My 87-Year-Old Dad Is Being Manipulated By His Girlfriend

Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. My father, 87 years old, he's a widow of seven years. He's been seeing a, um, he's, excuse me, he's a widower and he's been seeing a, um, widow, um, who's 88 years old. They live about an hour away from all of us here. And he is buying a house at 87 years old with a VA loan. And we're trying not to read into it. We want him to be happy. Um, but I can, this is one of the worst financial decisions that he will be making. He's not married. He has no intention of being married. And, um, does it, where does he live now? What's his home situation now? Well, he doesn't live in our town. He's been living with her for, um, for about six months. Okay. So he doesn't have a home. He doesn't have a home. He does have a home. He has a home here. He has a home here. An hour away that he's not living in because he's living with girlfriends. Okay. Is he going to... He refuses to move to his town. Okay. Does, is he going to sell his home where you are and pay for this home? I only have a few minutes for this call. I mean, we could get into, I mean... Well, I'm here. I'll eat some popcorn and listen up, Elizabeth. You, it's, you, yeah, very long story short. Um, well, my younger sister had financial problems and she got recently foreclosed on and moved into his house and didn't tell anybody. And so the last thing he's going to do is kick his daughter out into the street. So... So he's going to take on... We all originally told him, we have no problem whatsoever if you sell your house, right? Yeah. Use that money and buy something down there. We have no problem with that whatsoever. But now that's not going to be the case and he's still going through it with it. And he didn't tell anybody and learned about it the hard way. And he promised me face-to-face that he would tell me if he did anything financially like this, because I'm his executor. I'm his power of attorney. I'm on his account. And he's, I think she's manipulating him. Wait, you think the girlfriend is? Why else would he be buying? Well, because he wants to be near his girlfriend. Why didn't he, you know what I mean? Who's manipulating is the sister living in the house that he needs to sell. Now the girlfriend's not going to be on the house, right? The loan and the deed. I don't know. He won't really, he hasn't really talked about it because... You've worked too hard to get control of your money just to let strangers control your data. Every online signup, discount code and free trial comes at a cost. Your information. And Delete.me helps you take back control. Their privacy experts find your personal info on sketchy data broker sites. They delete it and they keep it gone, meaning you stay in charge of what's yours. So protect your privacy and get 20% off an annual plan at joindelete.me.com slash Ramsey. That's joindelete.me.com slash Ramsey. He hasn't really talked about it. I mean, I had to call him out on it when I heard about it. And he won't, I don't know. She doesn't have, she doesn't have the money. She needs his money. How much money does he have? She's living with him. She's got a house. Well, she's renting and yeah, she's renting. Okay. So she needs, she has no money. She's broke. Yeah. At 88. Is she 88? Yeah. Her husband, I think financially his health wiped him out. Okay. I mean, I feel horrible for that, but... Sure. How is she? How is she health wise at 88? She's got her issues that again, my dad has now become, it seems like a caretaker and... Oh, shoot. So you do see your dad and you're like, dad, you're 78. You could have another 10, 15 years. Well, he's 80. You said 87? Oh, he's 87. Oh, I wrote down 78. I'm sorry. Okay. So they're... Oh, man. This is a wild one. Well, here's the deal. It sounds like you've been pretty like combative accusatory and he's sort of getting defensive, right? Well, to a certain degree, but this isn't our relationship and that's why it's so hard. Yeah. It's heartbreaking that he did something that you guys promised, you know, the integrity of the situation. Dad, you're going to tell me, and he didn't. That's hurtful. That's hard. Even though he's a grown man, obviously, but... Have you encouraged him? I'm sorry? Have you just encouraged him? Hey, here's the things that I'm personally worried about. This isn't about me. I'm just worried about you. Here's what's on my mind of, you know, keeping finances separate. What happens if the relationship goes south? You know, making sure that it's only in his name and not her name and not, you know, all co-mingled at this stage of life while they're not married. Well, hopefully he's at least doing that. I mean, but he shouldn't be doing this, period. I mean, okay, my concern, yes, my concern, we just want him to be happy. I mean, there's four children. We all just want him to be happy. What is his financial situation, Elizabeth? What does he have? What's his net worth? Okay, well, he's got his house here, and if he had to sell it outright, I'd say he'd get $400 for it, and he's got about $200 in an IRA. Okay, what does he owe on his current house? Nothing. Oh, he owns it outright? Correct. Okay, and then how much, do you know how much the house he's looking at when he's going to pull the VA loan? $425. Oh, gosh. And that's going to be nothing down? Correct, because that's what he keeps saying, the VA doesn't need anything down. I'm like, that's not the point. Well, how is he going to afford a $425,000 mortgage? I guess between sharing expenses. I mean, you told me she's broke, and it doesn't sound like he's rolling in money. Well, she's got enough apparently to live on for the next five years, and I haven't asked her exactly what that means, but I mean, she's got enough to be paying her rent. So I believe that they are sharing some expenses, but my concern is what if my father passes away, and she's living in this house that- Yeah, it's under his name. I mean, if she- We need a clear statement. Then she goes back to renting, right? Well, I mean, what if, let's just say a year after they move in, my father passes away, then what? I mean, I doubt we're going to be able to boot her out, and if she fails to make the mortgage, then I'm sure he's putting up his current house. I mean, if they're not married at that point, and the estate plan is clearly laid out, then you have options. And so that's where I'm saying the best thing you can do right now is say, dad, I can't stop you from doing this, but I need you to slow down and think clearly, and we need to put protections in place, because I'm the executor. I'm going to have to deal with the fallout of all this. And so I just need to make sure we're updating wills, we have the correct beneficiaries, we're looking at the whole estate plan, so that we all have a clear plan of what's going to happen when inevitably one of them passes, because he's creating a nightmare for the girls that he loves. That, and what are you going to do about the sister? If he passes away in a year, what's your sister going to do? Because she lives in- Oh, my jeez. She lives in the- Now we have to evict her? It's the most of his whole estate is this $400,000 paid off house, and then that's got to be split four ways. So she's not going to buy y'all out. So that's going to be, that needs, these are the conversations that need to happen before he passes away, with the sister and him about, and his girlfriend. I do feel like, yeah, I'm with you though, Elizabeth. I'm like, how do you kick out a, you know, if this is in two years, a 90-year-old woman? Yeah, exactly. I mean- I mean, you do, I mean, from like- I would sit down with an estate attorney as a third party mediator, because between you and dad, it's going to get too contentious. And just say, hey, dad, we have an estate attorney coming by. He's going to look at all this and make sure that we've got our I's dotted, T's crossed before we make any financial decisions, so that it doesn't create a nightmare for all of us down the line. But the hard thing is too, George, is that he is a grown, like he can do this. He's a grown man. Yeah, so you're going to, that's- You can't stop people from doing dumb things. Yeah. But you can try to slow him down. When an 87-year-old has his mindset, I have a feeling. Gosh, man. That's a wild time to fall in love, but hey. You know what? Good for him. Again, you want him to be happy.