My Family Violated the Most Important Vacation Rental Rule. They Ruined the Trip.

Pay Dirt is Slate’s money advice column. Have a question? Send it to Kristin and Ilyce here. (It’s anonymous!)

Dear Pay Dirt,

I recently planned and paid for a trip for my mom and aunts to spend time together to reminisce. I booked a large vacation rental for them all to stay in. Unbeknownst to me, one aunt invited two more cousins.

When I learned they planned to come, I explained on two separate occasions that the two cousins were not invited so as to provide uninterrupted time for my mom and aunts. The uninvited cousins still showed up on the vacation and interrupted the trip. Was it OK for them to show up at the vacation rental even after it was explained why they weren’t invited? Shouldn’t they have cleared it with me, who planned and paid for the trip? Should the two cousins have just come at the rental because one aunt invited them? What is the protocol? I feel that this wasn’t fair to me, who planned something specific for my mom and her sisters, or to my mom and her sisters.

—Upset Vacationer

Dear Upset Vacationer,

I understand why you’re disappointed. You planned something thoughtful, paid for it, and just wanted one thing: time alone for your mother and her sisters.

Best laid plans. Unfortunately, I think you set yourself up for that disappointment with the idea that you could control the guest list on a gift.

When you give someone a gift you can’t dictate the terms. Think of it this way: If you give someone a nice platter, they can use it, leave it in a cupboard, regift it, resell it, or shatter it into a hundred pieces. The gift of a trip is no different. Once you handed your mom and aunts this time together, your aunt decided to share her part of it. She may even have thought she was being generous.

That said, the basic rules of courtesy assume your aunt would ask your mother and other sisters if it was OK to invite your cousins. It would have been polite to ask you, too, since you paid for the vacation. You explained twice that the cousins weren’t invited, but they showed anyway. I get why that stung. But the aunt invited them, and she’s an adult. You can’t make her take the invitation back.

So, before you decide how much of a meal to make of this, find out how your mom and aunts felt. You say it wasn’t fair to them either, but did they tell you that? They may have loved the extra company or the chance to see family members they rarely see. If your mom and her other sisters were annoyed, you could say something the next time you see your aunt. But if your mom and aunts were OK with it, take a deep breath and just let it go. Life rarely goes as planned.

Dear Pay Dirt,

My daughter co-owned a house with us (her parents) that we bought in 2008. Then she moved across the country. We found renters and managed and cared for the house.

Ten years ago, she got married, and eight years ago, she and her family moved back to our town. They moved into the house, and we were relieved of all house-related issues.

Then, we regretfully decided to gift the house to her and her husband. We used a quitclaim deed to transfer the house to their names, and they were able to secure a very low rate loan.
Alas, they are divorcing now, and we seek a way to get his name off of the deed with the least financial impact. Could he file a quitclaim deed, and would that trigger something at the bank that would require her to either pay off the loan or re-refinance? Do you have any other suggestions?

—Parents Seeking an Easy Solution

Dear Parents Seeking an Easy Solution,

I’m sorry. Watching a child’s marriage end is hard enough without also having to figure out how to help them keep a house that you originally co-owned. Unfortunately, there’s no simple fix.

The first thing to understand is that the deed and the loan are two separate problems. A quitclaim deed takes your son-in-law’s name off the title. But it doesn’t take him off the mortgage, so he’d still be legally responsible for the loan, and a missed payment will negatively impact his credit. That’s why he may not agree to quitclaim his share of the property back to your daughter unless he is also taken off the mortgage. He may also ask to be paid something for his share, and depending on the state in which he and your daughter live, he may be entitled to it.

The better news is that a divorce doesn’t generally allow the bank to demand repayment of the loan. Federal law limits the bank’s ability to trigger the “due on sale” clause for transfers made as part of a divorce. It doesn’t, however, release anyone from the loan.

Your daughter has two realistic paths. If she can show the lender she earns enough to carry the loan alone, she may be able to take over the existing mortgage and have him formally released. This is a time-consuming path, but if successful, it would let her keep the low interest rate, which is the best outcome. She’ll need to start the process by talking with the loan servicer. Some loan types are easier to work with than others. If this loan assumption doesn’t work, and you can’t act as the bank for her, she’d have to refinance in her own name at today’s rates, or sell the home.

More than anything, your daughter needs her own divorce attorney, who can advise her on what’s fair financially in this scenario and can coordinate the deed, the loan, and the settlement together. Doing them separately is how people end up with a deed they can’t undo and a loan they can’t escape.

Finally, consider meeting with your own estate attorney who can advise you on better ways to protect your assets than using quitclaim deeds.

—Ilyce

Classic Prudie

Six weeks ago my husband of almost three years took off. I came home from work to find him standing in the kitchen with a suitcase, saying that it was nothing personal but he needed to get away for a while, and then he left. I didn’t hear from him or see him for five weeks. I was hurt but I was also frantic with worry. I thought we were very happy, and this came completely out of the blue. He didn’t go to work (they said he’d taken a leave of absence), hadn’t spoken to any of our friends about this, and his parents claimed he wasn’t in touch with them. He came back last Thursday. He refuses to answer any questions about where he was and what he was doing.