An unused property, rising care costs and years of stalled decisions left an 88-year-old woman close to running out of money.
Mike, calling from Washington, D.C., told “The Ramsey Show” hosts George Kamel and John Delony that his mother’s finances nearly collapsed, even though she still owned a 15-acre property his late father left her 15 years earlier.
After medical issues and a near house fire, she moved into a retirement community but kept paying for both the facility and the house.
That setup cost about $10,000 a month and drained most of her savings. According to Mike, she has about $3,000 in cash, roughly $30,000 in stocks and about $15,000 in a checking account.
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Two Years, No Listing, No Plan
Her home, about 45 minutes from both sons, remained unused and off the market for nearly two years. It needed work, but Mike said his brother wanted it fixed before listing it, a standard he believed would delay the sale.
When Mike pressed for updates, the answers were always the same: “I’m working on it,” or a promise of a plan that never materialized.
Delony urged him to stop waiting. “She’s going to lose everything,” he said. “Everybody knows this. This train stops next month.”
Shut Out Of Decisions, Left To Piece It Together
Mike was once closely involved in his mother’s daily life, taking her to doctor appointments and helping with errands. That changed as his brother took the lead, leaving Mike outside both the financial decisions and the routine care.
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His mother trusted his brother and became irritated when Mike raised questions about the money. Without access to her accounts, he said he had to “steal some of her mail and look at it” to figure things out.
“I’m the one who tells her what she needs and he’s the one who does what she wants,” Mike said, referring to his brother.
The Refinance Question No One Answered
The unanswered questions stretched beyond the current bills. Mike said the house was refinanced about a decade earlier, after his parents owned it for years and put proceeds from a prior home sale into the property. Around that same time, his brother went from being $20,000 in debt to buying a home.
Mike said no one told him where the refinance money went. Kamel told him to contact an attorney and involve a third party, saying the situation was “bordering on elder financial abuse.”
Mike also said his mother believed she could move in with his brother or return to the house if the money ran out. “The bottom line is an 88-year-old woman should not have $10,000 in expenses every single month,” Kamel said.
When Real Estate Wealth Becomes a Cash Flow Problem
The situation highlights a challenge that often comes with long-held real estate assets: wealth on paper doesn’t always translate into usable monthly income. Even when a property carries significant value, ongoing costs, maintenance needs, and delays in selling can leave owners in a position …
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