My dilemma... I have a 78 year old feisty temperamental mother. She currently lives with me in my home. My house was special built with a two bedroom apartment attached to it so she can still have her independence. We live in Illinois and the weather hasn't been all that nice the past winter. My mother decided she wants to move to Texas to rent an apartment there. Since we bought the house together if she moves she wants some of the money she put into the house so that would require me to sell the home and I would move into something smaller. My main concern is what if in a couple years her health starts to fail... she has no family in Texas but does have a couple friends. I cant drop everything here to go look after her. Admittedly I would love for her to go to Texas as she is a very hard woman to live with... but what about down the road? If I sell the home I wont have a place to bring her back too. Is this a wise move for her?
A permanent move there is downright foolish. Her contemporaries won't be able to care for her, even if they were willing. Look at the cost of housing where she intends to go, she will be shocked by the numbers. She may be chasing the memories of Texas long ago. Things have changed and so has the landscape. When she finds out the Piggly Wiggly was torn down to build a Walmart, she won't like it.
And making you change your living arrangements doesn't seem fair at this point.
The only reservation I would have is leaving you holding the home "bag." She entered into this agreement with you. Now she wants her part of it, creating a huge problem for you. That doesn't seem fair at all.
She will run into the same problem in Texas because of the heat. I had a chance to live in the Dallas-Fort Worth part-time for a few years, and we spent from February to November indoors because of the super hot weather, the tornados, and those darn fire ants.
Curious if any of her Texas friends came to visit her while she lived in Illinois? I think visiting back and forth would make more sense then uprooting and moving. Has she ever lived in Texas? It's hard enough moving at any age, finding a new home, new grocery stores, new doctors, and most important finding a new hair dresser, plus finding your way around, I assume your Mom still drives.
Should she move to Texas? Without a built-in support system, I would not recommend it. I am getting ready to retire, but we have family here. My mother is in a great AL group home. She is not being fair to you at all regarding the house situation. If she wants to, have her winter in Texas and summer in Illinois. The best of both worlds.
You might warn your mother that there is hail the size of softballs in TX. We even have something called the "distressed look" for automobiles. Those are the people after a hailstorm who didn't have collision on their autos.
Your Mom will discover how costly it is to move once she's in the middle of the process. I assume she will be moving her own items. Hiring a moving company won't be cheap, they will want to personally pack otherwise they won't guarantee the items will arrive in one piece.... and it might take a week or more before she gets her furniture in Texas as the moving company will want a full load, thus they will pack the truck with her items, and also items from someone else who is moving south.
If she has a car, will she drive it to Texas? She could ship her car but that can be expensive, then she would need to fly down. Then the cost of registering the car, and she would need to get a Texas driver's license. If she can't automatically transfer her Illinois driver's license, she would need to take the written test and now a days the DMV's use computers for the written tests.
Then she would need to find all new doctors and dentist and have her medical records transferred.... some might charge a fee for that.
Or is your Mom that type that would rent a U-Haul, do her own packing and loading the truck?.... I can see her now on the Interstate driving that U-Haul and her car on a trailer behind the truck :)
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