AIBU - inheritance sad story

Well that’s ok then as the most important thing in the world is to be seen as nice.

Your mum and the other owner of the house need legal and tax advice asap.
Perhaps they might consider 'giving' the house back if their dad would cover the CGT costs? Or perhaps they would be willing now to set up a long-let tenancy agreement (you'd need advice on this) so he and his wife pay rent to the owners of the property in return for them retaining ownership. That may make it a bit simpler to sort out in terms of IHT (again, take advice on this - I am only thinking aloud and am not an expert) if it's clearly been rented to the current occupiers for a number of years before your grandfather's death.

You are a much nicer person than your mum and her sibling

Exactly this.

I don't see how it's a dick move. What move did they make? They didn't create this situation.

He really wasn't trying to avoid his money going to charity - sounds like he was trying to avoid inheritance tax, in a crazy way that just didn't work.

Or perhaps his ex-wife wanted to ensure that her children got the house, so took the transfer of the house to her kids, rather than on-going maintenance, not trusting him not to change a will he made to leave it to her children. I'm guessing it went to oldest two as over 18.

As PPs have pointed out, it's a complete mess, OPs mother needs legal advice, as does the grandfather.

I feel very sorry for his second wife, who could end up homeless.

It’s astonishing that it’s been 30 ish years and in that time, he hasn’t thought practically about the financial future of his wife or 6th child. It’s not like this happened 2 years ago. It’s been like 3 decades he’s had to sort this and hasn’t and now it’s created a big mess for everyone.

I had the exact same thought...

@whattodo1113 you really need to see and understand this.
It could have significant impllications for the remainder of his estate which he needs to understand.

Also, if your mum and her sibling also own other houses, there will be CGT to pay on the sale of the house when the time comes.

If second wife has been with him 25 yrs and has not made provision for herself at all in this time I don’t feel that sorry for her . Marrying someone with a previous family / children was always going to come up against this at some point . The easiest solution is to sell the house and split it between everyone including his widow but it doesn’t sound as if your mum is amenable to this .

The thing that strikes me is that your mum and siblings might have had quite a tough time growing up. There might have been quite a stigma for them all and your gran in their situation at that time. Obviously I don’t know the full story and you might not too. Just because they’ve done well in life doesn’t mean growing up wasn’t hard. I’d leave it alone.

There is of course the alternative option, where the house gets signed back/was never signed over in the first place, and the grandfather dies and the wife gets everything and leaves it entirely to her own kid and none of the other 5.

They just ended up on the wrong side of the trade.

Yes. That suggests the only option was to give the house away before you die or the house gets given away to some nebulous organisation after you die.

has he not heard of the concept of a will?

but agree with others, he doesn’t have a house and that surely isn’t news to his wife unless he’s lied either deliberately or by omission.

people don’t put houses in other peoples names unless they think they are avoiding something usually. I’m a cynic but he’s thought he’s being a clever so and so but sadly not thought it through.

My sympathies are with the children your grandfather deserted when they were young, and the wife who was left to bring them up alone.

What is not mentioned here is what the mortgage position was on the house at the time of transfer. Only that he paid the mortgage off (at some unspecified time before he met DW2). If he continued paying a mortgage on it after title transfer then I think that affects the figures at least.

I would have thought that the sensible solution would be for your DM to rent the house to DW2 for a notional income for 25 years (or until her death).

That would allow for CGT to be deferred decades and the resulting income could be shared amongst all siblings.

Eventually the house can be sold and the monies divided equally between all his grandchildren.

I just can’t stop thinking about him and I’m the only one in the family who has said how he’s being treated is discusting. They think he’s cruel taking the house back but at the end of the day he bought the house and his life situations have changed now and all the kids are so well off with their own businesses etc they don’t NEED it.

You don't sound like the daughter of the person he gave a house to by the way. Are you sure you're not the child of the second marriage?

