So she’s kind of been reluctant in people knowing where she lives. And from my understanding you can just leave if you want but when it comes to her house. And since yeah it’s her house I do wonder where the boundary lays. So I am an adult yes and my mom is out right now with my sister taking care of me and staying around the house which has me worried but she said she would be back either Sunday or Monday and I’m planning on taking my chances Sunday. But seriously what is the rules as it comes down to there are cameras my sister has access to so I think she might see me leaving anyway and question me on this. So what exactly are my rights as an adult? Can someone pick me up in the driveway and we just leave together and then come back home? I do think even if I leave and come back home that can show some form of trust and then I can eventually tell my mom what I did when she gets back home. I even hope I can use my recent birthday as an excuse to start dating. But the main point I want to bring up is if I can tell someone where I live and have them pick me up outside the house?
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TL;DR You are almost certainly a tenant and have the rights of a tenant, but common sense says you should respect your mom’s wishes and not give out her address online.
Because I’m annoyed that people assumed I was wrong and that you must be in some other jurisdiction, I’ve dug in deeper and I’m going to give 4 specific examples for jurisdictions you might live in based on your use of “OWI”.
Wisconsin - an adult child is a tenant, and must be formally evicted. Source
Michigan - an adult child is a tenant, and must be formally evicted. Source
Iowa - an adult child is a tenant, and must be formally evicted. Source
Indiana - an adult child is a tenant, and must be formally evicted. Source
These are the 4 states that commonly use OWI instead of DUI (technically Wisconsin uses something slightly different but I think they commonly say OWI - this source lists these 4 states, while this source has a full list of the specific legal terms for every state).
Your mom could evict you for breaking her house rules, but she can’t just immediately throw you on the streets. She has to serve proper written notice and go through the courts to get you evicted.
In practice, it might be hard to enforce these rights, but they are your rights. If your mom kicks you out or changes the locks the police should be called to mediate your entry. At the very least you should be able to collect some belongings eg clothes, toiletries, legal documents (birth cert and SSN card). Furthermore, if you are unable to properly assert your rights as a tenant, you likely still have a strong civil claim - you would be able to sue your mom for an unlawful eviction and claim back what you spend on last minute accommodation.
However, it’s generally better not to get kicked out in the first place - in particular you need up front money to pay for last minute accommodation and the cost of filing a lawsuit. Such a lawsuit may be small claims, where the filing fees are relatively low and you don’t need a lawyer, but the specifics of this vary by state much more than adult child tenancies (for example, Iowa is up to $5,000 for small claims, but Wisconsin can be up to $10,000 for money and Wisconsin has no limits on rent claims).
Disclaimer: IANAL - I Am Not A Lawyer, if you want proper information you should try to get a free consultation with a lawyer local to you that deals with tenancies.
Setting aside all the legal stuff, you should consider what your behaviour looks like to your mom. If you want to demonstrate that you’re a responsible adult that should be trusted, you probably shouldn’t be trying to “take your chances” and circumvent your mom’s rules. She doesn’t want random people knowing her address, so don’t give out her address to random people you meet online. You would be better off meeting them in a public place with other people around, but at the very least you could meet on a nearby street rather than letting them come all the way to your mom’s.
In the US you’ve gotta be formally evicted if you’ve been somewhere for X days. I’ve read it’s different in the UK and that if someone isn’t paying you don’t have to evict them, but I’m not sure about adult children at home in the UK.
you on a conservatorship or house arrest or something?
There’s no legal reason you can’t do whatever you want.
There’s also no legal reason for your mom and sister to let you keep living there.
The worst-case scenario is that your mother kicks you out of the house. Which, in my opinion, wouldn’t be a bad thing for you if they do this because they’re upset you went on a date.
You only live once
She can’t just kick OP out, OP is an adult and thus legally a tenant. If OP’s mom wants OP gone, she has to go through the formal eviction process and serve proper notice.
Depending on where OP is, that’s not strictly true. If you are in a situation such as this, at least within the UK, you are not strictly entitled to the rights of a tenant if you do not pay rent nor do anything in lieu of rent.
Basically in the UK if you do not have a tenancy agreement, cohabitation agreement, or license to occupy, then it can start getting very complicated. If they were named as a property owner, or had a common understanding of financial interest in the property, they might be able to fight for a stake of the house, but that isn’t really the point here. In the end whether they can be kicked out legally is a complex issue (at least in the UK) and not really a question we could answer here.
