I'd like to preface this by saying this is not about greed. Please read the whole post before you make a judgement.
Also I have this question posted on other forums of people that I talk to. I'm just trying to get as much advice as I can.
Here's what happened. My wife's parents were in an area that took a lot of flood damage. They're very poor and they needed help with their house that was built in 1910.
My wife and I hand-mixed over 240 bags of cement, poured a new cement floor for their basement and repaired their failing cinder block wall foundation. We then tore all their rotted supporting timber out from the basement and framed it all out with new wood. After that, we hand-dug and built a new septic system to replace their TERRIBLE and gross cesspool system. I finally rewired their house with a new breaker box and modern wiring, lights, plugs and switches. Along with all that, I've done varying amounts of plumping, and handyman stuff all over.
Its not a bad house at all, but after the flooding, it would have FALLEN DOWN if we hadn't done the structural work to it.
Now after fixing up their house, they liked having us around so much; they asked us to move in (that's odd for a lot of people, but our family is rather close). So after a lot of thinking, we decided to build an apartment in their basement that I had just redone. So I built an entire kitchen, living room, bed room and bathroom with complete electrical and plumbing into the basement, along with our own separate entrance to the outside.
It's turned out pretty cool and fun (along with a LOT of work... I don't even want to know how many hours I have into this!).
We've spent around $20k for all the materials which was all our savings. At this point we don't have good jobs anymore either, so it's not likely we'll get that money back.
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Now to the question... The reason I ask is because my wife's parents are in bad health. They both smoke and eat a TON and have severe health problems. We're trying to work with them to regain their health but they're very stubborn.
The ISSUE is that my wife has a 17yo sister. I totally wouldn't have any issues working with her either. As you can see from above, I totally don't mind helping, ya know? However she is VERY VERY VERY GREEDY and self-centered. Everything is always about what SHE is getting and what credit that SHE "deserves". She is always causing problems at almost EVERY family get-together whenever the world isn't revolving around her. She does not help. She does NO chores. She just complains and takes. My wife's parents had her sister when they were way too old to have another child... which is where I think that stems from. My wife got discipline and responsibility... her sister didn't. Its been very frustrating to live around that let me tell you!
When her parents do pass away, I'm going to be faced with the fact that she WILL tell us she deserves part of the house. I.E. we need to sell the house or come up with the money for it!
We've rebuilt this house, I maintain this house and now we live in it. We're VERY attached to our part of it as we have built it ourselves JUST the way we like it!
We will probably end up telling her that we're not going to move out and there is no way for us to come up with the money. That's gonna go over well. I am 100% positive she will sue us over it too... hell... she yelled at me once cause I ate her applesauce. O_O
Her parents have no will... anything like that. What if they don't write one with some sort of protection for us in it (or worse)? They are terrible at financial planning (not that I'm a guru either). Should I (or my wife) go to them and talk about it? Is that rude? I don't even feel like its my place to talk about that! I don't want them to die at all. I really like her parents. ...but it IS something that REALLY scares me. Its frustrating me to even have to think about this.
Thank you for any advice you have!!