Wealthy MIL hoarding money

Well my mum was given jewellery by her parents when she was young but she hasn’t handed it on, she’s kept it and she’ll probably pass it to her grandchildren when she dies. But frankly it’s not mine to worry about. Just take responsibility for your own life and crack on.

wealthy parents can actually ruin their children by passing money on too early, so at least she hasn’t done that!

Good on her. I always told my nanna and grandad to spend their money instead of saving it. I wish they spent more and enjoyed their life more. My nanna always wanted to go on a cruise and I feel terrible she never got too. Your husband is not entitled to anything until MIL passes away and the Will says he is. It's not his money.

I just can't imagine how selfish you would have to be to not want to help your children. ( unless they had treated her badly or been disrespectful)

How do you propose she does that? The boyfriend won't inherit unless they marry, or unless the MiL writes a will leaving things to him. Both of which are the MiL's decision and nothing to do with the OP.

That said, if you are worried thst she might be taken advantage of @hoardingwealth then maybe your dh and his brother should talk to her about setting up POAs if they've not already done so.

Write to her, OP! Write a letter telling her exactly how unreasonable and unfair she’s being, at least with regards to BIL.
I’ll no doubt get flamed for saying this as I know you morally have no ‘right’ to say it to MIL, but someone needs to! And in your shoes, I’d happily be the one on the shit list if there’s an outside chance it makes her realise how grossly unfair she’s being! You never know, she could end up approaching BIL with some help. It may just be that she’s genuinely never realised how unfair she’s been.

Or, she’s being financially abused (& controlled) by her current partner? (who you’ve said is not as wealthy as her and that she pays for everything?) Just a thought.

Make whoopie?

If only someone had warned Scrooge he would need that goose money for his care.

I agree with you, I’d give the my last penny to my kids, I could never see them struggle like she appears to be doing. Not sure what you can do though!

Did FIL die without a will? I think there are laws around what happens if someone dies intestate
you need to be careful the boyfriend doesn’t get all the money

As others have said, inheritance tax. What a lot of wealthy people do is make regular transfers of money to their children, to reduce the amount of inheritance tax they might otherwise have to pay, and try very hard not to die within 7 years
Just the cost of her house with enough to live on, would probably take her over the limit, even in a.less expensive area ( if in a very expensive area, just think of how much that would sell for. )
I would actually think that if she passed on money to children and grandchildren on a regular basis. She would have enough ready money from the sale of the house to find a deluxe care home for a fair few years
She does obviously have the right to do with her money whatever she wants, but it would be sensible for her to take advice from a financial advisor.
If she was dead against any descendants inheriting she could donate a significant amount to charity instead instead of hoarding it, the government is not as worthy a recipient as some charities are

Oh now that’s such a shame - all your insight wasted 🤣🤣🤣

Agree with this. I've stopped engaging with that poster to be honest.

@thepariscrimefiles Agreed!

That's brilliant! I think there's a few people who could take heed of this!

An extremely wealthy woman who became rich through being gifted money and a functioning business and through inheritance (i.e. not due to her own hard work), who is comfortable seeing her small grandchildren in second hand clothes and who won't even put her hand in her pocket to buy them some decent new outfits, must surely be self-absorbed to a pathological level not to have a twinge of conscience about the living conditions of her son and his children.

Unless there is a back story of MIL's sons being gamblers or alcoholics or criminals, in which case I doubt that OP would have posted on here, I think that MIL's reasoning is just that it is her money and she wants to spend it on herself and her boyfriend. I don't think that it is any deeper than that.

People who are far from wealthy give money and clothes/toys to charity to help children in struggling families that they don't even know. They do more for complete strangers than MIL does for her own family.

agree, she will do what she wants and when it's her money. Make your own or wait.

I don't think it's strange when the pattern of behaviour shows she didn't like/care/support her children from a young age.

Weirdly this has reminded me that even Donald Trump, who inherited millions, has helped his kids. He probably even paid for their driving lessons.

Yes mil can do what she likes with her money but if she’s that minted it’s strange not to want to help your children while you’re still alive. Especially as she was helped by her parents.

She will be dead. She won’t care.

Perhaps she would rather pay 50% in tax (to benefit a lot more potentially) than be a constant cash point for her son because he can’t afford to support the family he chose to have.

In fact take it a step further and she’s paying back the taxpayer for helping to support her son and his family.

This!

But when she dies 50% of it becomes the governments money

Anyone who will gladly give the government 50% of their wealth whilst watching their children struggle must really hate their children or they are really very stupid.

It's worth having a chat with her about inheritance tax, my experience with people like this is they get enraged at the thought of paying their fair share of tax and it may prompt her to help your BIL out now.

It’s her money. If BIL chose to have kids in reduced circumstances that’s on him.

I think the issue is that mil didn’t just start from nothing she was handed a large amount and has built on that.

What I don’t get with this sort of set up where people who have been handed a start in life by parents transferring some of their wealth over to their children why these people don’t do the same for their children.
It would make perfect financial sense to do so.

When mil dies around 50% of what she has will go to the government.

Even if being given a sum of money each and it was used to pay off the mortgage, the help that would give and the change to both her children and her grandchildren's lives would be enormous.
Just transferring the lowest worth property to each of her children for them to manage and teaching them how to grow a business from that. The extra income would again make a difference

If each generation does similar to mil then the only people getting rich will be the government as after each death 1/2 will go to the government and with each generation and the family expanding the share of money each individual receives will be less and less

I have seen the conclusion of this sort of thing. Where the father was given half of a successful business his parents had started. They taught him from the ground up what needed to be done and how to run it.

He took over the company when they retired and although he had his children working for the company, they were never given any stake in the company and never taught how to run the business. So when he died and his children took over they hadn’t a clue what to do apart from their jobs.Add to that the company owned all of their houses and they were paid very little because the company picked up all of the bills

There were many strands to the business and whilst they tried their hardest to keep it afloat within 3 years it was haemorrhaging money and they called in the receivers. Losing their homes and jobs

So a successful business after 50+ years became defunct because although the father was handed part of the business and his parents spent years teaching him every aspect of the business, the son didn’t do the same for his children.

Whilst I don’t believe in handing out huge sums of cash to young people, there are ways and means to still have control

Gatekeeping/hoarding money whilst not teaching your children how to acquire more or keep intact what generations of hardwork had produced is just not good financial sense.

It’s none of your business what she does with her money. Great you have provided for your own children but you can’t expect others to do the same.

There could be a whole host of reasons why, maybe she’s stingy, maybe BIL has history of poor money management but you can’t expect anyone else to behave like you.

BIL needs to sort himself out as everyone else does.