Dilemma
I hate when my mother springs these things on me!
My grandmother is currently living in Co. Sligo (about a 6 hour drive away from us) and has no family and very few friends living nearby. Because she's so far away we don't get to see her very often and my mum has been suggesting she move down to us in Cork. Recently she has been looking into buying a house for Granny to live in and today she announced (after spending 3 months making plans about it with Granny) that the only way we can afford to buy the house is if I am named as the main mortgage holder. My initial reaction was "sure, great, no problem Granny needs to be closer to us and if I can help with that then good."
The actual repercussions of that hit me when I stopped to think about it afterwards. If I put my name to this mortgage all my first time buyer benefits will be applied to this purchase meaning that when I go to buy my actual first house in however many years time I will have to pay all the stamp duty and other taxes that go with buying a second and subsequent houses in this country. At this moment in time that works out at around 50-60,000 euro on a standard 3-bedroom house so Gods only know what it may be in 6 or 7 years time. While in theory this will make the house partially mine, it won't be much good to me until after Granny dies which hopefully won't be for good 20 years yet at least (she's only 73). Ideally, I would take over the portion of the mortgage that isn't covered by Granny's rent (she's insisting on paying us the same as she pays in Sligo) and the house would then be entirely mine when Granny no longer needs it but in reality, if i was in a position to do that, I wouldn't still be living at home with my parents!
Unfortunately this is one of those cases where saying no simply isn't an option. My Grandmother needs to live closer to her family where we can drop in and visit every day and make sure she's ok. She's prone to depression and finds it extremely lonely being so far away from us and has even tried to overdose on more than one occasion. The only way we can get her to move is by providing her with somewhere to live close by and the only way my parents can afford to do that is by using my first time buyer benefits.
Add into this equation the fact that I haven't told any of my family yet that I'm trans and I'm expecting all hell to break loose when I do and I have a very complicated situation to figure out. I can't tell my family about being trans until I can afford to move out of home as I know I'll be thrown out when my stepfather finds out. I'm hoping that my mother will be able to get past it being the end of the world eventually but it'll take a long time for that to happen if it does at all. If I've got that amount of money invested in Granny's house I could lose any possibility I have of getting it back if my family were to disown me completely. Also, I'm not sure how my name change (when it eventually happens) will affect the documentation for the house and how it will affect my claim to part ownership if at all.
I think I need to hire a solicitor!
My grandmother is currently living in Co. Sligo (about a 6 hour drive away from us) and has no family and very few friends living nearby. Because she's so far away we don't get to see her very often and my mum has been suggesting she move down to us in Cork. Recently she has been looking into buying a house for Granny to live in and today she announced (after spending 3 months making plans about it with Granny) that the only way we can afford to buy the house is if I am named as the main mortgage holder. My initial reaction was "sure, great, no problem Granny needs to be closer to us and if I can help with that then good."
The actual repercussions of that hit me when I stopped to think about it afterwards. If I put my name to this mortgage all my first time buyer benefits will be applied to this purchase meaning that when I go to buy my actual first house in however many years time I will have to pay all the stamp duty and other taxes that go with buying a second and subsequent houses in this country. At this moment in time that works out at around 50-60,000 euro on a standard 3-bedroom house so Gods only know what it may be in 6 or 7 years time. While in theory this will make the house partially mine, it won't be much good to me until after Granny dies which hopefully won't be for good 20 years yet at least (she's only 73). Ideally, I would take over the portion of the mortgage that isn't covered by Granny's rent (she's insisting on paying us the same as she pays in Sligo) and the house would then be entirely mine when Granny no longer needs it but in reality, if i was in a position to do that, I wouldn't still be living at home with my parents!
Unfortunately this is one of those cases where saying no simply isn't an option. My Grandmother needs to live closer to her family where we can drop in and visit every day and make sure she's ok. She's prone to depression and finds it extremely lonely being so far away from us and has even tried to overdose on more than one occasion. The only way we can get her to move is by providing her with somewhere to live close by and the only way my parents can afford to do that is by using my first time buyer benefits.
Add into this equation the fact that I haven't told any of my family yet that I'm trans and I'm expecting all hell to break loose when I do and I have a very complicated situation to figure out. I can't tell my family about being trans until I can afford to move out of home as I know I'll be thrown out when my stepfather finds out. I'm hoping that my mother will be able to get past it being the end of the world eventually but it'll take a long time for that to happen if it does at all. If I've got that amount of money invested in Granny's house I could lose any possibility I have of getting it back if my family were to disown me completely. Also, I'm not sure how my name change (when it eventually happens) will affect the documentation for the house and how it will affect my claim to part ownership if at all.
I think I need to hire a solicitor!