Living in mom's basement, legal-like

Post date: 2024-04-22 05:59:14

We are consolidating households with my mother in her home, and I'm trying to think through all the issues we need to make sure we handle.

This is going to be a change of state residence from California to Texas, and that's the primary thing I'm trying to make sure we do correctly.

We're going to go talk to mom's State Farm agent tomorrow to move our auto/renter's policy to Texas, which will give us one of the two pieces of required paperwork to get driver's licenses. I have had a bank account here since I was a child.

It seems like a good idea to me to sign a lease with mom, so we have an actual legal documentation of residence and can carry our own renter's insurance on our stuff, but my concern is if this creates any liabilities for my mother. She is retired and on Medicare, but as far as she knows there's no prohibition on making any kind of income. It probably wouldn't be a terrible idea to have me documented as an official resident in the house if something really bad happened.

The relationship is solid so that is not a concern. While she is still in decent health today we have already been making sure all our ducks are in a row if that suddenly stops being the case, since my father died a few years ago. I am her only living relative (and she is my only living blood relative, and aside from her all I've got is my spouse), so we do not anticipate any sudden family drama.

We will not actually be here all the time, as we are generally working away from home, so mostly we are not dealing with roommate issues. I don't expect her to need to evict us, in other words, though it might not be a bad idea to have the option should my husband or I suddenly be replaced with an evil twin.

Is a lease an actual bad idea though? Is there anything else we should do or not do just to prevent any undesirable liabilities on either side? Mom's in between lawyers at the moment (she keeps outliving them) and I don't know that this is a serious enough situation to need billable hours thrown at it.

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