Dear Jeanne & Leonard: We four “kids” in the family are all in our 50s. Three of us own our own homes. Our mother would like to bequeath her home to our brother, the only one of us who doesn’t own one. Do you have any advice for this situation?
— M.M., Sacramento, California
Dear M.M.: Yes. Your mother needs to ask herself if the child to whom she wants to leave her house can afford to live there. We’re assuming here that the reason she wants to make this bequest is that your brother has been unable to afford to buy a home, not that he has an aversion to owning one.
If money has indeed been the issue, then your mother needs to consider whether your brother has the resources to pay the property taxes, insurance bills and maintenance expenses that come with homeownership. And she needs to consider not just the everyday maintenance: Houses need a new roof and a new furnace from time to time, and a new refrigerator and a fresh coat of paint as well.
Can your brother afford to cover expenses like these, or would giving him the house mean forcing him to one day choose between asking his siblings for money and letting the place run down?
Perhaps your mother has significant financial resources in addition to the house, some of which she’s planning to leave to your brother. If so, our concerns may be moot. But, unfortunately, she wouldn’t be the first parent who, in hoping to equalize her children’s outcomes in life, settled on a solution that backfired.
Dear Jeanne & Leonard: Our fence desperately needs replacing. According to the folks we contacted at city hall, the fence is jointly owned by us and our two neighbors, and all three owners are responsible for keeping it in good repair. Well, we took the email from the city and knocked on our neighbors’ doors, hoping to discuss this with them. According to the first family’s teenage son, our neighbor was “resting” and couldn’t be disturbed. The other neighbor never answered the door. After several more tries, we put a note in their mailboxes, along with a copy of the city’s email. That was weeks ago, and still neither neighbor has responded. What’s our next move?
— Stymied, Tracy, California
Dear Stymied: Try the time-honored trick of lying in wait for your neighbors when they return from work. Have a nice smile on your face and an estimate of the cost of replacing the fence in your hand as you give them a very short pitch on why you feel it’s imperative to do the work.
But don’t bet that forcing your neighbors to hear you out will matter. If they had any interest in replacing the fence, they wouldn’t be treating you like a recent returnee from Rio who’s complaining of flu-like symptoms.
Indeed, you may find it cheaper — both financially and emotionally — to replace the fence yourself than to hire an attorney and try to force your obviously unwilling neighbors to contribute.
