We Inherited My Mother-in-Law’s House. My Husband Wants to Pretend It Doesn’t Exist. (2024)

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Dear Pay Dirt,

My mother-in-law passed away six months ago after serious medical issues that ended with her in the hospital, rehab, and then finally a nursing home for almost a year before her death. Her home and the contents therein, which is on our property, are now in our possession. I have been almost solely responsible for going through and cleaning out the contents, however, there is still quite a bit left.

Here lies the problem. The house we currently live in is considerably smaller, older, and in much rougher shape than my MIL’s house. I am ready to move, but my husband keeps coming up with every excuse he can to put it off including claiming a smell in there that makes him sick, doesn’t like where it sits, etc., and becomes quite angry when questioned about getting on with the move. He also wants to hang on to everything left in MIL’s house, which means that even if we did move into it, it wouldn’t feel like ours (her decor is not my taste) and it leaves little space at the moment for our stuff. Let me be clear that I am not suggesting getting rid of all her stuff, but we can’t keep it all.

I am at my wit’s end because the condition of our current home is critical (1930s construction including bad wiring, holes in the floor, crumbling foundation, and mold in the basem*nt). By the way, we tried trading MIL’s house in, but got nowhere due to a ridiculously low appraisal. I have suggested trying to sell it privately and again got an angry response. I understand he’s hurting over the loss of his mother, but do you have any suggestions on how to deal with this issue?

—Confused and Ready to Move

Dear Confused and Ready to Move,

Sigh. I lost my mother about seven months ago, and we are just starting the work we need to do to put her condo on the market. Taking her artwork down from the walls and packing up her beloved possessions was incredibly difficult. So, I feel your husband’s pain. While you seem to be thinking clear-headed about the reasons you want to trade your home for your mother-in-law’s, your husband isn’t there yet.

Everyone grieves in different ways, for varying amounts of time. I often advise people not to make a major move for a year after a significant family member dies. Selling a home that she lived in for decades counts as a major move. You and your family moving into that home also counts. The fact that your mother-in-law lived in a nursing home for her final year doesn’t. Your husband needs time to process this loss and when he tells you her house smells, it’s another indication he isn’t emotionally ready to cope with moving his mother’s treasured possessions to make room for his own.

Since you’re responsible for cleaning out her home, I suggest you focus on that. Go room by room, cleaning, sorting, and throwing away anything you can. Pack the rest in boxes and put them in one room. Do what you can to get the home in move-in condition. Once you’ve done what you can, ask your husband what else he wants to keep or store. It sounds as though your own home needs some repairs, so you can get busy on those as well.

Trust me, your husband will eventually work through his grief. In the meantime, stop pushing and start listening to him.

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Dear Pay Dirt,

I have owned a house in Washington, D.C. for almost 25 years (valued at about $900,000) and I owe only about $60,000. I currently work in a different East Coast city where I own a condo. I anticipate retiring in about 10 years when I will be 65 and I think I would like to live in California, in an expensive metropolitan area where I used to live but there’s a small possibility I might want to return to D.C.

I have options: 1) Keep the D.C. house and rent it out (I don’t love the idea of being a landlord in part because the house is old and quirky) and sell it if and when I’m ready to move to California; 2) sell the house and invest in California property now and rent it until I’m ready to move (I visit CA city fairly often right now); 3) sell the house and put the proceeds (I have two years before I lose capital gains exemption) into the stock market or something safer (treasuries?). What do you advise?

—To Sell or Not to Sell?

Dear to Sell or Not to Sell,

Let’s start by clearing up a misconception. When you sell your primary residence, which I assume is the Washington, D.C. house, you may keep up to $250,000 in profits if you’re single and up to $500,000 if you’re married. The catch is, you must have lived in the home as your primary residence for at least two of the past five years before the sale. And, you can only take this tax perk once every 24 months. (There are some exceptions if you have to move to take a different job that’s over 50 miles from your current job or if you’re in active military service.) You’d only need to worry about the two out of the last five years rule if you decide to rent the property today and sell it later or if the D.C. house hasn’t been your primary residence for the past five years.

If I understand you correctly, you own an expensive house in D.C., but you don’t live there now. You live in a different East Coast city, where you work. You don’t mention visiting your D.C. property, but I’ll assume you do from time to time. Your question seems to be about what happens in 10 to 20 years, when you’re in retirement and contemplating moving to your “forever home.”

First, keeping your Washington D.C. home vacant is a money-losing proposition. You’re paying maintenance, upkeep, taxes, and insurance on a house that’s “old and quirky.” You could sell this property in a hot market and invest your net profit of around $800,000 in the equities. Even if you stick it into a high-interest rate savings account, you’d earn roughly $40,000 per year, not to mention the savings of property taxes, insurance, and all the rest. That’s easily enough to stay in a lovely hotel when you visit town.

