My parent has 60k in credit card loans from home renovations, the interest is the issue, whats your advice?

Debt

Hi, as the title says, my parent has gained 60k in credit card debt mainly from home reno, I won't go into detail, but basically, my parent and I just bought a house (me as co-owner) in November (400k). My other parent offered to renovate at just the cost of materials, which was supposed to be a maximum of 20k and just 2 months of renovating, and it spiralled out of control, with the other parent making basically no money, delaying projects and racking up more because of us paying for their living.

Now, we are at a standstill. We've tried a line of credit for my parent at our bank, but we got rejected.
I'm a student and work part-time, my parent makes 68k a year.

The problem, as expected, is primarily the interest. I know it was a stupid set of decisions, but we're already in the deep end, and we need a start to get out. Any advice would help, thanks.

Edit: Renovations were to make the house livable, house had no air conditioning, and pretty bad condition in general and was last upgraded likely 40-50 years ago. It was the best option we had at the time under the assumption of 20k renovation (where we had the money generally and it wasn't in just credit cards) but my other parent fucked us over with the promise and insistence that it wouldn't be a long reno and expensive reno.

We currently live in this house with no other residence. We lived on rent for over 10 years, and finally rent got bad enough that a mortgage was cheaper (it still is). We get by pretty well with me (10k, small I know) and my parent's income, even paying the loan, it's just the humongous interest that weighs everything down.

I want to sell as complete last resort because we will have no money to rent and will be back to complete square one, as my parent is in their last decade of employment (I will take over/help with mortgage/payments when I'm done school)

Rent sucked the life out of me since childhood, and I dread the idea of going back especially with just how horrible it keeps getting.

Posted Jun 30, 2026, 2:50 AM UTC

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