Grown Children MUST BE On Their Own for Money They Owe - Home Building Timeline by Andy Bozeman

It’s not that this happens often; it’s that it happens ALL the time.
DS (not even close to his real name) came to me for the design of a new home. He had done everything right, concerning his personal finances and long-range expectations. His plan was to build a house small enough to have payments low enough to be comfortably managed and paid-off in ten years. He and his wife had been ultra-responsible in the use of personal credit for car, home, and credit card loans, always making every monthly payment on time; and consistently paying off borrowed money early.

…..Together we ran his check list :

Property already owned in full? √
Mortgage pre-approval as far as just DS’s financial activity was concerned? √
Conservative, low square footage house plan with low construction cost? √
Excellent credit to make mortgage acquisition easy? √
Cash on hand to pay initial expenses, like plans, lot clearing for inspection, property survey? √
No extenuating, loose ends or outstanding financial complications, like co-signing with grown children whose credit-wrecking behavior of never making a payment on time along with, skipping or stopping payments altogether, thus affecting DS’s otherwise excellent credit rating with utter and total destruction? SORRY, NO CHECK HERE

…..Children?…ya gotta love ‘em. Grown Children who ask you to cosign a loan, then bail, leaving you hanging by your fingernails from a razor-sharp financial tightrope? NOT PRICELESS !
…..Because he loves them, as a favor to each of his three offspring, (because he loves them) DS signed to guarantee repayment of – this is sickening even to write – high limit credit cards. Of all the silly financial debacles to be part of, this has to be the worst. Well, cosigning for bail money may be worse, but this is just as bad. “But what about gambling debt to the ‘mob?,” you may ask. It’s the same thing; a gamble with the the dark forces of organized loan-for-wager transactions, or the gamble, that in the bright light of day, spoiled blood-relative brats who’ve never shown any inclination to be responsible with their own money, will suddenly pledge to protect the hard-earned position of a parent whose guarantee is as easily gotten as writing a name on the signature line of a credit application. It’s a crap-shoot. Of course the children were only too willing to ask for and take help, knowing that, because he loves them, Dad would come through.

…..Now, DS is stuck; and stuck for the rest of his life.

He can’t build his retirement home, which means he and his wife have to stay in the ramshackle, slightly leaning farmhouse from which they were moving up.
He has over seventy-five thousand dollars in debt-by-child, which he didn’t even know about until it was uncovered by the credit approval process. His ‘dear ones’ never mentioned their careless spending and failure to repay, choosing instead to hide the defaults.
For financial relief, he must sell his land, probably at a loss, if anyone will buy it.
A prediction by his wife says, that before long, the young adults of the next generation and their own children will probably be moving into the farmhouse with Mom & Dad, after the children’s money mismanagement and related financial strain results in eviction from their own rentals.

So let’s end where we started :
Grown Children MUST BE On Their Own for Money They Owe.

Read more stories like this in the Kindle eBook GHOST BUBBLE by Andy Bozeman.