Another House Update, Sort of Worse But Also Sort of Better

We heard back from Mike's sister. She says no to our plan of her taking the house and the car and us taking the WAY SMALLER SHARE of just stocks and cash. She says she's "uncomfortable" with this because she wants the stocks for her financial security (oh, I see, she WANTS them!), and because she thinks the house will increase only slightly in value whereas the stocks will increase a lot. She says that's why "the plan is joint ownership," and that the great thing is that we (meaning her and us) can get a really good deal on a home equity loan right now!

You see what she's proposing? That WE take on half a SECOND MORTGAGE, to pay for repairs on the house she doesn't want to inherit but wants to live in "until the market improves." Meanwhile, she will take the car and she doesn't want to lose any of the stocks.

I'm happy to report that Mike says "Screw that." I think the mortgage idea is what really got through to him: not just "helping with repairs" but actually having ANOTHER MORTGAGE in addition to our own---with us getting nothing out of it. So he's emailing her back to say, "Okay, then let's sell the house as-is, as a fixer-upper, because there's no way we'll be able to get out the money we'd have to put in to fix it up. Then we'll split what it sells for, and the cash/stocks." (I'll make sure that it works out to include "...after taking the value of the car out of your half.")

I wish she'd just taken the house (because now we enter the world of real estate, and of getting her OUT), but I'm very, very, very happy that now Mike seems to have been steered off of his plan to let her live there indefinitely while we pay for repairs. I asked him if he thinks she's wily (trying to screw us) or just dim (so self-focused she doesn't even consider that we might not want to do what's best for her, even to our own detriment), and he waffled but basically went with "dim." Neither of us think she has ANY IDEA that if we sell the house, she'll end up having to pay rent elsewhere---and that the long-term cost of those rent payments will be FAR MORE than any problem with the house not increasing in value much, or with any financial security she thinks she'll get from the piddling stocks.