To not want to live in deceased MIL's house?

Hope you don't inherit a stately pile and then get divorced as you'll see this is not true.

Can you sell your current home, rent the MIL house and use the rental income to supplement a bigger mortgage on a new home?
that way your husband never ‘loses’ the family home but it still helps you move into a bigger home

@Theonlyone1234 Yes, that’s another possibility if her DH is willing to take on the responsibility of being a landlord.

If he does decide to do this, stay well out of it, OP. It’s not your property.

I’d suggest keeping it and renting it out and selling your current house to buy something you can both choose with parking

If an inheritance is used to buy a shared asset like a home, or used to improve a shared asset like a home, THEN it becomes a marital asset.
But if it remains in the recipient holders own bank account, or in their sole name, it remains solely their asset.

My friend was gifted a gorgeous house by the sea, plus several hundred k, and her husbands two sisters whom have never been particularly friendly towards her assumed it was now his too and they could "borrow" it during Covid.
Her husband is very nice but he was firmly told not happening under any circumstances "close friends of HERs only would be invited". Her husband and she have separate well paid jobs, separate finances which has worked well for them. This inheritance will remain hers alone.

"Fine but you need to agree that we gut the place and spend money on an extension and revamp the front garden so we have parking and put in a petting zoo with a flock of unicorns in the back garden along with a big pond for the mermaids."

Just glad to see 98% of people voted good! And I hope it going well.

i think creating a family home - your little family - is going to be wonderful.

Good luck.

But that was bought/paid for before the marriage, you came into the relationship on different footings.

In my divorce an inheritance acquired while married was considered part of the marital assets.

Although clearly if you have a brilliant lawyer, then they can argue whatever you tell them to...

It isn’t. I divorced last year. His house bought and paid for by him before we married and the sizeable inheritance from his mother were out of bounds

Worst part about my house is we don’t have a drive and have to park on a road where people drive like maniacs!!! It is a constant worry for me, with a wee one who loves to open doors!

next home will have to have a drive, that’s a deal breaker.

so I completely get your concerns. I’d either stay put or find a house that ticks all of your boxes!

Can he not clean ‘whilst he’s there’?

honestly OP, have take this opportunity to assess your relationship. Yes grief is hard, but he needs to remember and pay attention to the living!!

I'm with OP on not moving in. At the moment though her husband is not only grieving but has emotional attachment to the property. A compromise could be to let it for a year or so and regroup on the moving discussion when feelings are not running so high.

I’m sure it’s still quite raw for your DH so I wouldn’t rush into anything. Eithe way. I wouldn’t try to convince him of anything g just yet.

When my father died I was convinced I wanted to buy the house - buy my siblings out that is. It’s in a different country and was always my base when I went home as well as being the house I’d grown up in. I had even started renovating it and redecorating it in my head. Even had a Pinterest board!

After a few months I gradually realised it wasn’t a sensible move.

DH had just let me work through it all myself. And I did come to realise it was a complete knee jerk emotional reaction to want to buy it and keep it. I still miss it terribly but it was the right decision to let it go.

Im sure your DH will gradually come to the same realisation.

I don't think you are being unreasonable. I wanted to share a story, a friend of mine's father was murdered in his house. The house was then left to the friend and her mother, her mother (who is awful) insisted on living there even though the friend, who was about 24 at the time, didn't want to live there at all. She wanted to sell and buy somewhere else, but her mother insisted so she either had the choice to live there or without a lot of money find somewhere else to stay. She decided to move in but did LOADS of renovation to the place so that it didn't feel at all like the old house. I went to see it and it felt like a completely different place. Perhaps that could be a third option, move in but make it your own so completely that it doesn't feel like MILs house.

Exactly . There is no IHT advantage to moving in . We’ve just sold my MIL house . Very happy to see it go . She was a bit of a witch to me and it was the world’s most uncomfortable place to stay . Quite the opposite of warm and welcoming . Glad I don’t have to go there again.

I am so sorry @DesTeeny that your DH is thinking this way . Where you choose to make your family home is absolutely a joint decision . He might be grieving and finding it hard to let go of his childhood home . But I also have a DH that assumes no comment equals consent so I would be pushing back on this if it were the case too . In our case DH is very happy to have the cash ( post tax )

My mum died unexpectedly in late 2022 leaving me (only child) her beautiful bungalow on a large plot of land. I (and my DS) would have loved to live there, as it was my childhood home too, but DH felt it would always be my parents home (who he loved) and didn't feel he could live there (which I sort of understood). There's a few other practical reasons why it's not right for us as a family right now so I took the difficult decision to sell last month. 12 months ago I couldn't have even contemplated taking that step, but as it's got emptier it feels less like 'mum's house' and it needs to be lived in again. Hopefully, given time, your DH will come to feel the same way. We are now planning some long overdue improvements to our family home once the sale goes through (including a much needed downstairs loo!).

I think in the uk inheritance is counted in divorce, this is a long relationship too.

My colleagues parents changed their will while she was divorcing then back again when it was over.

@DearDenimEagle Thats what worries me, the OP could be in a vulnerable position if they move into MIL’s house. Far better to buy a house together.

An inheritance isn’t part of a divorce . It belongs to the person who inherited it

There is no time limit on grief. You have a young family. Everything is very emotional. Sometimes, dealing with practical tasks of clearing out, property can help work through the grief. It's stuff, memories are kept, keep some bits.

You say MIL has siblings that visit and stay in the house. Have you asked your DH if they're willing to help? Would he let them, if he was there too to oversee everything being cleared, sorted etc?

The idea of you having to keep 2 homes running, with such a young family, to please everyone else is a lot.

Maybe having a look at properties that you think would work better for you as a family would help him to see the reality of what you can afford, how you could be living and how it could benefit your children.
Getting excited about your future might help him in dealing with his past?
I agree it is recent so many grief counselling but it also depends what type of person you are as to how you see things. Our great grandparents instilled us to "look after the living, the dead can look after themselves". This applied in lots of situations including when making decisions about holding on to things like opportunities v properties /places/stuff with sentimental attachments.
It also sounds like there is a lot to sort out in her house and you have a young family as well.

Buying a family home together is a far better idea, but I can also understand his emotional attachment to the house. As others have said, give him time, it’s a very recent bereavement. Perhaps quietly start looking online for more suitable houses.

Legally, you would also be in a precarious position if the house is solely in his name. Yes, you could be added to the deeds, but personally, I think it would be far better to buy a house jointly.

i moved in to MILs house and she was quite unpleasant to me. She was still alive and we had essentially swapped homes. I got petty revenge by changing everything, she was very house proud and fussy and hated it because we basically gutted the house and started again !

@DesTeeny I would argue that the home he created together should have more emotional value to him than his childhood home at this point in his life.
Grief can change perspectives on matters like these though. Did he express a desire to live there before she passed? If not this could be something that is important to him in a time of grief.

You said their house is full to the rafters. Maybe that's where you need to start.

1. clear it, sell it, tip it. You can't move your all their stuff into your home.

2. don't keep going around cleaning it. 1) resolves that, empty, then one big clean.

3. your OH has letting go issues. He needs to be involved in both the above.

Once MIL home is cleared, it will give you some perspective. You can't move all their stuff into your home and visa versa. Sell their house, invest the inheritance, and then decide what to do later that benefits you both. You could even extend or improve your own home as an option, to selling both and moving elsewhere.