Inheritance going to 1 adult sibling

YANBU to feel this way as it seems very unfair to leave everything to 1 and not another.

however, he now has the responsibility of caring for your parents.

Just make sure that if he does get into debt again, that you do not bail any of them out. That is not your responsibility.

I don’t think it sounds like this is about the money. It sounds to me like it’s about the enabling of your brother’s crappy behaviour. If I’m right tell your parents you don’t care about the money and you don’t want it but they should seek legal advice and ask themselves if bailing out your brother is really going to help him to change.

This.

Especially if there’s any change in circumstances. Your DB and wife could have another child or even divorce. I doubt your DB would want to be living with his elderly mum if he was single again.

Exactly the same situation here - BIL is youngest, has more kids than he can afford, so MIL has bought them a house and lives with them. We choose to see it as they’re “earning” their inheritance by caring for her, which will be no easy task as she ages, not a job I’d be volunteering for anyway!

This. Your brother is likely to earn this inheritance dearly.

Its deeply hurtful to think that because your brother messed up he gets a buy from your parents again. All the money, childcare and general help. I can imagine it'd be like having a chef/nanny/housekeeper.

There are two big buts - unfortunately, your parents have agency and have decided on their plan. The sister in law has to put up with your parents for the next 30 years - that is if it works out.

My own personal anecdotes - My parents have given everything to my alcoholic brother. They care for him 24/7 while he is in end stage alcoholism and has liver failure. They have no money left to leave me and give me no practical help, not even a birthday present this year. It hurts like anything.

I knew a family where the wife's parents moved in with them as they were financially struggling. After the huge extention and all the money was spent, the husband threw the wife's parents out one night and they ended up homeless.

I thought this too.

Never expect an inheritance.

However it would be sensible for your parents to keep back some of the capital from the sale of their house - check what the maximum savings pot is before someone has to self-fund their care and suggest they keep back that much each.

If living with your brother means they don't have to spend all their capital on long term care needs then that's good - it's better that your brother gets the money than it going into the profits of a shoddy personal healthcare company and you are no worse off

I'd steer very well clear. This has the potential to turn into quite the mess, and you're lucky enough not to be enmeshed in it.

And they can expect all the money they like from you, but you've no obligation to give it. You need better boundaries on that front, and otherwise leave them to it.

Setting aside the 'inheritance' point, anyone going into a plan like this really needs proper independent legal advice from someone who will point out all the pitfalls, and there are many, most of which have been mentioned earlier in this thread.

A couple in our family sold their house to their DD, who moved in with her DC on the understanding that DD would look after them. Unfortunately, one of them then developed some pretty serious health problems and DD did not want to know. She had massive MH issues, which her DPs had not really previously understood and the relationship broke down. They ended their lives in a one bedroomed social housing property, with one of them sleeping on the sofa because the other needed the bedroom for their hospital bed.

OP's DPs should be very careful.

My father came to live with me for the last three years of his life. One brother took him shopping once a week, the other only came to see him on his birthday and Father’s Day. He sold his flat and split the money three ways. It was the worst three years of my life. I hadn’t been close to him, I discovered that he was a deeply unpleasant person and the strain of having to be nice to him was overwhelming. When he died the money left in his bank account (around £10,000) I did the decent thing and asked my brothers for their bank account details. The brother who only saw him occasionally is financially very well off, he has a well paid job and lives in a council house so pays lowish rent. I honestly thought he would say no, you keep it. You deserve it. But no. And then he went on Facebook saying how our father was a top bloke and how he was going to miss him. I let him know in a text message how upset I was. Friends and other family members were also shocked by his FB post. He lives about fifteen miles away from me yet hardly visited the man he said he was going to miss! Suffice to say it split the family, I have nothing to do with either of them. I think if I was you I would say fair enough but don’t come to me if it all goes wrong. You should in no way be forced to bail them out. Don’t help your brother with money, he’s not your responsibility. Also if your parents go into a care home they will most likely be in trouble if the proceeds of the house sale go to him. It’s frowned upon to intentionally deprive yourself of assets. However if he does look after them for years he will have definitely earned the money.

