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

From HMRC below, I wonder if you’re getting the 7 year rule mixed up.

Passing on a home
You can pass a home to your husband, wife or civil partner when you die. There’s no Inheritance Tax to pay if you do this.
If you leave the home to another person in your will, it counts towards the value of the estate.
If you own your home (or a share in it) your tax-free threshold can increase to £500,000 if:

• you leave it to your children (including adopted, foster or stepchildren) or grandchildren
• your estate is worth less than £2 million

• pay rent to the new owner at the going rate (for similar local rental properties)
• pay your share of the bills
• live there for at least 7 years

• you only give away part of your property
• the new owners also live at the property

If he 'won't be swayed' and is so 'stubborn' he won't listen to his own wife then I would let him know he will be moving into his mum's house on his own until he learns not to be such an entitled arse who thinks he is the 'head of the house' who makes the decisions. Fuck that noise.

@DesTeeny I think I would say something like this.

"DH, you are grieving. MIL only died last month. Now is not the time to be making big decisions. I understand that this is a really difficult time for you and you need the time and space to deal with your emotions. I am worried that this idea of wanting to move into your childhood home is really about wanting to return to the place you were when you were a child and you felt safe and your mum and dad were still alive. But moving into their house will not bring them back. Living there in their house with their possessions would be living in the past, almost like living with their ghosts. I don't think that's healthy for you or for any of us. From my point of view, you know how I feel. I don't want to live there. It will never feel like my home. I have never actually had the opportunity to choose my own home because I moved into your house. If we are going to move now, I want it to be somewhere we have chosen together. Somewhere that is suitable for us as a family. I understand that you don't feel ready to sell your childhood home just yet, so I suggest we park this until the beginning of next year and then we can start discussing how to move forward. I love you."

So your husband is effectively saying that his memories and associations matter, but yours don't?

I thought there used to be a rule about living in it for a certain number of years, but maybe I am wrong?

The ONLY compromise i could think of would be a total decorate and remodel / extension possibly change walls and layout downstairs all their posessions and furniture would need to be removed

It's not a bad idea on the face of it, but would likely led to multiple arguments in place of the initial one ... "My mum always treasured this", "would never have allowed that" and so on, as each new idea was suggested

Better perhaps to rip the plaster off and downright refuse to live there, though maybe when DH has had more time to come to terms with his loss and hopefully developed a more balanced view

You don’t avoid inheritance tax by living there.

Tell him his 'family home' is the home where he lives with his family and if he wants to go on living with them, he has to take their needs into account.

“Will not be swayed” - he is not the boss! Where you live has to be a joint decision. He does not get to dictate. Tell him if he wants to live there he’ll be living alone.

I like pp idea of showing him what you could buy if you sold both homes.

You’d still pay inheritance tax if it was over a certain amount regardless of whether you sell it or move in.

how long ago did your mil pass away? My mil died earlier this year and my DH also suggested this. It was also his childhood home. However as the months have passed he realises it isn’t a great idea and the thought of selling it is less traumatic than it was.

You are entitled to make it absolutely clear that you will not be moving into his mother’s house. But I don’t think you can insist he sell it (I know you said MIL left “us” the house, but I presume she left it to your DH). I suggest you tell him plainly that there is no way you are moving into it. That leaves him free to rent it out if he wants to (which will benefit the family) and hopefully eventually sell it when he has come to terms with his loss.

Living in a house of a woman that was horrible to me? Being reminded every day? Nope. I would die on this hill.

Can you afford to rent it out and buy a bigger place? Rent is very secure these days and that could be the ‘money aside for dc’ though I don’t believe in giving DC any money! That way DH might be happy at the thought that one day his DC might live in it.

Your solution is the sensible one. There's no way you're ever going to feel like you can make it your own home when it was his family home, it will always feel like HIS family home.
YANBU to want to start fresh in a bigger place that you can put your stamp on.

