My brother moving home from Australia with wife and 3 year old

This sounds partially right. There is definitely a large part of the story missing. I would say the cost of living crisis in Australia is catching up with them. Australia is a different kind of country where you have to work hard to make it and the social welfare system is not the same. Australia is a fairly crappy place to live (as is anywhere) without a trade or a very specific profession. Cost of living is high and taxation is high. The grass is painted greener at home.

OP, I am going to tell you your future. If they cross over your threshold you will never get them out and they will need more space. You are going to end up out the back of your in a log cabin to try and preserve your sanity. You are too old to be having housemates or lodgers. These wasters have made no effort to upskill or look for a proper profession. There are NO council houses and they are not being given to new freshly home from abroad. The council are not required to give them a house as long as they have accommodation in yours, Durrrrrr. I do not know what your brothers solution is to HIS problem but it is not your problem to solve it. They are in situation of their own making and they have no initiative to solve the problem using their own resources. They have no ability, no resources, no skills and no intention of finding accommodation once they can crash at yours.

yea its fcuked, and it wont be solved anytime soon either, certainly not this decade anyway, we re already seeing serious social fall out occurring, in the form of significant rise in relationship breakdown, rapid rise in addictions, a rise in particular crimes, etc etc etc

Very reluctantly, I agree with posters who advise against your brother & family moving in without a definite plan for their future.

I was very happy to offer accommodation to family members while their house purchase was delayed. There was no clear end date & instead of the couple of weeks we all thought, it took a couple of months to finalise.

We all got along, tried to accommodate each other without either party suffering & I’m happy to say we are still very close.

However, it helped that we all knew it was finite but towards the end, lack of an exact date became wearing on us all. We all wanted to move on & not have to consider each other. Sounds a bit selfish perhaps but having your own place means you don’t have to check if someone else’s laundry should take precedence or if it’s ok to have an impromptu drinks party on a “school” night. Small things. Frequently though it’s the small things that catch us all.

You know your brother & how he tends to go about things. I’m sure you want to help so maybe before they arrive, may I suggest you set an expectation of what your offer will be. For me, that would include timeframe & financial contributions.

our housing issues are extremely complex, but clearly housing policy has catastrophically failed, but our policy makers will never actually admit this, so yes, there is a serious inability to accept this, but we must also accept, we re not the only country current experiencing this problem, something has catastrophically failed on a more global scale, i personally believe its largely to do with our more modern financialised approach, but the reality is probably far more complex that just this….

a lot is actually out of the hands and control of our elected officials and civil servants, although they do play critical parts….

tis messy

…again, im still very strongly against leaving them in at all, theres clearly no where else for them to go, and wont be for a very long time, i know of families that will very likely be stuck in the family home for probably over the next 10 years or more, does the op wanna be in this type of situation!

"You owe your brother nothing"

That seems to sum up a lot of peoples attitude sadly.

the op had literally said they could move in with his folks. If it was me I’d be taking the first block tbh haha

The people that run this country have to face the electorate every 5 yrs (or less). Those are consequences that most other people never have to face in their working lifes.

Politicians do, but the state is not run by politicians alone. There are legions of civil servants and other bureaucrats who sit behind them, and many of them have enormous influence over policy. These people never face the electorate.

housing is probably much worse in australia, with average prices heading towards a million in many major cities, theyve successfully wrecked their market to, resulting in the same problems, i.e. people simply unable to save to buy

Houses are expensive close to main city CBDs. Less so in rural areas. It's highly urbanised and most want to live in citys.
You can't just look at house prices, the earnings are higher, eating out is cheaper, etc.
Plus it's obviously a different currency

Cost of living is high is most places that have made it to the 21st century.
Property is high, stamp duty is high, incomes taxes are generally lower and wages higher compared to ireland. Swings and roundabouts

You say they have hinted at staying with you. Just throw a deaf ear on the hints untill they ask you out right.

You could also hint that you are thinking of selling up and getting a smaller place as you don't need 3 bedrooms.

It's a really tricky one. There is no way I'd want anyone else's kids moving in with me. If you're living on your own I would say it's a safe bet you have nice things around the house. I would be constantly watching what the kid was doing to those things.

Also no fun tripping over the Paw patrol tower in the middle of the night or the vomiting bugs the kid will inevitably get.

The house will be in a constant state of mess with a 2-3 yr old. The amount of stuff that comes with them is crazy.

I don't know where you live but will they get a car or will you have to be chauffeur for them in the long/short term.

As mentioned there is no easy options for them to get accommodation. Everything will be "too expensive" compared to what it's costing them living with you.

What are they going to do if you have friends around who are too noisy and little jimmy can't go asleep.

Then there is the babysitting while they go and reconnect with everyone after coming home. Or they have their friends over to your house while you are there like a spare tool.

I presumed you have worked hard and made sacrfices to get YOUR OWN HOME! You should enjoy it the way you want and don't feel guilty about other people's situations and decisions in life.

Tbh thinking about it, if I was on my own and it was just my brother I would too. This is because the only way it would happen is if his marriage broke down. My brother is an absolute planner so he'd have back up plans to whatever the initial plan was.

Then to top it off he'd absolutely hate living with me so he'd want to be gone ASAP too.

I'm not getting that vibe from this dude though

They would only start planning as soon as the baby is born if that was always the plan. For many people is it not, and it becomes a dilemma decision when the child is starting school (as it's better to commit to a school system at that point).

Also, only one of these people are moving home. The partner is emigrating, likely for good (or 18 years at least). That was probably not on her radar a couple of years ago.

Their situation is really unknow at this stage. Everyone is assuming they are coming how without two brass pennies. For all we know they are loaded.

that’s fair enough, but I don’t feel like we have gotten much info about OPs brother! Not enough for me to call it as an outright no anyways. Sometimes in these situations you also have to ask yourself would the family member do it for you. The calls to get a different lodger instead are a bit wild imo ahah