Entitled, in-debt parents decline daughter's offer to buy them a $300,000 apartment they would own and let them live in cheaply, then demand she just hand over the cash so they can buy a more expensive condo with unsustainable fees

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Etai Eshet • Editor
Aug 20, 2026 7:45 AM EDT

Money mixing with family comes with strings attached because it's not a gift but a loan with emotional interest rates

When cash gets involved, everyone magically becomes a financial advisor with opinions about how it should be spent.

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  • AITA for offering to buy my parents a home instead of just giving them the money?

    Woman sitting on acouch holding her phone with a confused worried expression
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    Woman looking skeptical, somewhat dumbfounded

    Scene is illustrative and does not depict actual individuals or events.

  • My husband and I live in the Great Lakes region. We are both professionals, and we have children in high-school/college. We've done reasonably well and
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  • have built up significant savings, but we're definitely not wealthy enough that $300,000 is money we can just give away.
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  • My parents are in a bad financial situation. They own a house but are heavily in debt on it, so they live in the basement and rent out the main floor.
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  • They believe they have about $400,000 in equity. We think they're being wildly optimistic. They have a large mortgage with significant penalties, a HELOC,
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  • woman in orange dress sittng on a couch with a concered look
    via DimaBerlin

    Woman sitting alone, looking doubtful 

    Individual pictured is a model used for illustrative purposes.

  • and property values have fallen. We think they'd be lucky to walk away with $200,000, possibly much less.
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  • Earlier this year they found an apartment they liked for around $300,000 and asked us to co-sign a loan to buy it. We refused because of their financial history.
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  • Instead, we offered to buy the apartment ourselves and let them live there for a fraction of market rent. They loved the idea. We just needed several months to arrange our finances.
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  • This is still a major commitment for us. We have children and our own retirement to fund. The reason we can justify spending $300,000 is that we'd own the property. We'd essentially be
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  • moving part of our retirement savings into real estate while giving my parents secure, affordable housing. Eventually we could sell it to fund our retirement.
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  • We finally got everything arranged and told them we were ready.
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  • Now they've decided the apartment they wanted six months ago is too small and they "couldn't possibly live there."
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  • Instead, they've found a much more expensive condo they like. The condo fees alone are over $1,100/month.
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  • They insist they can afford it because they're counting on getting $400,000 from their house.
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  • The problem is that they now seem to think the money we were prepared to spend buying an apartment is essentially their $300,000. Their position is that if
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  • we're willing to spend that much helping them, why not just give them the money so they can combine it with their equity and buy what they actually want?
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  • I can see how our position might seem controlling: "We'll spend $300,000 helping you, but only if we own the property."
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  • But to us there's an enormous difference between investing $300,000 in an asset we own and simply giving away $300,000 of our family's savings.
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  • Our offer still stands: we'll buy a reasonable apartment around the original price, own it, and let them live there very cheaply. If they want the expensive condo instead, that's their choice, but we're not giving them the $300,000.
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  • AITA for offering to buy my parents a home but refusing to just give them the money? Note: I've changed a few personal details for privacy.
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  • The parents believe their house is worth far more than reality supports. They see four hundred thousand in equity where the mortgage, the HELOC, and falling property values suggest two hundred thousand at best. An apartment gets found, it gets loved, help gets requested, then a shinier condo appears with fees costing more than most car payments, and the original plan is too small to consider.

  • Edit: I want to emphasize that our real fear is that mom will spend another winter living in the basement. It is horrible. Also, they could very well end up homeless. We can't let that happen.
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  • Edit2: We understand that they will probably be terrible at paying rent. We are basically going to ask for enough to cover condo fees and taxes. And even that
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  • The offer to buy the property and let them live there cheap keeps the asset in family hands, ownership stays with the people putting up the money while housing gets provided at minimal cost. And the parents' counteroffer to just hand over three hundred thousand dollars outright means that money disappears into debt and bad decisions.

  • might be a challenge. Financially this is a terrible plan... but the alternative is mom spending another winter in the basement apartment which we feel terrible about.
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  • Update: This has blown up a bit more than I expected. So I showed this to my partner and then we sat down with ChatGPT and came up with a financial plan
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  • Next comes the guilt trip which is not shocking by how these people are portrayed. They call the people who are offering to buy them a home buyers controlling for wanting ownership of the property they are purchasing. 

  • for ourselves to retire comfortably in 5 years (we are in our early 50s). We will take this to a financial advisor and make it happen. Still going to have to keep a reserve to deal with the
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  • parents to keep them from being homeless when their financial decisions catch up with them, but yeah, if they want to just throw away my money then forget it, I can retire early and in comfort
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  • instead. (Edit: To be clear.. Chat GPT was just giving us ideas and a timeline of what to do. We do not trust it fully (or even very much). We will be taking the plan to an advisor to actually figure out what we are going to do)
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  • Buying the place and charging minimal rent keeps money and control where they belong.

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entitled parents homeowner parenting daughter Parenting Fail entitled people apartment
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