(F)MIL Stories/Vent-update

[mrs.jacinthe]

Wowza.

[kaylie]

Ugh, that sucks - I'm sorry! We had something similar happen when we were looking at houses. We found one in our ideal neighborhood within our price range, but FIL thought the bedrooms were too small and didn't like the kitchen. He was also talking to H as though I was the one pushing to buy the house which was not true.

It was an awful experience that ended in tears and from then on, we didn't ask for any other opinions. Is leaving him behind an option for future showings?

[sailorgray]

Ahhh...IL. My FIL pretty much hated our house from the beginning....and he had never even been in it. Even the night before closing, he called to say we should back out. Then he got inside and realized why we bought it. He can be a meddling PITA.

[sailorgray]

I would tell your FI that his parents are not invited to anymore viewings with you. Tell him that it's something you want to do with him and only him. My mom knows A LOT about homes b/c of her job and there was no way we were taking her with us. She even told us that it's a bad idea taking parents/IL. It's something a couple needs to do on their own. Good luck!

[mrs.jacinthe]

Technically, an inspector won't give you an estimate. They'll just say, "You're going to need a new roof in the next 5 years" or whatever. If you want to get an estimate, that's up to you.

And ditto leaving the ILs (or parents in general) out of the shopping process. You're grown adults and should be entitled to make your own decisions. The only reason I'd allow a parent to come along is if they were buying our house FOR us. In that case, fine. But honestly, I'd never allow my parents to do that, so it's a moot point.

[emoflamingo]

Leave them home. Trust me, I did that this time around and it's easier to fall in or out of love with a house on your own without help.

[duckduck]

We took my parents for our second look because our house is older and we wanted to get their thoughts on some floor issues before we shelled out money on an inspector. They know a lot more about that kind of thing than we do. They liked it and said that everything seemed solid as far as they could tell. Then our realtor took us to a vacant house nearby that we hadn't been planning to visit. My parents immediately decided that we should buy that one instead.

We said thanks for the input and bought the first one anyway.

[emoflamingo]

I think you and your FI need to sit down and have a talk about parental interference and he needs to talk to them about it. I have a friend who called a realtor to get us a showing for a house we thought was cute. She ignored the fact that a) we were not ready to sell ours, b) it wasn't in the right school district and c) IT WAS THE SAME SIZE AS OUR HOUSE NOW. (I sent it to her to say "hey, see, my house could look even better if I could talk H into wood floors!) I humored the realtor and let her come look at our house and then stopped discussing it with my friend.

Good luck. I'm thinking you might need a lot of it.

[emoflamingo]

^^Do it. Your FI needs to tell his mom to back down.

[kaylie]

Everyone has their own style, but I would be worried about setting a precedent here. This isn't just about buying a house - it's about your life. What's going to happen when you have kids and MIL tries to tell you how to raise it? I would get FI to nip it now.

[lemondrop]

Jun 15, 2012 17:26:08 GMT -5 kaylie said:

Everyone has their own style, but I would be worried about setting a precedent here. This isn't just about buying a house - it's about your life. What's going to happen when you have kids and MIL tries to tell you how to raise it? I would get FI to nip it now.

:Y: :Y: x infinity

I can only imagine how looking for an OB and a daycare would be like with these people.

[sailorgray]

Jun 15, 2012 17:26:08 GMT -5 kaylie said:

Everyone has their own style, but I would be worried about setting a precedent here. This isn't just about buying a house - it's about your life. What's going to happen when you have kids and MIL tries to tell you how to raise it? I would get FI to nip it now.

This is exactly what I thought when you first posted the other day. Nip it in the bud now. My FIL once decided our siding wasn't good enough (it did suck, but we were in no financial position to fix it), so he called around and got estimates on equipment and called my H's uncle to see if he would do the job, etc and THEN he called us. This all would have been at our expense. He got frustrated when my H said it wasn't at the top of our to-do list. We let him get too involved in things and had to take a step back.