If one of my siblings offered to house and care for my elderly parents it would not bother me to forfeit money from an inheritance. I think I read somewhere that under 15% of the UK receive an inheritance.

The saying is something like you are only as happiest as your unhappiest child! This happened to my ex and his siblings. My god was there a fallout. None of the siblings speak to the one who got it. The sibling himself has a weird guilt thing going on but blames everyone else but himself. Sometimes i wonder if the parents were bullied into giving their inheritance/other times i think they wanted to help their son in need. But in the process, they destroyed the family.

Deprivation of assets - just pointing out in case anyone not familiar with the term tried googling

I'd also be concerned about deprivation of assets.

If your parents get too frail or are unable to be looked after by your brother/SIL (poor woman), and it's not realistic to look after a person with advanced dementia etc at home, they will end up in the crappiest council home imaginable as there will be no assets left.

Can't your brother's family move in with them? And your brother sounds as if he would be better filing for bankruptcy, is this a possibility?

Might as well burn money as give it to someone who is chronically unable to manage it.

If I were your sil, I'd be getting divorced as soon as the debts were paid.
But your parents potential predicament is not your issue.

I don't think it's unreasonable to feel forgotten and unwanted either. There might never be an inheritance after care, but I imagine having a third of nothing would have felt better.

You are assuming that at sometime in the future both your parents will have died and left an "inheritance" which you would share. There is every chance this money would be spent on providing care for them, or (as it's their money) spent on holidays/living/given to a new spouse! Would you, or your sister, be willing to take your parents in and provide a home and care for the rest of their lives? Unless your brother has a very large house, with a separate annexe, this sounds like a rubbish situation for all of them.

You don't need to know your brother's financial information. Often parents give assistance unequally to their children because everyone's situation and needs are different - due to geography, health, luck, natural ability etc. The most helpful thing you could do would be to recommend that all sides get legal advice and dispassionately consider what may happen in 10, 20 or 30 years time.

My sister is inheriting everything, house money etc I couldn't give a monkeys.
My sister and her husband (and child) live with my mother. Who could live another 20 years.

There isn't enough money that would make me consider living with my mother in her old age. She is a pain in the hole, cantankerous and getting worse as years go by.

Would I be upset in your position? Maybe, yes. But I would rather the money made one persons life much better than make 2 peoples much better and one persons a bit better.

It's not your money and never was, so I think you just need to accept it and move on.

I'm not sure the local authority would see it this way.

They won't look too deeply at the reasons why it was done. They'll just ask themselves whether the person concerned got rid of assets they owned at a time when the prospect of needing to pay for care at some point was reasonably foreseeable.

Quite. What if he squandered away enough money that they lost the house?

I stand back and let your younger brother look after your parents.

Deprivation of access, thats dubious as the parent is already sick and selling up to move in with the brother so that they can be looked after. Could be speculated that changes had to be made - SIL gave up working full time to care etc so money had to be put into the mortgage. Deprivation of access is when you deliberately give away money without anything back but with the purpose of not paying your own care home fees.

OP Would you want your parents to move in with you? Would you want to look after your sick father?

What is your mum going to live on if she’s not working and giving your brother the proceeds of the house? If she’s still of working age I would hope she has a lot of years to live. Even if her housing was covered by your brother she’s not going to want to rely on him for all her living costs.

You are not in any way unreasonable to feel that this is incredibly unfair. You'll get a whole load of people banging on about how it is your parents money and they can do as they like with it, which is true but also incredibly naïve. It's about so much more than just cold hard cash. It's about how you feel that your parents value you in comparison to siblings and is tied up with feelings of rejection and also feelings of guilt, worry and responsibility

Some PP's have made good points about future problems that really need to be considered. If you can, do try to encourage your parents to seek legal advice before they commit to anything.

I'm sorry you are in this position.

I think the rule with deprivation of assets is whether there is a reasonable expectation of the need for care at the time they are handed over. If both parents were in good health, then no problem, but it sounds as though that’s not the case here. If either parent needs care then the LA would have a good case for assessing care costs as though they still owned the property and any other assets disposed of.