Moneymakeover Nearly eight years later! Advice welcome

Winkie

Registered User
Messages
38
Personal details

Your age: 52
Your spouse's age: 53
Partner's age if not married: Married

Number and age of children: 2 - (18) (16)


Income and expenditure
Annual gross income from employment or profession: On a part time contract due to college and health issues: €26k PA
Annual gross income of spouse/partner: Self employed €40K PA

Monthly take-home pay: €2100 approx ( some changes depending on overtime)

Type of employment - e.g. Employee or self-employed. Part time employee - 3 days a week (other two days are college)
Employer type: e.g. public servant, private company. Charity.

In general are you:
(a) spending more than you earn, or - Not overspending and no debt.
(b) saving? Saving a tiny bit when I can for college/ holiday.


Summary of Assets and Liabilities
Family home value: €600k
Mortgage on family home: 0
Net equity: €600k

Cash: 7k in credit union account. 6k in joint savings account. ( emergency fund - our monthly living expenses are €1500 a month)
Defined Contribution pension fund: €40K
Company shares : 0
Buy to Let Property value: €300k
Buy to let Mortgage: 0

Total net assets: €900k property, €40k pension, 13K savings.


Family home mortgage information
Lender NA
Interest rate NA
Type of interest rate: tracker, variable, fixed. NA
If fixed, what is the term remaining of the fixed rate? NA
If tracker, what is the margin e.g. ECB + 1% NA

Remaining term: (Original term is not relevant) NA
Monthly repayment: NA

Other borrowings – car loans/personal loans etc 0

Do you pay off your full credit card balance each month? No credit card.
If not, what is the balance on your credit card? No credit card.

Pension information

Value of pension fund: €40k

Buy to let properties
Value: €300k
Rental income per year: 0 ( see below - terrified to rent it out with new regulations and cant sell it - see below).
Rough annual expenses other than mortgage interest : €2.5K: insurance, heat, repairs. Have almost €15k of expenses that I cant use as I have no rental income to offset - accountant has these listed but unusable.
Lender NA
Interest rate NA
If fixed, what is the term remaining of the fixed rate? NA

Other savings and investments: 0


Other information which might be relevant


Life insurance: 0


What specific question do you have or what issues are of concern to you?

Its nearly 8 years since I last posted on this and things have moved on a good bit.

I got diagnosed with a chronic pain condition which limited my work (last years helth expenses were €7k :(), I also got diagnosed with depression which also impacted things. I'm working now though in a part time job and I'm three years into a 4 year degree which I graduate out of next June 2027 and from then on I can earn as a self employed person. College is self funded - I save like crazy but low income so low savings. I should be able to build earnings quickly in that career and at my own pace/ availability. Earnings should be €60kish after a year or two. I can build this up while retaining my part time job. I'm hoping that can help with pension quickly. Maybe catch up a bit.

My wifes business is fine but not massively well paid but will tick along.

I know I'm very behind on pension but I have had no money to put into pension and I think it would have been tax inefficient to do so as I am mostly at lower rate of tax.

We live a frugal enough life - no debt or car loan. We do a holiday each year. I dont drink or smoke and have an easy social life with no expensive hobbies.

We did have a tracker mortgage and got an inheritance and cleared the mortgage last year.

My kids; 18 year old is working full time - no interest in college, lives at home and doing grand. 16 year old has had some health difficulties and took a year out of school and is now working a four day week and enjoying earning. Not sure if she will go back to school or college. Currently no college fees and they are both happy to earn and have great work ethic. If college is an option we will get a loan I expect.

We have a rental property which is attached to my parents in laws property so we cannot sell it. Worth 300K on its own but not sellable unless sold with parent in laws property ( same entrance etc) Have checked this with auctioneer. We had this rented and it paid the small mortgage but not rented now for over a year. Some repairs to do but still reluctant to rent out becuase of new regulations and becuase my parents in law live beside so if there was an issue with tenants it would directly affect them. Also cannot evict tenants really any longer. We are looking at maybe AirBnB but we are RPZ so this requires planning permission. Would love to sell it but cannot. If we rented it we could get €2k a month easily.


I will qualify for Irish pension and thanks to @DannyBoyD I did the UK pension apllication and it looks like I will get that ( will post seperately and link to that query here). (EDIT - here is my UK Pensions post: https://www.askaboutmoney.com/threads/got-accepted-for-uk-pension-but-have-questions.243092/)

My wife will inherit €1m + in time and her parents are doing the full small gifts of €1k per month to us. They are not tax efficient so I think we will be paying a chunk of tax and maybe having to sell their house/ our rental property to cover this.

I guess my questions are:

Am I doing all I can to hang in there? What would you change?
Should I/ can I do anything with pension?
What about rental property - interested to hear views on this? Take the risk? Try AirbnB? Leave it empty?