Or, you could take the $800,000 and use it as a generous down payment on a property in California that you think you’d want to live in down the road. If you visit that area frequently, it wouldn’t be as much trouble to check in on the property and you can even look into buying something with an accessory dwelling unit (ADU) on the grounds. Whenever you’re ready to retire, you can live in the house and rent out the ADU. Or, the reverse.

In 10 years, if you still want to own a place in D.C., you can sell the East Coast condo you’re living in and use the proceeds to buy a smaller pied-a-terre in D.C., a place that you can easily rent or drop into from time-to-time, knowing it’s safe and secure.

In general, I’m not a huge fan of being an out-of-state landlord. Unless you’re getting a fabulous amount of rent and are leasing the property to someone you know will take good care of it, you’re better off selling and buying an investment property nearer to where you live. Or, selling and investing in a diversified portfolio of stocks and bonds. You’d have excellent returns over time and a whole lot less hassle.

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Dear Pay Dirt,

I am fairly well-paid for a nonprofit employee (very low six figures). Meanwhile, my spouse is a dental specialist who makes several times what I do (fine with me!). They work in two different practices, one of which they own completely and one of which they partially own. They don’t have student debt, though they do have some small-business loans that financed the practice acquisitions. Our personal checking and savings accounts are all joint, but their corporate accounts and loans are in their name only.

The question is about business investments. I just don’t know how or whether I should be involved in these decisions. My spouse and a partner recently bought another small group of dental practices, which they’ll oversee but will be staffed by other dentists. They see it as a source of passive income, the same way one might buy an income property to rent out. The purchase was 100 percent bank-financed and the hope/expectation is that the earnings will cover the loan over time, so it’s not as though the money came out of our household budget, exactly. But the line between “their” corporate and “our” household money is fuzzy. How much my spouse takes home is really a function of how much they choose to pay themselves out of corporate earnings. If we need a little extra for our monthly expenses, they take out a little more in salary. If the new practices aren’t profitable enough, the loan payments will have to come out of the existing corporate earnings that usually cover most of our bills.

It seems like I should have input on any new business investments, but I’m not sure what form that should take. In the discussions about this most recent purchase, I raised concerns and asked questions, but ultimately, it felt like my spouse was deciding how much weight to assign those things in their decision-making process—it wasn’t a joint decision. I’m temperamentally a bit more risk-averse than my spouse, and I think that my participation in the conversation mostly comes out as naysaying. I’d have veto power if I wanted to exercise it, but dentistry isn’t my field, so I’m not well-positioned to evaluate how good a bet any acquisition really is. It feels like a nuclear option to just say no. It’s not likely I would even have wanted to say no! I just didn’t feel right about not being able to participate in the decision on anything like an equal basis.

I’m struggling to come up with a model of meaningful involvement in what are ultimately very significant decisions for our family finances even if they’re not actually investments of household dollars. But my spouse will always know more about his field than I do. Any advice on how we can approach future decisions of this kind?

—Silent Partner?

Dear Silent Partner,

You say that you want to participate on an equal basis, but call yourself a silent partner. I know it’s likely just a clever letter sign-off, but silent partners, by definition, support the active managers of the business. They aren’t an active participant in the ongoing activities of the business. So you’re going to need to determine how involved you actually want to be.

That said, I hear you. You want your spouse to value your input, although you admit you’re more risk-averse. So, start there. I see the several ways his business acquisitions could negatively impact your net worth: (1) There won’t be enough money for your household to run properly; (2) the practices are underinsured for the risks that are being taken; (3) either your spouse or their partner decide they want out and the sale impacts the business enough that revenue won’t cover expenses, including the loan payments; and (4) your husband gets hit by the proverbial bus, and you don’t know enough about the business to maximize value in a firesale.

These are all valid concerns, and you may have others, like whether your retirement savings are on track or are being used as collateral for these loans. You and your spouse should discuss your concerns in the context of the current and future prospects of the business, the insurance policies they’re holding, and how you and the family will be protected in a worst-case scenario. As co-guardian for your family’s finances, you should have a solid understanding of what risks your family is facing as the business grows.

At the end of the day, though, you’re not a dentist and you don’t own the business. But your spouse’s ownership is a marital asset, and should you divorce, you’d be entitled to a piece of it and would assume the liability of the debt outstanding as well. If he dies, I assume you’d inherit his share (you’ll want to check on that, by the way, and make sure all partnership agreements are in writing, preferably with an agreed-upon way to value the businesses). So, understanding what it’s all worth and how all of these scenarios might play out will help you deduce what you need to know. And, it should lessen your fears that your spouse is making financial decisions that will gut your long-term planning.

—Ilyce

Classic Prudie

I’m a woman in my early 30s. My housemate is a man in his mid-20s. We became friends through work this year and decided to become housemates. It was a good personality fit and an economic benefit for us both. We have separate bedrooms and a shared living space. It’s pretty plum in every way, except that he seems to think I’m his girlfriend. A few weeks after moving in together, we had a couple of drinks, and he dropped some hints that he was attracted to me.