L913

Hi all,

My husband and I find ourselves in something of an unusual situation, and I'm looking to see if there are any ideas we haven't thought of.

We're in our early 30s, with parents in their late 50s. His mom hasn't worked a full-time job for more than 30 years, and his dad finds himself recently unemployed after an early retirement and a couple of now-complete consulting businesses. His dad is looking for a job (and any suggestions on late-50s job hunting for specialized skills that could translate into basic management would be appreciated too), but they find themselves quickly (in the next couple of months) heading to mortgage and health insurance crises.

We are fairly comfortable, and have some resources that we could use to help them out, but we don't want to shoot ourselves in the foot either. We have a 3-year old son and are considering expanding our family, and want to make sure we're planning to retire right around 60. Here are some of the ideas we've tossed around:
- having them sell the house and move in with us for a few years (promptly rejected, as we live in another state)
- having them sell the house and move in with his sister and family for a few years (being considered, as they live in the same state)
- giving/loaning them money to help with expenses/mortgage payments until they can sell the house
- co-owning the house with them
- buying the house from them outright and renting to them
- buying the house from them, with his sister and her family, not much discussion about "renting" - not sure if the
- trying to work a deal where we could assume payments on their current mortgage and keep their existing equity

Are there other ideas we're not thinking of? Has anyone else found themselves in similar a situation? Any ideas on the healthcare portion? They are, I believe, paying into a program offered by their state, but it's somewhere in the range of $7500 every 6 months.

If we take one of the options listed above, what considerations should we keep in mind - for instance, should we have documentation drawn up that says that if we loan them money to make the mortgage payments that we would recover the loan out of the initial proceeds from the sale of the house?

They intend for this to be the last house they live in / buy, so some of this could have estate implications, but likely far down the road - 20 years or more - too.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

Thanks,
~L