Thanks very much. The advice here is always great.
 
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16 year old has had some health difficulties and took a year out of school and is now working a four day week and enjoying earning. Not sure if she will go back to school or college.
Leaving aside your finances, you really shouldn't let this happen. There are very few young adults left in the country who don't have a minimum of a Leaving Cert.

Earning minimum wage at 16 is great, suddenly you can buy all the things you have wanted. It's not so good in your 30's when you have no career prospects

Perfectly fine to take the year out if she needed it for health reasons but now she needs to apply that work ethic to finishing school
 
Due to your health issues and the fact that you are already very stressed about the rental market, I really don't think you should rent the property out. The added stress could make your health worse and it could be a disaster for you health wise if you had problems with a tenant. It just isn't worth the risk.

Is there anyway you could separate it from your parents in laws' house by opening a separate entrance for example?
 
Is there any scope for your 18 yo to live in the rental property? Next to grandparents, keeping place occupied, presumably you are paying baseline bills so they could pay the incremental? At that age I was moved out and responsible for rent, bills, dealing with dodgy landlords and annoying housemates....could be a real learning experience.
 
Leaving aside your finances, you really shouldn't let this happen. There are very few young adults left in the country who don't have a minimum of a Leaving Cert.

Earning minimum wage at 16 is great, suddenly you can buy all the things you have wanted. It's not so good in your 30's when you have no career prospects

Perfectly fine to take the year out if she needed it for health reasons but now she needs to apply that work ethic to finishing school
Thanks. Unfortunately she recieved an autism diagnosis and just could not do school - hugely dysregulated and having a hard time of it mental health wise. There are so many kids who have difficulty with school. We tried reduced timetables, breaks etc. Unfortunately she could not do it. She did finish her JC and did well. I think she will find her way. The professional advice from child Psychologist and Psychotherapist both advised that school is not possible as she is now. She is thriving in work and happy so for now thats where she is, There are lots of blended/ reduced timetable LC courses so one of those night be an option in time. I never want to go back to where she was last year - it was a difficut time for everyone.
 
Due to your health issues and the fact that you are already very stressed about the rental market, I really don't think you should rent the property out. The added stress could make your health worse and it could be a disaster for you health wise if you had problems with a tenant. It just isn't worth the risk.

Is there anyway you could separate it from your parents in laws' house by opening a separate entrance for example?
Thanks. Yes I think it would be stressful if it went wrong especially with new regulations.
I cant seperate it. Its already on a seperate deed etc for mortgage but the entrance and parking is shared and its attached to their house.
 
Could your 18 yr old move into the rental with a friend or workmate as lodger and avail of the 14k rent a room scheme? Another step towards independence for them and more financially viable for you than leaving it empty.
I thought of that but its attached to my parents in laws house so its not attached to my PPR so I cant avail of Rent a Room.

My PIL could not avail of rent a room either as its attached to their house but is not owned by them. Seperate properties by law. I asked about it and it does not qualify.

For my son to avail of rent a room Id have to rent to him at full market rate ( cant undercut market rate) and he could do rent a room with my permission but he would have the14K then not me. If he gave that back to me it would be a gift? I know I can gift him 3K of it in small gifts or all of it each year once recorded formally by that erodes his allowance?
 
Is there any scope for your 18 yo to live in the rental property? Next to grandparents, keeping place occupied, presumably you are paying baseline bills so they could pay the incremental? At that age I was moved out and responsible for rent, bills, dealing with dodgy landlords and annoying housemates....could be a real learning experience.
See above. Id have to rent at full market rate no? He does pay towards bills at home and has just started working in June. He does his car, insurance, saves well etc.
I'm all for having him paying bills!
Thanks for suggestion.
 
I cant seperate it. Its already on a seperate deed etc for mortgage but the entrance and parking is shared and its attached to their house.
I don't know much about these things, but I am surprised that the bank gave you a mortgage on the property if it couldn't be sold independently of your parents-in-laws house. If the bank had to repossess, it couldn't sell either. Was it a Celtic Tiger era mortgage?

I don't think there is anything stopping you letting your son live in the house rent free or at a discounted rent. He doesn't have to be paying full rent or any rent to avail of the rent a room scheme. There is nothing stopping you renting to a family member for a low or no rent and I don't think a family arrangement like that needs to be registered with the RTB.
 
If he was in full time education you could support him by letting him stay there rent free....would that be an option at all if he was considering further education? Or maybe for your daughter to consider down the line is she decides to return to education when she is older?

Otherwise, how much would the market rent be and how much could he then earn under rent a room? Was it rented previously and still under RPZ? Can you use some of the annual small gift exemption to offset some of the rent?


