Moved in with father-in-law 18 months ago. He promised to pay all expenses if we took care of him. He got my wife to agree we should pay for all food and house supplies. Then he told her we should pay half utilities. I think he should pay for everything as promised. He has plenty of income and savings to do this.
It is hard to understand how you fell for his promises, but it is time now to protect yourself. Get his promise in writing and enforce it, or get out."
Having dealt with family members like your FIL a big part of my life, I'd recommend not even bothering to try to enforce his "promises." Just leave.
If he has spent his life using other people, he'll find a way to use you—one way or another as he already is trying to. Remaining in his house will make you and your wife even more vulnerable as he owns the property and therefore has more power over you. There is a great potential for all of your retirement savings to be used up and your marriage to be ruined. Do everything you can to reach through to your wife and set some boundaries with this man—and move as soon as you can.
Time to move on. Either you like living in the South ( and so you buy or rent near him) or you buy or rent somewhere else.
It is hard to understand how you fell for his promises, but it is time now to protect yourself. Get his promise in writing and enforce it, or get out.
In some instances parents see caregiving children the way they saw them as tweens. If they moved back home and had some money it made sense that they would pay room and board. It's different when you come home as a caregiver, because you're coming home like an employee. To expect an employee to pay you to stay is rather silly. The employee would not be wise to do it... even if they are family.
Many elders don't have a mortgage. If the income is low enough, there is also little or no property tax. The only things to pay is insurance, maintenance, and utilities. They would have had these things to pay even if no one else lived there. IOW, it's not really costing an elder anything extra to have a caregiving child there. And it is saving a lot of money. I do think a caregiving child should pay for their personal things, but not for the housing expenses.
In my case I don't let my mother give me any money or anything because it would come with strings attached. I know my mother so I know to avoid those sticky strings.
Totally unacceptable. Poor man is not thinking straight. He is most likely not trying to take advantage of you but he's clueless. His ignorance should not become a problem for you. In the nicest way possible, explain the facts of caregiving to him. Perhaps an outsider could explain it in a way he'd accept it better: a social worker, a clergy person, his doctor.
I have a less extreme version of this, but the reasoning is the same. My mother expected me to use MY gas and time so that she could save pennies here and pennies there on her groceries. "It's YOUR inheritance!" she proclaimed. I pointed out that I got $.25 on the dollar (split four ways) and it was MY gas and MY time. She didn't seem to understand...
And when I pointed out that she would have paid thousands for in-home help when she became nearly helpless with back and neck strains and I had to stay with her for 8 days and nights, she got furious and thought I was trying to "take advantage" of her. That told me that there is no way that she will ever pay me for personal care. So I'm not doing it again. I'm not crossing that line again. "ANYone would have done what you did!" she said. Well, next time it will be anyone ELSE. Maybe one or more of my brothers would like to come down and be her personal care attendant. Maybe she would like them to bathe her? We shall see!
She acted like I was lying about being with her for 8 days. And while I was there, she obsessively controlled every move I made. I did NOT need to be told how to take out the garbage, make tea, wash dishes, put what towel on exactly which place on the towel bar, etc. And she wasn't grateful.
Report all income, but deduct qualifying expenses as well. Determine how much space he has, his room and storage space, if it is 30% of the home, that's your number. Deduct that percentage for real estate taxes, insurance, utilities, bottled water, newspaper subscription. You can depreciate the cost of furniture, rugs, appliances which will allow you, importantly, to upgrade and improve your rental. You can expense items that make your home age-friendly, handicapped accessible. Have a lease he signs. Get a security deposit. Treat it as a business, he'll take to that better than thinking he is overpaying and that rest of you should be more frugal. Show him what rental costs are similar in your neighborhood. Qualifying expenses come off of your rental income, sometimes you might have a loss which comes off of your earned income in that year. Better to treat it as a business than to try to explain to somebody who survived the Depression----things are not as cheap as they used to be. Show him how it works. He'll say no at first, but if you write down average expenses for laundry, utilities, fair market value rent, eventually he'll come around. Get a sit down with an accountant who understands the situation and can show him....Life At Our House $2200 per month.
Life At Assisted Living $5300 a month. Trying to explain what things cost to somebody who bought his house for 40K, is going to take awhile. Determine fair market value easily, include maintenance and upkeep, food and transportation, but show him how you came up with the number. Let him fine tune it, give him a voice. Make simple improvements which will increase the value of the rental, as well as convince him that he's getting good value. Trying to talk to them about finances is like talking to the kids, they cannot fathom the cost of things. Notice that their income is more than they ever earned....that they don't need explaining.
The reason for doing the above is if down the road Dad-in-law needs to go into a skilled continuing care facility, and if Medicaid [which is different from Medicare] need to be called in to help pay for his care, they will see from the paperwork you saved that father-in-law wasn't "gifting" you this money.
Sometimes we would need to cut back on spending if you are paying for Dad's upkeep. Like don't get Dad his favorite food, just tell him the cost of groceries has increased and you need to cut back. Turn down the heat, again the cost of heating is gone up. Cut back on cable if he watching a lot of TV. You get my drift. Maybe he will start contributing to the household expenses.
My mother talked about me to paying the house bills and expenses when I moved in. She thought I should take care of them -- her reasoning ability was gone. She had turned it around in her mind that they were taking care of poor destitute me, so I needed to pay for my upkeep. As it is now, I pay for my own things, e.g. cell phone, computer, car expenses, and about 1/3 the food (she eats a lot more than I do).
In my mother's mind she thought she would save their money and leave it to all their kids. In my mind, I would be the one paying the money that would end up being divided four ways with three other people who don't help at all. Of course, it is likely that no money will be left in the estate at all if she needs to go in a NH. It would not be wise for me to pay for things.