Mil thinks DH should pay towards his grandmothers funeral

What has been a decade long battle @UsernameTalk

Ad he's a wet lettuce he prob wontfo this, but he could explain it'd unaffordable but that he'd happy to set up a Go Fund Me for it.

With her millions in the bank she should be ashamed to do this and step in.

(Only ashamed as she has plenty of money, my cousins had to do this for their Mums funeral so I'm not saying it's a shameful thing to do always)

Then MiL pays.

This. MiL should be paying along with any siblings she has.

Unless the will said otherwise the house should have been sold when the grandfather died, his ex wife had no right to go on living there. Your husband should have had his share of the money then and whoever was executor of the estate (presumably his mother) could potentially be sued for allowing the grandmother to live there. The question would be whether your husband (and his siblings) have lost money because they did not get their cash at the time or if the increased house value still outweighs the capital gains tax. As house prices have increased he may not have lost cash but if he has you have grounds for legal action.

You might want to actually get a copy of the grandfather's will.

Apologies, my mistake. A lot of drip feeding though.

At least GM didn’t have to pay rent. But does sound as if MIL has paid extras for the house

Where did GM live before GF died?

Why don't people read the thread before commenting?!!!

She was not his wife when he died - they were long divorced!

Exactly! I noticed that too

Pretty horrible on the part of your dh's grandfather to not even leave his own wife enough money to pay for her own funeral or care costs should she have needed them. Let MIL pay, she clearly went along with this arrangement which hugely benefitted herself.

"The estate was not DH's grandmothers. It is owned mostly by Mil, with a small share to dh and his siblings. It was given to them decades ago from DH's grandfather. It is just now they can sell it as DH grandmother was living in it for free"

'The estate' is the term used to describe the total of the deceased's assets and liabilities.

If your DH's grandparent had £11k in savings and a £280 credit card bill - this is 'their estate'. The executor would pay the debts (alongside any inheritance tax due), and the remaining would be distributed as per the will. The cost of the funeral can also be deducted from the estate, before distributing assets in line with the will.

Does the estate not cover funeral costs? It sounds as if this isn't the case and therefore your MiL is wanting to share the cost with other living relatives. However, based on what you have written, it is possible that whether or not the estate could cover it, if it is all due to go to her, she doesn't want it to be paid from the estate.

Bottom line - your DH is not obliged to pay for it. He can just say no. The issue here will be his appetite for having to deal with the fall out!

GM wasn’t the wife when he died.

OP you still haven’t said who has maintained the house since GF died? Did GM have a big enough pension to cover things like that or have costs been split between MIL and her adult DC, or has MIL shouldered that burden alone, or has nothing been done to the house since GF died?

Nope. The next of kin pay - unless there's some reason why that's completely inappropriate, such as the next of kin being literal children themselves.

It's your MIL job to pay. Obviously.

But if perhaps you and any siblings wanted to club together for something like the flowers, that would perhaps soothe the waters slightly.

I've seen from my own bitter experience, that previously normal rational people can behave in really strange, irrational ways when grieving.

Funeral costs get paid first before any bills.
If there is no money in the estate then the absolute last resort is the council will pay for a pauper type funeral, which will somewhat reflect on the MIL and her millions

He didn't have a wife.

They were divorced in the 70s, he got the house, and we don't know if there was even much equity in the house at the time they split.

Your mil is very unreasonable. Personally I think your husband should point out the facts and say “no sorry mum, you have plenty of money to pay for the funeral costs but we are bringing up young children and don’t have a lot to spare”.

Alternatively agree to split the funeral costs in the proportion of the ownership of the inherited property. Eg if Mil inherited 70% and DH and two siblings got 10% each (total 30%) then split funeral costs in the same ratio - ie she pays 70%.

It is really appalling that your DH's grandfather, had the house in his name only, left it to children and grandchildren, rather than his wife, whose home it was, left her with no assets to the extent that she died with debts.

DH's grandmother should have put a charge on the property when the GF was alive and contested the will after he died. Morally, GM's funeral costs should come out of the house sale and I don't think DH should contribute. MIL sounds like a grabby so and so.

What does your DH ?Say.

The grandmother has no estate I don't know why you all keep referring to the estate. The house is not part of any estate as such .. it belongs to the mil and dh and siblings and did so before the gm died. The grandmother has passed now and Mil will need to cough up but is trying to pass the costs to her kids. She can't force them at all. If they separately choose to sell the house that they all own they will all legally get their share of what was left to them. End of . If dh decides to pay or not pay its just a personal choice for him. It's no more complicated then that. Even if he was given cash from the gf as ppl keep asking it's completely irrelevant. There's no legal obligation for him to pay now and no moral reason to pay as his mother had more then enough to pay for it. The woman has money!!!

@PinkTonic OP has clarified grandparents were divorced years ago