GRANNY ANNEX

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.

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.

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,

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.

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.

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

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.

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 ?

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.

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

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 .