 
I don't know much about these things, but I am surprised that the bank gave you a mortgage on the property if it couldn't be sold independently of your parents-in-laws house. If the bank had to repossess, it couldn't sell either. Was it a Celtic Tiger era mortgage?

I don't think there is anything stopping you letting your son live in the house rent free or at a discounted rent. He doesn't have to be paying full rent or any rent to avail of the rent a room scheme. There is nothing stopping you renting to a family member for a low or no rent and I don't think a family arrangement like that needs to be registered with the RTB.
Yes it was Celtic Tiger - you are right. Auctioneer for recent valuation was amazed but EBS did not care - they wanted to loan. We had the repayment capacity and off we went. There was no way they could have realised thir money back if we defaulted - its attached to another persons property with all rest of garden etc in my parent in laws ownership! Wild stuff. Anyway they got paid and its now an asset that cant earn anything!


You cant rent under the market rent - its seen as uneconomic letting by revenue - I checked with my accountant - if the market rent is 2k per month and I let to him for 1k per month the difference of 1k is seen as a gift from me to him. I can offset that gift off his lifetime inheritance theshold or via small gifts I imagine but its of no financial benefit to me other than the 1k but for that he is paying remnt and reducing what he can inherit later.
 
I understand your reluctance to rent out the property. How about the Ukrainian ARP payment? 600 per month, no lease.
 
If he was in full time education you could support him by letting him stay there rent free....would that be an option at all if he was considering further education? Or maybe for your daughter to consider down the line is she decides to return to education when she is older?

Otherwise, how much would the market rent be and how much could he then earn under rent a room? Was it rented previously and still under RPZ? Can you use some of the annual small gift exemption to offset some of the rent?
Thanks for those points.
Yes if he was in education he could but there is no college close to us as we are in the country. My daughter might be able to do it if she returned to education but she needs a bitof support for a bit to get going again.

Its just a crazy situation that a three bed house is sitting there ready to rent but regulation is so over the top that it adds significant risk. How are the Govt going to solve housing?!

Market rent is 2k/ month. He can earn 14k through rent a room. So technically he can use the 14k to pay me? I would need to be showing 24k a year in rent to Revenue otherwise I'm below market. So 10K balance?

It was rented through RPZ and due to tenancies continuing I was never able to raise the rent to market rate. The most I got was €1100 a month but could not gpo above that. It has been empty a year so I could go to market now at 2k but themn theres the issues with bad tenants etc.
I could use 3k small gifts to refund him rent.

Edited for spelling.
 
I understand your reluctance to rent out the property. How about the Ukrainian ARP payment? 600 per month, no lease.
Yes. Great point. Is it not ending in March tho?
If it went on after March Id do it because its tax free and they contribute towards bills.

EDIT
Just checked on ARP:

While the current ARP scheme is officially legislated to run until March 31st 2026, the Minister for Justice has outlined his intention to extend the scheme for a further year to 31 March 2027, aligning with the timeframe for the Temporary Protection Directive (TPD). Any extension will however require Oireachtas Approval before signing into law. We will update this page once a formal announcement is made.
 
You cant rent under the market rent - its seen as uneconomic letting by revenue - I checked with my accountant - if the market rent is 2k per month and I let to him for 1k per month the difference of 1k is seen as a gift from me to him. I can offset that gift off his lifetime inheritance theshold or via small gifts I imagine but its of no financial benefit to me other than the 1k but for that he is paying remnt and reducing what he can inherit later.
That is true, but presuming you have decades of life ahead of you, your son won't inherit anything until you die and God knows what the CAT system will be like then, is it something to worry about. I believe that there are lots of adult children in rent free or at cheap rent in family properties.

It is a way of keeping the house occupied so that it doesn't deteriorate, reducing your outgoings as your son will be paying for heating and light etc., and getting some money back to you via the lower rent you charge to him.
 
That is true, but presuming you have decades of life ahead of you, your son won't inherit anything until you die and God knows what the CAT system will be like then, is it something to worry about. I believe that there are lots of adult children in rent free or at cheap rent in family properties.

It is a way of keeping the house occupied so that it doesn't deteriorate, reducing your outgoings as your son will be paying for heating and light etc., and getting some money back to you via the lower rent you charge to him.
Good to think about.
 

Nearly eight years later! Advice welcome​

In case anybody else was confused by this, I presume that it's a reference back to this?
 
She is thriving in work and happy so for now thats where she is,
There are far to many academically over qualified young people in the country. Many of these do not have great workplace skills and experience.

In the future they will be competing with AI.

There are lots of employment opportunities for an eager young person.

Academic achievement is not the most important qualification for most of these. In many cases more income can be earned in these less prestigious jobs.
 
Why not move into the rental, sell the family home, use the money to fund pension and pay for college.

Have you had bad experiences with tenants?
 
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