My mother is in debt (poor pretty much) and does not want to sell her house, even though that would benefit her. What to do?

Please do not move in to enable her to continue in this situation. It would not solve the debt problem and would open a can of worms. Does she understand about the high cost of medical care as a person ages? That today very few parents leave an inheritance of any size. As parents live longer, they need their money for their care. This is not Europe with a socialized aging system, but quite different. Does she really grasp that? Through personal knowledge/experience? Or are her ideas about old age in this country inaccurate and uninformed?

Has she been willing to talk to a financial adviser to get a picture of her options? What does she plan to do about her debt? Leaving it to God to provide a miracle is not spiritually sound. The Lord expects us to use ordinary prudence. Have you ever heard of the parable: An old man drowns in a flood. In heaven he asks God why didn't the Lord save him? Answer: Those three rescue boats that you turned down while waiting for a miracle? I sent them, but you had to get in!!

Sunshine1986 first and foremost, do not under any circumstances move in with mom, nor provide her with any financial assistance. The old saying, you made your bed now lay in it. While this may sound cruel, there are some severe consequences for being her enabler. She needs to be hit hard with the bad debt choices she has made. It will be one of the most difficult decisions you will face, however, as she ages and if she continues on this route it will only get worse. I would consider speaking with an elder care attorney to see if she is considered capable of making financial decisions. While she maybe competent in many areas, she may have diminished capacity for making good financial decisions. The sad thing is that it is HER money, and her choices if she is found to be competent.
My MIL did similar and she was considered competent until she was about 89 years old. But, even then it was a hard pill to swallow watching her take on more debt. Her home was taken from her in a sheriff sale and she has to accept she had nothing before she realized she had made mistakes. There were several people who could have helped her, but, with 4 different elder care attorney lawyers telling us to let the cards fall where they will and not help, we all followed their advice
This then opened the door for someone to handle her finances in form of a guardianship. She was given an allowance, but someone else took care of her money. That person had to be strong and give only the allowance for spending. All her bills were accounted for and paid by the guardian. Food was purchased via a gift card from her favorite grocery shop.
Best wishes.

Sunshine - Are you still here? you’ve gotten loads of insight.

I’ve got to ask you:
- how much of this is a surprise to you? Or has she been a financial terrorist since forever? (My mil was this & dementia made it worse.)
- what is included in 200k debt? Does it include the 2 mortgages?
- if it’s credit cards, and it’s that she’s making monthly minimum payments, when will they get paid off? Next year or 10 years? This info will be in her monthly statements.
- if it’s medical debt, is it current or has any gone to collections? These tend to file for a judgment. Is she edging towards that happening?
- outside of mortgages, any other secured debt? How much?
- is she current on paying both mortgages?
- totally current on property taxes, property insurance & utilities?
- is she current on filing and paying the IRS? And state taxes?

Now that she lost her job, what does she have for $?
- can she pay her bills or is she needing you or Bro to pay for stuff?
- the job 55% payout, is that a lump sum to be paid to her or it is a settlement over time & if it’s this for how long? & will the monthly payout cover her monthly “nut” aka the basic items she should be paying each month (utilities, yard guy, mortgage, type of stuff)?
- can she file for unemployment benefits and if so what would she likely get paid each week? This is pretty important, as some states pay a really incredibly low UI. Like my state - Louisiana- pays a maximum of $247 a week but most get way way less, like $165 a week on average and for 26 weeks max. So if she went onto UI, would it cover for her monthly costs? Would you or bro cover the shortfall?
- if she filed for SSA retirement income, what would that pay? At 64 she can file earlier but it will fix her to a lower payout till forever. It’s generally not a good idea to do this..... unless her retirement income is really low as she paid very little into SSA for working years.

- what is tax assessor value on the property and it is kinda accurate? If it sold for this value, & after both mortgages paid off at the Act of Sale, how much would be likely net from the sale?

I think you, like you yourself, need to know these figures as to determine what makes sense for you to support or not support your mother’s decisions. It ultimately is her decision whether good or bad.
But you don’t want to say move out of your apartment next month only to find that mom is likely getting foreclosed upon in January. Or that she hasn’t paid her property taxes and the house has gone up for tax sale in 2020 & 2019, so you spending a penny on the place is to the benefit of whomever bid highest at tax sale. Or find that her UI is getting debited by State or IRS for past due taxes, so she’s even clusterF her UI.

