Housing with Sibling Dilemma
I want to give some context before I start with my dilemma that I need advice on:
I am 28 years old and I live in a house with my 22 year old sister. We own the house 50/50 and we bought it 2 years ago. We bought the house using my savings as a down payment and my sister said she would pay back half of that to me once she graduates college and gets started in her career. Our initial plan for paying for said house would be the two of us and her friend living with us, so splitting the mortgage and utilities 3 ways. This was what I agreed to when we decided to purchase the house. Her friend lived with us for 6 weeks before we had to ask her to leave (for other valid reasons, not so pertinent to this dilemma). So bills became me and my sister’s responsibility of course. I work a full time overnight job while attending community college full time for nursing. She attends a private college full time and did some work study gig for some money. It ended up that she could not split the bills 50/50 with me (and I had asked her multiple times not to work the $10/hr work study and to get some other job with more hours and higher pay). So we settled on me paying ⅔ and she paying ⅓ of the bills for the time being.
Summer 2025, she decides to study abroad in Japan and promises me she’ll still send her portion of the house payment while she’s gone. She does not. So in May, June, July, August, September, and October 2025 I pay all the house bills and utilities by myself and blow through the remainder of my savings to make up for what she would usually cover. She was supposed to remain in Japan until December, but decides to come home early and swears it’s to “help” me with the house and not because she misses her brand new, first ever boyfriend. So she comes back in October and I tell her she needs to get a job, not just a work study, to help me with the house. Eventually, she does (and she dragged her feet) but we discuss bills and house rules now that she’s back. I said I was not okay with her having her boyfriend over 24/7 when he has a dormWe settled on it; I pay $1,400 a month and she pays $400 a month. This covers our mortgage and utilities. Starting this June, we have to pay for the new A/C unit we had to get when ours broke down last summer and a new roof from hail damage.
She just graduated college and I am waiting to take my nursing licensure exam (not by choice, I have to get clearance from the board of nursing to take it first). She has a 10 week internship starting up in June and she hopes when it ends, she will be offered a full time job.
So, now the dilemma: As soon as she got back from Japan in October 2025, her boyfriend started to live with us. He had a dorm on their college campus that he never used. And she never spoke to me about it. All of a sudden, his toiletries are a permanent fixture in our bathroom, he does laundry at our house, he sleeps over every night, etc. I told her I was not okay with him living with us without my consent and that if he was going to live with us, he would need to pay rent. She said they would be 50/50 at his dorm and our house. Well naturally, I got very busy with school and working overtime, and that never happened, they used my absence to go back on their word. (I do not live in the town I work in, so I sleep at a relative's place when I work my 4 overnights in a row to save on drivetime and gas and get more sleep). So he has lived with us for 7 months rent free. I have been very upset in regards to this because the house is always a mess when I get home, our supplies are getting depleted faster than I usually replace them, she stopped doing her pet chores, etc, and I am ultimately paying for any extra person that I did not agree to.
Well…my sister initially told me that she’s going to drive to her internship, it’s 40 minutes away from us. But then she changed her mind and told me she’s actually going to be staying with her boyfriend at his parent’s house (because they live by her internship) and she’ll visit on the weekends, and she promises she’ll still pay her share of the house.
This morning my relatives told me that my sister told them, she is going to live with her boyfriend and his parents for her 10 week internship and afterwards, they are going to get an apartment together. My sister has yet to tell me this. And her internship starts in June.
I am livid. We bought this house together with the intention of paying for it, together. And yet this whole time I have been paying for more than 50%. I don’t know what to do. I’m not sure if I should confront her about it. I don’t know if I should wait for her to come to me and tell me her plans. I personally don’t want to sell the house because it’s in the town where I am going to start my new nursing job and we have 3 cats so I don’t want to try to bother with an apartment. I don’t even know the legal aspects or what needs to be done for me to take over the portion she owns. It was very hard on me to pay for the house on my own, could I do it? Yes but then I’m living paycheck to paycheck and I have other bills to cover as well. I am personally still reeling from the shock of all of this because I didn’t think my own sibling would put me in such a precarious position, after how much I have supported her, but I feel used and taken advantage of. Any advice, any direction you can point me in would be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much.