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My friend and I have a very honest and open friendship. We can tell each other anything without the other getting upset. She went through a very nasty divorce and it was final last summer. This spring, her eldest daughter moved out of her house into an apartment that her ex-husband is paying for. The daughter and ex-husband were very sneaky and my friend didn't even know the daughter was moving until she came home from work and all her daughter's things were gone. My friend was floored.
Well, today I was doing a property search through our county property appraiser to see what some condos in a subdivision were going for. On a whim, I typed in my friend's last name and lo and behold, a condo had been purchased by the ex-husband for the daughter. It was in both their names! My friend thought the ex-husband was just paying the rent on the place.
So, I called my friend and told her what was going on. She was grateful to me for telling but furious with her daughter and ex-husband. Did I overstep my bounds? It is a matter of public record. I feel really crappy, which probably means I shouldn't have said anything.
I fail to see the problem...is the daughter over 18? What right does the ex-wife have to be upset over what kind of property the ex-husband buys? Give us a little more info - because so far no one did anything wrong, including you.
The ex lost his job this summer and has not paid child support for the children who are still at home since Sept. He bought the condo for the daughter in the spring. One of the main reasons I told my friend was because she is struggling financially to take care of her family and took a job that offered tuition assistance so her eldest daughter could attend school without debt. The daughter started school in the fall and moved out in the spring. My friend is still at that job so that her daughter can get tuition assistance. Technically, the daughter has to be living in the same household as the parent in order to qualify for assistance.
I think you did the right thing. Even though the dad was still working when he bought the condo with his daughter, technically the daughter should be living with her mother in order to qualify for tuition assistance from her mother's work. So now what happens if and when her mother's job or the school finds out she's not living at home? And why did the daughter sneak out of her mother's house? Is their relationship on the rocks? It kind of sounds like the dad is causing problems between the mother and daughter. You know the game "good cop, bad cop". Not good.
Since dad has other children to help support, perhaps it's time to sell that condo and daughter move back home to her mother's. Or if daughter is going to defy her mother at every option, then maybe mother might want to drop that job and tuition assistance and get on with something else. I certainly wouldn't be busting my b*tt for an adult child who didn't appreciate what I was doing. Let the daughter find a job and work her way through school. Is this young lady a little spoiled and enabled? What a mess.
There's a lot of back story that I don't want to get into because that's really not my business. I just thought I was being a good friend. I know what she has been through and how much she's still fighting for everything. I would want to know if I was in her situation and that's why I told her. I don't feel bad about it now. She has since e-mailed me and thanked me again for letting her know. I honestly don't know what she'll do next...Thanks for everyone's advice.
I'm not quite sure whose name is on the property. If your friend's name is on the property, then by all means you did the right thing. That's the only way she can protect her credit. If it's the daughter name and her father co-signed, then you were just causing unnecessary trouble. There's a reason why the daughter didn't say anything before moving out. And you may have made a bad situation worse.
But like chowhound said, you can't unring a bell.
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