Sure, but I think it’s reasonable to assume OP is in the US, given that they used mom and not mum. At the very least, it’s unlikely they’re in the UK (or Australia or Canada).
Edit: OP also mentioned their mom had an “OWI”, which is an American term.
Fair indeed.
Point still stands (at least depending on state) that without a residential lease agreement in the US then generally you would be considered a guest in your family’s house if over the age of 18. As such OP could be fairly easily evicted.
Nope, it defaults to an informal tenancy if they’ve been living there long enough (usually something like 3 months), and this includes the time when they were under 18. So if a child grows up in the home, they automatically become a tenant at 18. This is also regardless of whether they actually pay rent.
You don’t need a written contract for there to be a contract in place.
Informal tenancies seem to be state-dependant from what I can find (more concrete in california and florida), though I’d be fascinated to see if this has been legislated or litigated upon more generally. Of course verbal contracts are valid contracts, but that’s the sort of thing that would probably have to be sorted out in court.
In the end as advice for OP, I stand by the opinion that “they can’t kick you out without notice” is not a good idea to base one’s decisions on. You could be kicked out, whether it is legal or not, and the legality of such a no-notice kick out on a verbal and informal contract is certainly not an entirely non-disputed concept in all states.
OP could get kicked out, and maybe they could take their mother to court to try and get that solved eventually, but in the immediate they would end up houseless and in a pretty dire situation.
OP asked what their rights were, so that was the focus of my reply. You’re right though, and I’ve said as much in my main comment, it’s better to avoid the situation entirely than to stick a finger up and try to assert your rights.
So first of all, your mom is reluctant in letting others know where she lives. It has nothing to do with rights but with decency and respecting her wishes.
As when it comes to your rights, actually you have very little as an adult. Technically now your mom could say that you have to move out and if she did that you would be on your own even if that would mean being homeless.
Since you are so eager to go on a date, asking about your rights wrt your mom I think you likely don’t understand why your mom is concerned and sound like an easy prey to someone that can just use you and you will deeply regret shortly after.
Why not meet someone in normal circumstances (like school, work etc) instead dating strangers?
Remember that having additional privileges is a small part of being adult, much bigger are responsibilities that you get and consequences of bad decisions that you make.
Don’t start your adult life with something you might regret.
It’s funny that kids wish they were adults while adults wish they were kids again.
Meeting someone online is and has been “normal circumstances” for some years now.
Found the sister.
where? what did I miss? Now I’m invested and damn curious.
I agree. It all seems off.
This is wrong. Because OP is now an adult they are legally a tenant and thus OP’s mom would have to formally evict OP.
Legally, yes. Normally, no.
If OP’s mom does not formally evict OP then OP would be able to sue for an unlawful eviction. In such a circumstance, OP would want to call the police to gain entry - if not to assert their tenancy rights and stay in the property then at least to collect their belongings.
Not true in a lot of places.
Of course, but OP hasn’t said where they’re from, and the only thing we have to go on is that they talk about their “mom”. This generally points to someone being from the US (however it could be someone that merely learned English from a US-style teacher).
At the very least, we can reasonably conclude they’re not in Canada, the UK or Australia.
Is there some sort of overriding reason that your mom has chosen to obscure her address? If not, then no, there is no reason to accede to these ridiculous demands.
The reason is her mom could kick her out.
Op is male
This seems like something you all should be discussing in family therapy.
Are you being held prisoner by your family? Why is your sister taking care of you? Why is she watching you with cameras?
There might be a lot of context that explains these things. But just reading your post it sounds like you need counsel or professional help. Take care.
The cameras are on the outside and will send a notification if movement is detected.
How old are you? You’re an adult, but your sister is taking care of you, and you’re worried about your mum finding out you’ve been on a date? What?
What is this? There is some information missing here to make it make sense. Are you part of a restrictive cult? Are you actually 15yo? There must be something else going on here!
My mom is on rehab after an owi so she’s out for a month. I don’t drive so I have no ability to go out my sister is basically here to make sure the house is okay and I have the things I need.
Does your mom or sister have legal custody of you?
No not really.