For those that are financial terrorist types, helping them by paying for stuff is just encouraging their behavior. Yiur helping them be codependent. They don’t learn as they flat do their ABC’s (ask, beg, cry) and get bailed out over & over again. If there is dementia happening as well, they can’t be competent enough to deal with all this. It’s quite sad and infuriating simultaneously.
For your own sanity, take a hard look at her $#’s and make a decision. If she bottoms out, she can file bankruptcy & hope that the mortgage holders will do a reaffirmation of the mortgage so she can keep the house.

We were in a similar situation with my mother. We couldn’t convince her that her kids didn’t need any money and that we wanted her to use her house to pay for her retirement. It was costing more to maintain than her monthly income!

Maybe you could get your mother to consider moving to a smaller home, or a condo. Then use the funds to set up a payment scheme for her debts.

Well she needs a dose of reality. She is living in fantasy spending, and there isn't enuff money to keep the house. Its getting sold period. She doesn't have an estate to bequeath people.
Id get those credit cards away from her. She is going to spend herself into the poor house and they will take her house. She must want to be out on the street.
She can't be coddled. She has no assets to leave bc of her spending. Id make sure your not on the hook for anything. You have to get her out of lala land to face it. Or I'd walk away and let her fend off the creditors. You tried and she refused to listen. Is she of sound mind? I know when my dad got dementia he bought anything and everything off the tv and back of magazines. We had to put a stop to it. Took his credit cards/wallet and checkbook. We did it 1 at a time. Told him he lost it. He looked but never found it. I think he was given an old credit card that was defunct. You have to get a handle on it. Do you know if she gets the scam phone calls? They do cold call all day to get an elderly on the phone to get $ from them. We had one from Jamaica that would call 5am to 1230 at night hoping g to get my dad on the phone. He wouldn't stop. There were also checks made out to people for various amounts. Dont know who these people are.
You better find out! If it has to get ugly so be it.. Good luck.

sunshine1986: While that is a valiant effort on her part to let God handle the debt, she needs to face reality. Think about a debt management plan. I had a friend who was $80K in debt and that worked for her. Prayers sent.

First off the "Leave it to my children" is a BS excuse. Im sure she is emotionally attached to the home (understandably) She is using this excuse to justify not selling the home. I am 64 I can tell you this is no longer "old" Unless your names are on these credit liabilities you may have an opinion as to what you think is best but the truth is it is none of your business what she does with this debt or this house. If she complains to you or comes looking for help your best bet here is tough love. Sorry Mom this is not my debt and not my problem. Your an adult it is your responsibility. There is ALWAYS a day of reckoning for living in a financially irresponsible way and when that day comes she will be forced to deal with it. I agree with you it is better to deal with these things now than wait until your forced.
as far as the 55% of pay. She is fortunate she is getting this. Depending on the state she lives in she may qualify for unemployment benefits as well as getting this money from her employer and she may qualify for medicaid. She should research both.

I think Sunshine has left this discussion. She has not responded since 10/13.

It sounds like she should check with an attorney (yeah I know, more fees), or check with someone about filing for bankruptcy, let the house go and find a one bedroom apartment somewhere.  It sounds like she does not know how to handle finances and you moving in with her is not the solution.  you might end up helping to pay off her debt which is not your responsibility.  Her getting rid of the house will also take care of not having to pay taxes every year also.  And her being so young (but you never know), IF she gave you the house, if anything would happen and she ends up in a NH before 5 years....you would be responsible for coming up with money for how much the house would be worth to pay the NH.  The NH's figure that people like to "give away" stuff so that they don't have to pay and fall on Medicaid, but if they have assets now or given away within 5 years of their entry into NH that asset would have to be repaid to NH.  She definitely would be better in an apartment (hopefully with a good landlord) that way she would only have expenses like electric, etc (no taxes, nothing to worry about fixing in the home,etc).  Wishing you luck on this.

Sunshine 'liked' the first few responses, including my own about bankruptcy. Perhaps she is one of the few who takes the advice and goes on to do something about it! If so, the best of luck to her, but it is pointless saying it all again when she has been off the post since then.

I would take her to consult a bankruptcy attorney. I don't know anything about bankruptcy law, but she's never going to get out from under that debt and that's where I'd start.

Sounds like the bank may take her house so problem solved. She may have to go on medicaid. Also she will be eligible for medicare soon. She is turning a blind eye to what is going on around her. She may be scared. And the thought of selling her house and letting go of the past may be too much for her.