Imagine renting a house, but you have a deal with the landlord that you can eventually buy the house for an agreed upon amount. The money you’re paying in rent goes towards the purchase price.

In a situation like that, if something needed to be repaired, would you do it yourself or call the landlord? If you wanted to make an upgrade, would you go ahead and do it, or would you wait until you were officially the homeowner?

In this story, one family is in this situation, and the parents do a lot of renovations while they’re still renting. When it comes time to buy the home, the landlord tries to change the deal. That’s when they’re at a crossroads. They have a big decision to make.

Keep reading for all the details.

Change our deal last minuet? Say goodbye to our improvements.

Mom- mom Dad- Dad LL- landlord.

Due to job relocation, and wanting to get out of a city environment, my mom and dad went searching for someplace to live and thus they found a home in another state.

They talked to the landlord and signed a lease that was rent to own the home, which was perfect for their growing family.

Here’s the deal…

The deal was that they would pay the rent, and within 5 year they had the choice to purchase the home, and any money paid rent would go towards the purchase of the home.

The original amount was for 90,000 dollars, and once they agreed on renting to own, and signed the proper paperwork, they got to work fixing up their soon to be home to fit a family of 6.

Light fixtures being changed, backyard being repaired, a brand new bathroom on the bottom floor, new piping, and so much more all paid with their own money and all being done by my parents.

My family were there for about 9 years until the landlord came knocking saying she was ready to sell, but instead of it being the 90,000 that was agreed upon, and signed on, she upped it by 70,000.

There wasn’t anything they could do about it.

Obviously my parents were beyond upset, they had deal, they had papers signed and what made it worse was my father was still in recovering from a very bad motor accident.

They were already living paycheck to paycheck, and were planning to pay the rest of the 90,000 after they got a lone, but now that was out of the question.

They tried to talk about it to the landlord but by no means would she budge.

They didn’t want to take her to court cause that would have been more money lost and it just wasn’t worth it anymore.

They had a decision to make.

In the end my family was given the option to either take the “new deal” or get all of our stuff and go. And so they did just that.

Everything that they put into the house, was removed, and replaced with the original items, and anything that couldn’t be removed, was billed to the landlord.

In the end, the landlord gave my parents 3000 dollars, plus security deposit to move out, and the landlord was left with what they had but maybe a bit better.

The home ended up sitting vacant for 3 years after that, and got only 120,000 out of the house, instead of the full 160,000 that she tried selling to my parents.

It’s always a bad idea to put money into a home you don’t actually own.

If you enjoyed this post, check out this story about a landlord who learned the hard way not to try to keep a security deposit he should have paid.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

I think the parents lost out too.

This is a good question.

Another person thinks they shouldn’t have backed down.

They really should’ve talked to a lawyer.

If they had it in writing and hired a lawyer, the house would’ve been theirs. If they didn’t have it in writing, then they didn’t stand a chance of getting the house for that price.

It really is too bad the way it worked out for the parents. They lost all that money they paid in rent that could’ve and should’ve gone towards purchasing the house.

I wish they had at least tried talking to a lawyer.