Others have already addressed the main points of your post, but I would just like to add:
Please be very certain that the person you are giving your address to is someone you can trust. Do you already know them in real life, or did you meet them online?
Online
Through Facebook dating.
Please be very careful. You should try to meet in a public location, don’t let them convince you to go to some less public place. Once you have established that they are who they say they are and that they are trustworthy, you can consider changing that up. But please do make your first meeting in a public place like a coffee shop or a restaurant.
I’m guessing you don’t have a car. Is there somewhere nearby you could walk to or bicycle to, for someone to meet you and pick you up? Then you would only be on camera leaving the house, not breaking any house rules. This isn’t about law, this is about your relationship with your mother. You can do what you want, but different actions may have different results in your family dynamics.
You don’t sound like an adult.
You’re probably going to have to have a chat with your mum about this because if there’s not a good specific reason for her concern, then it would be helpful to you if she could relax on this issue because it’s impinging on your ability to enjoy your life as an adult. She should care about that and if she doesn’t that tells you something. Ideally you could avoid the whole issue by meeting your date somewhere other than your house, although it will be awkward if you are unable to return home with them at any stage. Can your sister or any of your friends give you a ride to meet your date elsewhere?
A point of confusion I have from your post is whether you’re asking about your rights to date people, or just your rights to have them pick you up from the house. As far as dating people is concerned, you say you’re 25, you can do what you want neither your Mum nor your sister have any choice about it. You do not have to justify this or use your recent birthday as an excuse for anything because there’s nothing to excuse. Whether you want to date people is up to you and you alone.
If your Mum specifically requested that you not bring your date to the house it would be rude to just ignore her, particularly if she has some special reason to be extra careful, but it’s also a very strange request for her to make of her 25 year old adult-child so you’ll definitely need her to give a pretty good explanation why you shouldn’t do this. Similarly, it’s a very strange situation to be in that you’re worried about your sister watching camera footage of you as some kind of evidence of wrong doing, why is she in a position to do that and why would she want to? How old is she? Such behaviour is bizarre and controlling.
A lot of the details of your post sound like you’ve been living in strange and possibly abusive circumstances where your mother and sister are putting a lot of effort in to monitoring and controlling you, which they do not any rights to do. In most places I know of, a person is legally an “adult” at 18 years of age, how long have they been doing this to you? Were you allowed friends and relationship in school? What about afterwards at work or university?
Do you want to continue living with your mother? It might be a good idea to start gaining some more independence in your life so you can safely choose to live in a different arrangement if you want to. No offence, but the way you write does sound strangely young and naive for a 25 year old, especially the idea that you need to have either your mother or your sister around to look after you. Do you have friends that know about your living arrangements? Do you know many people outside of your house? If you tried to make friends and spend time with them, is that something your mother would try to stop you doing? It sounds like you’re very isolated and your Mum is keeping it that way on purpose. Unless there’s some very specific context that can explain all these details, then it sounds like there’s something very wrong about how your family is treating you.
Do you ever leave the house? Like to go to work or the library or to hang out with friends? Just leave as if you’re doing one of those things, and then meet your date somewhere.
If you never leave the house, that is something you might consider addressing before you start dating. There can be lots of reasons to leave the house that don’t involve an unwitting stranger getting pulled into your rather unique family situation.
Second. Even if you’re an adult, you’re in your mother’s house. It sucks but it’s her rules. If she doesn’t want people coming to her house, then respect that. Get picked up somewhere else.
As stated in the above post, don’t involve someone else by giving them permission that your mother would not give.
For sure, best case it’s like this, just respect for homeowner’s property.
Also questions of abuse and confinement possibly? Which if present, needs to be addressed. And relying on an Internet stranger for an escape is 1) super unfair to the internet stranger or 2) a great way to land in an even more abusive relationship.
This one is firmly above lemmy pay grade. OP might need local support resources that can help them within their specific legal and cultural situation.
Are you in the US?
Based on the use of “mom” and “OWI”, almost certainly.
Could we have the whole context please?
Why are you, a 25-year old, without driving licence in a car dependant zone? What do you do as a job? Do you have friends? Do you have hobby where you meet people?
You sound like a prisonner at your mother’s house and your date sounds like a little issue compared to the everything else (like loneliness, no freedom to go where you please, maybe no occupation?, vulnerability to your family ….)