Focus on the practical side of the move rather than the emotional negative it has for you. You will just end up in emotional one upmanship otherwise. So where would your furniture go? How would you park the car? Is it in good décorative repair? What is the kitchen like?
This is all recent does he even own the house yet ? Presumably still applying for probate etc.
You could just say let's discuss once the will etc is settled.

Presumably he is concerned by inheritance tax, which you could avoid by living there?

This.

Rent it out temporarily while dh works through his grief and use the proceeds to overpay as much as possible on your current mortgage. Having tenants in might lessen his attachment to the house.

How do you dc feel about the house? Is it a happy place for them? Would they be worried about ghosts or it being where their dgm died? Would dh want to move in quickly so they can acclimatise to the new house before the autumn term (even with no change of school). Not querying this to weaponise your dc but so that you are prepared if your dh starts to do so.

Think about planning for being a single parent at some point. The best advice, "hope for the best, prepare for the worst"

No fucking way would I. This is the hill to die on.

And if you’d died hopefully he’d be feeling guilty for not having put more boundaries in. I would not move, agree I’d think carefully about how to say it. But it’d be a no. ‘Do you think it’s fair to ask me to move somewhere with unpleasant associations? I swore to myself when we left that I would never ever go back, and I feel just the same way.’
what if I insisted we move into my parents? We’d have to wouldn’t we since you think I have to go along with your decision here?’
‘Do you think this is a decision one person can make on their own for their partner without the other agreeing?’

do you have friends who can be honest- mate if I told my wife we were moving into my parents home she’d say sure but on your own. Your wife already has done it once and it was awful- you were lucky she did the first time and you are really pushing your luck here. I wouldn’t if I were her.

Have him practice for a few days living without a driveway.

It's too soon to be having these conversations with him. No matter how reasonable you're being, if you start mentioning horrible memories of your MIL or wanting to sell her house (and what was his house) so you can choose your own, you're going to come across as the bad guy. And quite rightly.

Just keep making soothing noises about how you understand he's grieving and let's not make any rash decisions until he's feeling better. Don't discuss it until the emotion is gone and you can both be practical about what you need.

What an awful situation to find yourself in OP, I really feel for you, and would like to tell you about what happened when my MIL died. For the whole time that me and my now EX husband were together, his Mother hated me (I was taking away her little boy) and was absolutely foul to me, she even assaulted me on a couple of occasions. As we grew older, my ex learned that his DM wasn't always right, as he'd been brought up to believe, and so gradually started to put in boundaries, and stand up for me, which led to a couple of spells where we went no contact with his parents. However, after she died, his DM suddenly became a saint overnight!! He would no longer hear a bad word about her, (not that I was constantly badmouthing her or anything, but the slightest reference to her having been difficult, by me or anyone else, would send him ranting about what a wonderful mother she had been, etc.) he literally re-wrote history. Ultimately his DM was able to achieve in death what she was never able to do in life and that was cause the breakdown of our relationship, and ultimately our divorce.

I do hope that you manage, given some time, to make your DH see that moving into what was his childhood home, would be a very bad move for you OP, for practical reasons if nothing else. However sadly, I'm really concerned that whatever happens, your MIL may also achieve in death, what she failed to do in life, ie, split you up. You will either give in to his demands to move into her old home, and be desperately unhappy there, leading to rows and the deterioration of your relationship, or you will have to dig your own heels in, and refuse to do what he wants, which could also lead to the end of your marriage. I really hope that I'm wrong about this OP, but maybe it's something to be aware of, and take into consideration when discussing the way ahead. I wish you luck!

As a bloke , I never understand these men who’ve got a fixation with living in their dead parents houses.You’ve got bad memories from being there and you simply don’t want to live there.
Even if you didn’t have bad memories, perhaps you still wouldn’t want to live there anyway, and I get that too. Your husband should respect your views.

Why not sell it and buy somewhere you both like ? That’s what I would do if I was your DH.

I wouldn’t want to live in my parents or in-laws house.