I am looking for advice on how to best come close to the goals I will list below. My parents live together in a negatively charged space that is a "ticking bomb" and I want to get my mom a place for her to recover and bloom, but I also want me and my partner to build our life together more... in another country.
Goal(s) I would like to reach:
A place for my mother to live in and work/create in without worry.
Not having to pay rent to a landlord/becoming a home owner with my partner.
Increase savings/monthly profit.
Investing? (We do not have any invesments, and I personally would only feel comfortable with index funds, but I fear to put even a bit of my money in investing... but I also feel like I am missing out)
Summary of our situation: My partner (26M) and I (26F) live in a rented apartment in the Netherlands and pay high rent (920 e for rent, 150 e for bills). I will become a Dutch citizen next year. My parents live in Serbia (where I am originally from) in a house that my aunt dubiously acquired after my grandmother (the original owner of the house) passed away. The agreement is that my parents can keep living there as long as they pay the bills (which are on the expensive side) and my father is alive. After my father's death my mother would have less then a month to move to a new location. Neither one of my parents has a pension and rely on rent from properties and a portion of the money I earn to live.
My concerns: My father is not good - he has had 2 strokes, recovered from leukaemia and now suffers from high blood pressure and mental problems (that he doesn't admit to). Also, he is not taking care of himself at all - he showers once every few weeks, eats unhealthy, sits in his chair or lays in bed the whole day. He has been getting worse and worse and refuses help of any kind. Additionally, I can see how much the uncertainty of what tomorrow brings, taking care of my father and absorbing his depression is eating away at my mother's own energy. My main concern here is what will happen to my mother once he dies. Concerns regarding myself - I will have to likely go through a jobshift in autumn of 2021, if that is the case, I won't have a PhD (as planned) and I will try to get a job in CS.
I live in the Netherlands for work and I have a life here, but I don't know how to share it with my mom as she is not a EU citizen and would need a residence permit to live here. As far as I have been able to see, she does not qualify for one under any circumstance. Moving my father to a different country is out of the question as my father does not leave the house at all (so at least the pandemic situation is not much of a change for him haha).
My/our resources:
- My mom owns a 100m2 apartment in central Belgrade which has been sitting empty for a year now (trouble with contractors, as we need to renovate it). The apartment should be worth 250k-300k
- My savings (25k), my partner's savings (15k).
- My job is contracted until 2021 (and if I might be able to get a higher paying job by switching to CS from academia), my partner has a permanent job (together we make roughly 40k a year, out of which we save 10-15k)
- A "guest house" we built in the garden of the house my parents live in which was my father's office for almost ten years (it does not have a proper kitchen or a bathroom - just a toilet), to be sold as part of the "aunt's house/estate" estimated at 50k.
I will share the ideas that have been floating around in my head:
- we could (renovate+)split the Belgrade apartment in 2 so that one unit would be a place for my mom to live in and the other would be for renting -- the issue with this is that I don't know for how long she could live there as it is a walk up 4 flights of stairs + would require more serious construction work.
- we could renovate and rent out the apartment, and increase our monthly income through that (this would go to my mother). -- the issue: this would block us from using the apartment (and checking on it) for when we stay in Belgrade and would leave us (eventually) renting a separate apartment for my mom (which might be better suited to her?)
- we could (renovate+)sell the apartment in Belgrade and use that money to buy property in the Netherlands for me and my partner to live in and increase the amount of money I send back to my mom/parents + rent an apartment for her when my father passes away -- the issue with this is that the prices of properties in the Netherlands are at an all-time high at the moment, both me and my partner ADORE the apartment in Belgradeand that "solution" would prolong their time living together which is already negatively impacting her.
- moving both of my parents out of the house (= no more ridiculous bills of 340+ per month) and letting the aunt sell the house (-> she is supposed to pay back my father 50k for the guest house) --- the issue is not knowing where to have my parents go and what to do with all their belongings (from 3 different households... and a bit of a hoarder tendency). + my mom's apartment the walk-up would be even more challenging for my dad. I highly doubt my aunt will ever give us the money she owes. + negative effects of life together for my mom
Please let me know if you have any advice or see a good solution that I do not see. Feel free to ask for more details if you need any. I am fully aware this will take a long time to resolve, I just want to take a step in the right direction. Thank you. It was suggested that I post here... I am sorry if this is not the right subreddit for this, I would be happy to take my question to a more suited place.
Submitted November 16, 2020 at 06:11PM by This--is--Me https://ift.tt/2H8oy9N