If your mums point of view is:
"he left when they were kids and this new child got more of him than they did growing up"
Then I can see why she is saying no.
I dont know the circumstances of your mums childhood, but this is exactly the kind of thing my parent would do.
They were a rubbish parent when we and my other parent needed them most, and no amount of niceties or 'everyone makes mistakes' since makes up for that for some of us. I admire people who can forgive and forget but I cant.

I can see why someone would think 'you abandoned us, got another family, we've stayed in your life despite of that, and now you want to give that other family everything you've got'

Also, i can see why it would rub people up the wrong way that he is showing sadness over this, when to be blunt, for 25 years he was happy to put avoiding tax etc above his wife's financial security, thats the bottom line here. No matter how lovely you think he is. He never once indicated he wanted the house back, because he was happy with the situation - if he cared about his wife's security, he would have had this conversation 25 years ago. It would have been one of the first things to talk about when they talked about getting married, or had a child! He has knowingly and wilfully been happy for his wife to have no guarantees after his death, this entire time.

Do you know what life was like for your mum and her siblings, or for your grandma, as a single mum of 5 whose husband had fucked off? You don’t even mention their childhood. What did they live on? How did she make a living? Who looked after the 5 kids while she did? How much of a living was it? What the kids at school said? How they felt? They might have been very high stress years, in fact statistically they probably were. he had a responsibility to his children and he abandoned that and left your grandma to carry it alone. I’d stay right out of this discussion, you weren’t there.

Legally: he’s given it to them already by the sounds of it, so not much he can do to get it back. Pretty sure HMRC takes a dim view of gifting a house to avoid tax then living in it…

Regarding your mum and sibling refusing to give it to the new wife - presumably she’s a similar age to them (or even younger?) so they know if she’s given it they won’t see any of their potential inheritance in their lifetime as it has been given to the new wife.

How old is your mum / the new wife?

They really do.

I can't see how your mum can return the house - can she afford the CGT without selling it? Then on his death there may well be IHT to pay although obviously depends on the value of the estate.

They are not "basically" the home owners. They are the home owners.

he didn’t want it to end up in a charity or whatever I don’t know
He didn't want it to have to be sold to pay for care if he needed it.

He gave the house to his two children. He cannot get it back and he cannot expect them to give it back either.

I just can’t stop thinking about him and I’m the only one in the family who has said how he’s being treated is discusting. They think he’s cruel taking the house back but at the end of the day he bought the house and his life situations have changed now and all the kids are so well off with their own businesses etc they don’t NEED it.

You need to stay out of it. It's actually none of your business. And it isn't disgusting either. He chose to give them the house knowing the consequences of that and now it's wrong of him to be asking for it back.
He's lived in it rent free now for years. That means he and his new wife had plenty of opportunity to consider their finances, knowing that the house was not theirs, and to start saving money so that she would be provided for after his death. They could have bought their own property.

Once you give something away, it isn't yours any more and you can't ask for it back either.

I believe the new rules coming into place are that you have to show that the property is being sold under Section 8(?), e.g. marketed for sale. You have to give 4 months notice. Also you cannot re rent the property for 12 months (if it doesn't sell or if you were just trying to get tenants out).
In this case it sounds like the siblings will want to sell the property to distribute the money between them.
The father & his wife won't be paying rent or have a tenancy agreement i wouldn't have thought (no mention of this in the posts).
The house is no longer the father's asset - he gave it to his children over 25 years ago.

The wife of 25 years and the father have had 25 years to plan their housing needs for their new family unit. I think its incredibly poor planning on their part if they have just bumbled along until now and then thought "shit, I'd better sort this out". What did they think would happen? I wouldn't start a family with a man in a house that neither of us owned! Did she know that he didn't own the house or is this news to her recently?

Presumably they have lived there rent free for all those years and could have saved their own nest egg and done their own future planning.

Also there's the tax issues that other people have said above.

Best advice on here. Stop meddling, OP, or it may come back to bite you.

Putting al the legal stuff aside. It is a bit of a dick move by your mum & other sibling. Do they not have a good relationship with his wife & daughter?