My Divorced Parents Are Both Expecting the Same Impossible Favor From Me. I Can’t Give It to Either of Them.

Pay Dirt is Slate’s money advice column. Have a question? Send it to Kristin and Ilyce here. (It’s anonymous!) My parents argued constantly and divorced when I was 12. They both did vindictive stupid things during the divorce process, and the hate hasn’t reduced. I’m an only child. Even when they both promise to be on their best behavior at the same event, the simmering anger and resentment bubbles up and they both have to be asked to leave. They made my rehearsal dinner so awful I uninvited them from our wedding. It’s not one or the other, they’re both pretty difficult people. But Mom fell and went from hospital to a short term nursing facility and then her insurance decided they were ready for her to go home when she could barely function. She couldn’t afford to stay until she was recovered enough for home, and she’s staying with us until her doctor clears her. This is temporary and it sucks, and I don’t ever want to do it again. I was busy trying to figure out how to help her get other long term plans in place when Dad got in a car accident. He’s in the hospital but he’s not going to be able to drive for some time and he somehow assumed he was going to move in with us. That’s not happening, but I suspect we will have to take him between nursing home and his actual home. I need two types of advice: how to keep them from ruining my household while they’re both here, sharing a three-bedroom house with me, my husband and our two tweens. And secondly, I can’t figure out what kind of options realistically exist for them outside of me. Are there programs I don’t know about? How do I make sure neither of them is dying at the bottom of a flight of steps but not in my house? My mom has a small pension, SSI, and a suburban condo with $70,000 left to pay off on the mortgage. My dad owns a rural house with a lot of problems and value I’m unsure of. He has a 401(k)I don’t know much about, and SSI. I’m pretty sure my husband would leave me if either or both of them moved in permanently. And I would also be on the cusp of fleeing to Alaska or something. I don’t want to expose my kids to the levels of anger and bitterness my parents bring to everything. I love them but in small doses. I absolutely cannot do this. But I don’t have big money to throw at it either. You are their child, not an appointed caregiver, and you don’t have the space, physically or emotionally, for either of them. Saying no isn’t cruel. It’s the only way your marriage and your kids survive this. Let’s start with the hardest part: Your father. Here’s what you need to say to him before he’s even discharged: “You are not moving in with us, Dad. Not for a weekend, not for a week.” No exceptions, no trial periods. If there’s a gap between hospital and home, that gap gets filled by a Medicaid-covered rehab or skilled nursing facility—not your guest room. Practice saying this until it comes out flatly and calmly, because he will push. Real alternatives exist, but the path to them runs through a good elder law attorney. The best thing you can do is find one now, for both parents. Elder law attorneys understand Medicaid spend-down rules (how much of your mom’s condo equity and your dad’s rural property value can be protected while still qualifying them for coverage), and they can help put real guardrails in place: which assets go where, what gets sold, what stays. This is not something you need to become an expert in yourself. That’s what you’re paying them for. This is also a good time to make sure their estates are in order (get their powers of attorney in place) and that you are the named executor on both of their wills. Alongside that, call the Eldercare Locator (800-677-1116) or search eldercare.acl.gov to find your local Area Agency on Aging, and check Medicaid.gov and Medicare.gov for what’s covered. Between the attorney and the care coordinator resources, you can build a real plan for each parent that doesn’t run through your living room. Then tell them both, clearly: I will help you find the right placement and services, but you will have to manage the rest of your own lives. Please keep questions short (<150 words), and don‘t submit the same question to multiple columns. We are unable to edit or remove questions after publication. Use pseudonyms to maintain anonymity. Your submission may be used in other Slate advice columns and may be edited for publication. Thanks! Your question has been submitted. My husband and I bought a fixer-upper a few years ago when interest rates were rock-bottom. We are still working on the house with plans to sell once it’s done (it’s currently vacant, definitely a labor of love). My husband’s best friend is going through a terrible divorce that has emptied his savings and left him homeless (he has been much kinder to his ex-wife than she deserves, in my opinion), so we’re letting him stay in the house for now in exchange for helping with the renovation. We would love to sell our friend the home, but due to the divorce, he doesn’t have the savings (or probably the credit) to be able to afford it. Plus, our interest rate is so low that it seems criminal to give it up. I know the obvious solution is just to rent it to him at an affordable rate, but my husband and I have been budgeting for the infusion of cash from the sale of the house. Plus we want our friend to build up equity in the home for his own future. One solution I was thinking of is to get the house appraised as-is (mid-renovation) and use that as the “sale price.” Then all renovations going forward would be our friend’s responsibility (he’s extremely handy and has a good job, so it’s doable). This would solve our “cash infusion” problem because we could just use what had been our renovation budget. Then, our friend would rent the house from us at-cost (mortgage/taxes/insurance). Once the mortgage is paid off, he could purchase the house from us at the “sale price” previously established, or continue paying us in installments until the whole thing is paid off. Of course we would get all this in a legally binding contract, and trust me when I say we’re not worried about this affecting our friendship. But would this plan even work? Are there hidden costs or factors we’re not considering? I know we could make more money if we fixed the house up ourselves and sold it at market price, but we agreed we value helping our friend get back on his feet more than maximizing our profit. That said, we want to make sure we’re being fair both to our friend and to ourselves. It’s nice to help your friends, but you’ve made a serious investment of time and treasure in this house. So, before finalizing anything, ask yourselves: What is the renovation cash earmarked for? If it’s discretionary—a car, a vacation, general savings—you have real flexibility. If you need it as a down payment on your next home or investment, that changes everything, because your plan ties up your equity in your friend’s future rather than freeing it up for yours. If you do need liquidity now, consider a home equity loan or HELOC against the property instead of restructuring the whole deal. You get your cash infusion immediately, and your friend pays the interest on that loan as part of his monthly costs—essentially the “rent at cost” you already proposed, just structured through a loan payment rather than a private lease. This can be cleaner from a paperwork standpoint and may offer you some tax advantages worth discussing with an accountant. On the due-on-sale concern: a properly structured lease-with-option-to-buy generally does not trigger this clause, since you retain ownership and he doesn’t yet hold equitable title—that’s specifically why lease-options are commonly used in situations like yours. But have a real estate attorney confirm your particular lender’s language, since some are stricter than others.Separately, keep in mind that you may need vacant-property insurance during renovation, permits for any work he does, and think about what happens if he can’t secure financing at the end or if either of you needs to exit early. Be clear on your own cash needs first, loop in a real estate attorney and accountant so you think through all of your options and opportunities, then put it all in writing. A few years ago, I (45/F) used my savings to move to a rural property and live out a dream I’ve always had about having a small hobby farm. I have some chickens, some beehives, I grow a lot of vegetables, and I’m looking forward to getting some larger livestock soon. I’ve been so happy in my new home, so when my sister asked if she, her husband, and their children could come and stay with me for a week, I eagerly agreed. I have ample space to host guests and plenty of room for the children to run around. However, all four of them were incredibly disappointed—the children, to the point of tears—when they arrived.

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