What is a fair price to charge your elderly parent for rent if they live with you?

my grandmother live with me and it take money for her to live and i use her money in the house she has to do all the thing we have to do and more, i pay for her meds, she needs special presonal items, thing i don't need, depends @42.00 a box each month. ensure 32.00 a month she's home all day she always cold and has the heat running, the TV is always on the lights always on and i have a caretaker comes in 4hours a day at 10.00 hours. it cost. and she get a two much money for them to give her anything but not enough to live by herself. YES TAKE SOME OF HER MONEY AND USE IT WHAT ELSE IS IT FOR. i don't understand why people have a problem with using the money. if you don't use it on her then somebody else will use it in the end if you know what i mean.

I also have the same question. I don't think it's unfair to get compensation for living expenses. I quit my job to take care of my mother and the reality is- it put a financial strain on my husband and me. I get a small amount every month, but it doesn't really come even close to what she was paying to live on her own. She has a good income from her pension and can afford it. I would like to know what people think is fair.

I had never dreamed of "charging" my mom for anything. She had told me to use whatever money she has when we need to and I said "Mom, we don't need your money" but she insisted that we use it if we need to. All she has is 480 a month from SS. But after 4 surgeries in 2 years, we had to use up all her money. We started leaving it untouched again for a few months and it was up to about 2,000.00 when we applied for medicaid. We needed more help than we could afford (in home and impending nursing home care). Medicaid said she couldn't have more than 2,000.00 in her account to get approved. At that point I decided to start charging mom 300.00 a month for "rent" and keeping it in my savings in case I needed it for her later. I know she could not live anywhere else for cheaper and if I brought in an outside renter, I would charge at least that. It feels wrong to charge your mom to live with you but it's the only way we could get help for her. She does truly cost me at least that much in food, electric, laundry, meds, depends and lets not dis-clued the fact that I'm not able to work because she is my full time (non paid) job.

This question requires some thought. Of course the first reaction is you wouldn't charge your parents anything. But every circumstance is different. If there is a financial advisor or Medicaid lawyer, perhaps they will respond. I can think of the following situations

1. The parent gets medicaid or needs to plan for medicaid and spend down. 2. Not every child has sufficient money to support a parent so the extra money might help. One never knows what will happen once you start cargiving. The needs of the parent increase and the child might have to give up a full time job for part time or no time and the savings from the rent might help in the future.

3. Other siblings might not contribute anything and the child who the parent is living with is expending funds. Shouldn't they get some compensation now?

The amount should start a fair market and then drop according to parent's ability to pay vs children financial standing.

My mother chose to live with me instead of my brother or sister. I charged her $400 in rent that covered her utilities, food, phone and some supplies. She bought some of her own items but not everything. My mother did not want my siblings to know anything about her finances but I told my sister what we were doing. I would recommend anyone to have everything in writing or at least a video of the elderly person agreeing to everything. My siblings turned against us and convinced my mother that we were stealing from her when she started to forget things. She now lives with my brother and we no longer communicate at all. If only we had a video to prove to them what she said and agreed to. It's not something you want to do but when an elderly person waste food becasue they change their mind or take long showers or even keep the heat running so much you have to feel that it's not fair that so much of your income is used to help and the other children don't offer anything or even do anything for her. Protect yourself!!!

I think if your parents live with you AND they can afford it, charging some for rent and utilities is appropriate. Just see what the going rate is for a nice one bedroom apartment is in your town and include a little for utilities, cable, and phone.
Personally, I would not charge them for the care I would provide. However, you could hire a caregiver to come in once a week to provide personal and other parent related care....that is fair and gives you a break.
You are providing them one-on-one care in a safe and clean environment. It makes sense that they should compensate you for what they would pay much more for elsewhere. Of course, they should pay for their own personal items.
Again, this all depends on what they can afford.

If my mother wasn't living with us I would still be in my house with a paid mortgage and could retire easily. We had to have a house with no steps once she was in a wheelchair. She had always insisted on paying her way when she moved in and I actually was able to use her checks for rent to prove residency in our state. I agree we use more gas and electric an additional phone and TV hook up. Our taxes are higher on the house too. She was happy to pay her part.

I think every situation is different. If you are comfortably off and have no mortgage then fine don't take rent but if you have a mortgage and your parent wants to and is able to contribute what is the issue in charging a fair rent. I think people are too quick to judge there is no one answer fits all. In my case we have had costly adaptions to make to the property besides mum wants to contribute. I work and give up a lot of my time to ensuring she is safe, warm, fed and well looked after, she is grateful for that. I am also at an age where I might have retired had the government not altered the pensionable age!!

We rent an apartment. My mother pays half the rent and I cover the rest. It seems fair to us as my children also live here.

It’s very noble to say you would never charge your parents rent, but the truth of the matter is that adding a person or two to your household does raise your cost of living. My mom always wanted to come live with us. She had it all figured out. What she chose to ignore was my three dogs and two young grandsons who would have driven her insane. Anyway, mom never wavered that she’d pay rent. It would have given her a measure of independence; that she was paying her own way. Sure. They never charged me rent when I lived at home and we never charged our kids either. But, we chose to have children and accept the financial responsibilities. I would absolutely check your area to see what a small apartment rents for and charge them accordingly.