I'm new to this board and will apologize up front for the length of this post. I'm totally stressed out about my grandparents' recent decision to sell their home. Three years ago, my parents talked my grandparents into moving from their home state of Texas to live with my parents here in California. These are my dad's parents. My grandmother had become virtually confined to her bed and my grandfather was overwhelmed with her care and had lost about 20 pounds. My grandparents do not have long-term care insurance and my grandmother has had numerous and expensive health problems throughout her life. My parents sold their home and combined their modest equity with the proceeds of the sale of my grandparents’ two properties, and my grandparents purchased a home that they all could live in, so that my parents could care for them. The house is in my grandparents' name.

With steady care my grandparents' health improved and they are now pretty independent. They still need some help with meals but they are much better off than they were when they moved here. However, the living situation has not worked well. There has been continual conflict between the four adults since they moved in together.

Fast forward to last week. After tiring of three years of my grandparents' threats to sell the house and move back to Texas, my dad finally gave in. He told them he was no longer going to try to talk them out of it and if that was what they wanted to do it was fine with him. He began making arrangements to rent an apartment for him and Mom, and offered help and suggestions for my grandparents as to the type of living arrangements they might want to consider. It became clear that my grandparents don't really want to move back to Texas. They want to stay here but move into some kind of retirement or assisted living facility. In the mean time, we grandkids have been trying to persuade our grandparents to keep the house and rent it out, so that they can gain cash flow from the rent, and tap into the equity if necessary to obtain more funds. They seemed receptive to the idea.

This past Monday my parents went on a cruise and as soon as they left, my grandparents put their house on the market. They are behaving as though they are intent on selling it as quickly as possible. My impression is that they are doing this out of spite, hoping to stun my parents with a “For Sale” sign in the yard upon their return. (My grandmother actually said something to this effect to my sister.) They are making a huge financial mistake. In three more years the house that they paid $330,000 will be worth over a million dollars. They will have increased their assets by $670,000 in only six years. They are only in their seventies and could live many more years. My grandmother’s care particularly is likely to be very expensive due to her chronic health problems. If they sell their home and rent an apartment in a retirement community (which is their intention), their funds will begin decreasing immediately and we may not be able to afford their care. My father is an only child so we are all they have. Has anyone else experienced something like this? What do we do? How do we convince them not to sell? We’re seriously questioning their mental competence at this point.

Any suggestions/advice is appreciated. Sorry for the long post and thanks for making it this far!

I agree with OCSurfCity (not only because I used to be an OC surfer-girl, though! :-).

I also gotta say that, Danni, you are lookin' like a rather greedy grandchild. Not good.

What your grandparents choose to do with their money and their house is their own business. If they want to spend your inheritance, or just be plain stupid with your inheritance that is their perogative. If you go trying some legal on them, you are not going to look good to the relatives.

I am not some hypocrite lecturing you. My elderly father has decided that he is going to gamble all his money away - on purpose - in Las Vegas - so that his kids can't fight over it. He even writes checks to as many Christian organizations as possible, while he has a homeless son that he could be helping.

He's got his priorties all messed up. He told me, "Every time I write a check to a homeless organization, it's as though I'm giving it to my kids." (That was when I was on the verge of homelessness, too!). My mouth dropped open. He is mentally ill, untreated, and a terrible alcoholic who assaults people. But I do not try to pull any legal maneuvers or get custody of him. I don't want his money, even though he thinks I do. He thinks everybody does. Let him throw it away on purpose if that is what makes him happy.

You need to learn to detach from your grandparents and parents problems. Go to Al-Anon if possible; they can help you learn to detach. Be at peace.

You have two options. One is to hire an Elder Care attorney to look after the needs of your grandparents. Second, you can declare your grandparents mentally unable to care for themselves and their care. But you will be eating up a lot in attorney fees.

If your grandparents own the hosue there isn't a whole lot of things you can do to stop them. That is their property.