GRANNY ANNEX

Think carefully before taking the plunge Marysunshine it can work for some people but not others. My daughter suggested this but I like my independence and decided against it, a couple of years down the line she split up with her partner. You need to have all the financial and legal issues in place even with family. I don't want to put you off totally but I do know of a couple of cases where this has not turned out well for the parents concerned .

I see these programmes on tv, they pool resources and granny gets the small annexe when granny has put most of the money towards buying the house. The AC children are the beneficiaries of a big comfortable family home while the annexe is often just an add on, a converted cowshed or garage. No thanks, I value my independence, comfort and being separate financially as well as my privacy

The experience is that although the older couple put in the most money they get the smallest property.

If the younger couples circumstances change (job relocation, separation or illness) you may be forced to move against your wishes.

If you need your money for a good quality care home you have far less to pay for it.

We looked at this seriously 5/6 years ago.
Our first concern was: what happens to our share of the property when we are gone as we have 2 other daughters.

Would my daughter look after me or her stepfather If/when the time comes when we need care. Where we live ( southeast Essex) the price of a property to meet everyone's needs would take all our money. We were looking at a purpose built unit on the property.

We looked at the situation if we were to live in the the property with the family. How would it work with utility charges. My daughters family have every light on, at least 2 TVs running all day. This is a complete no no for us. We are both very tidy people, my family are not.

I think you can see where I'm going with this. We thought of everything and came down against it although the grandchildren would have loved it ?

I don't think I'd do it, although it does sound sensible in theory, assuming you all get on well. I've heard of cases where the elderly parent went on to develop dementia and things became very difficult, since they could no longer remember to stay much of the time in their own accommodation, and would be banging on the door or coming in at all hours of the day or night, or asking endlessly for help with the same thing, because they've forgotten that they asked only 5 or 10 minutes previously.

There is then the question of deprivation of assets - if the person eventually needs a care home and there is not enough money left to pay for it. Social services are then likely take the view that the person's funds have been used to pay for a much more valuable asset for the son or daughter.

No a big no for me too I want to stay friends with my adult children I do not want any of my children to feel they have to ‘look’ after me in their garden
if the time comes I can’t look after myself then I ll go into some sort of sheltered home or even a care home (god forbid) I don’t want to but I don’t want to be on anyone’s doorstep unwittingly annoying or worrying them
I hope I just disappear from this world before any of that happens

A friend did this successfully with her mother, but did not do it the traditional way. She and her mother bought a house between them and divided it into two self contained flats, with separate services and separate ownership, so that at any time one could sell their flat independently of the other.

When her mother died, my friend was able to sell her flat independently, which meant that her brother got his share of the inheritance and the same could have been done had her mother gone into care. My friend then stayed on in her own flat.

I think wtzend makes a good point over paying for care. We talk about elderly parents left homeless if children have to sell or relocate, but a family could be forced to move because an elderly parents capital has to be liquidated to pay care home fees.

List of pros and cons:
Every situation is unique.
On the plus side:
We did just this with DM 40 years ago and it enabled us to buy the property we are still in.
DM was widowed and lonely and wanted to feel safe and near the DGC.
Instead of retiring and being depressed she had a whole new life opening up.
She joined groups and made new friends.
For us it meant we had a built-in babysitter, a large garden and space for our growing family.
On the down side:
After 3 or 4 years, a bit like a marriage falling apart , she felt trapped because her money was in the house and she couldn't move.
I became resentful of her criticism and irritated by her. I reverted to being a grumpy teenager.
Lots of other reasons too much and personal to mention here but the solution was, we were able to buy out her share of the house and she was then able to buy herself a nice ground floor flat, not attached to any of her DC.
So yes it was a good solution at the time but wasn't the forever dream we maybe had.
BTW she lived another 30 years very contentedly in her flat and we became friends again.

My father sold his flat and then paid for an extension to be built on our house for him to live in, this kept most of his capital.

It worked wonderfully well, he had privacy, independence, company if he wanted it,

I forgot to mention that we now let the s/c granny annexe (which is in fact the nicest part of the house!) to tenants who don't share our lives much at all. They usually only stay a year or two and then move on. It brings in enough income to pay some of the running costs now we are retired.

No no no .... UNLESS every i is dotted and every t crossed by a solicitor. You must protect your own interests and those of any other children you have. In our case it led to disaster, MiL being evicted after giving her daughter all her property and money, siblings never again speaking to each other and cousins etc now estranged forever.

My fantasy is that my DD and SIL would buy one of those 'tiny homes' to put in their back garden for me to live in. Unfortunately I don't have the money or I would pay for it myself, obviously, but I would dearly love to be near them, but not in the same house.

