and maybe rent somewhere for a while until you can't afford it. But this whole thing is just so intertwined. I would just want out emotionally. Best of luck. Create your free every dollar budget today. The simplest way to budget for your life.