My mother-in-law suggested this recently (2 years ago?) and we did look at it quite carefully but decided against in the end - largely for the complexity of the finances as she would be leaving shares of her estate to step-children, but partly because when my husband is "fully" retired we intend to move.

In the end she has moved into her own house but only 15 minutes away. This keeps finances separate but gives her a bit more contact with us and our wider family.

One of the big issues finance wise revolved around the separate-ness (or not) of the "granny" part. Many of the savings/positives of sharing have to be considered against council tax and utilities and the problems of "what happens if".

If they can afford the whole property without your help, that is an entirely different matter. We couldn't have done it that way.

My cousin did this and ended up more or less confined to one room. Her daughter- in- law criticised her constantly despite the fact that she looked after the children while dil went back to work. She has now moved out and bought a house away from them. Don't do it!

one of my fantasies also... but... yes, so many difficulties, but to be nearer them?? is it possible?

Think very carefully if you have other children, and if you are putting a large amount of your capital into the project. You also need legal advice on an exit strategy if it doesn't work out, if your care needs change, and for protection against 4 D's of death, divorce, debt, and dispute.

If this is your only child not a problem but if you other children this could open up a whole can of worms . If you decide to go ahead have contract signed up to say your entitled to stay there until you die . Also they would take care of all your care needs .

We had no problems at all with bills etc, the heating was connected to our boiler and the apartment had its own thermostat. We agreed a figure for a share of the bills, divided it by 3 and Dad paid his share each month.
Dad took the view that as I was the one who had cared for him in his later years any increased value of our house was a fair payment for that, it would have been a lot more expensive if he had gone into a care home. My brother, the only other heir was fine about it, he lives in a small house in another part of the country and could not have done the same with his house.
Interestingly, the value of the house only increased by about 50% of the cost of building the apartment so in real terms was not a huge increase for us in the value of our home.
I think from reading some of these horror stories we must have been very lucky.

We bought a house to share with my parents. We chose one that gave us 2 kitchens and bathrooms on different floors. they lived downstairs and we lived up. It wasn't a separate granny annexe but we didn't encroach on each other.

It worked mostly OK because we had lived next door to them for 14 years so were used to the proximity. It meant that we had childsitters on hand and they had help with DIY. We ate some meals together and usually met for morning coffee but mostly we lived separate lives.

I’ve moved into the granny annexe of my DD and SIL large old country house. I have enough space, my own lounge, bedroom, bathroom and kitchen. It works exceptionally well for us, all very respectful of each other’s space and privacy. We work as a team with DGS and pup and house duties, I do all the laundry and cook when required to etc and DD insists that we eat together every night. I do think I’m very lucky and my other 4GC all come over to stay regularly. If I have friends to stay, they sleep in my annexe and I go next door in a guest room. I think you need to sit down and chat with your family beforehand you decide, to work out exactly what everyone wants from the situation. One of my sons has joked that if DD kicks me out for “unruly behaviour” ? then he’ll have an annexe built and I can go to him !

My parents moved to be near me when they were old and frail. They lived in a bungalow about 2 mins walk away. It worked very well. It had the advantages of a granny flat without the disadvantages. They were too frail to walk round to our house.

If your adult child has always been very close and committed to you, it could work. The mother of a friend decided to take the opportunity to buy a house with granny annex with her son who only contacted her once in a blue moon as she felt it would be a chance to be closer to him and his children. This house was a few hours away from my friend, her daughter. When she became too infirm to babysit any more, she rarely saw them in spite of being adjoined to the building. And my friend who would have been popping into her all the time to help out couldn't get there very often due to the distance. It ended up the only person she saw regularly was her carer. So if the child you are thinking of doing this with is like my friend it could work. If the child is like her brother it won't.

We looked really seriously when my dad was still alive. Gave up on it in the end. Some of the Granexes we viewed - you wouldn't keep a budgie in. Or the houses themselves were isolated so he'd have been completely dependant on us for going out, so no life of his own. So I'm still not against in principle BUT finding a decent place in an acceptable location is the problem.

We found a large house and converted it ourselves. It wasn't easy and for the first 6 months we had to share a bathroom but the adventure of it kept us going and the joy when at last we got hot water and a kitchen. We cooked on a camping stove until then.
But we were young and DM was 60ish and active.
Now I worry about my very old in-laws but you lot have convinced me not to move them here.
It's interesting to note that our DC who lived through it, are not interested in doing up houses apart from the youngest who was born later on and missed out on painting endless ceilings and sanding floors. I felt as if I lived up a ladder.