To expect the same amount of money?

[mightyducks]

A couple of years ago my dad decided he wanted to give me and my sister our inheritance early so we could both get on the property ladder and so gave us a deposit each. I got £20k and assumed my sister got he same, however I've since found out that she was given £40k as she said 20k wasn't enough for her deposit as she lives near London (I'm up North). AIBU to expect to have got the same? I feel that as it was an early 'inheritance ' which would obviously be equal, I've been hard done to. Or is it reasonable because house prices are more down South?

Even with the best possible intentions, in your DF's situation it is virtually impossible to treat two DCs in a way that they will both think they have been treated fairly. We have a very simiar problem and still have not worked out how to deal with it, and I am posting on your thread hoping to get the sort of helpful responses you have received. I hope you don't mind.

We have given DS1 £150,000 for house purchase. This was in two lumps, £50,000 for his first house, the rest when he moved up the ladder.

DS2 has been given £175,000 for two house moves, £75,000 of this was spent doing up and extending his current house, with me project managing as he is local, at work, and at the time without a partner. So on paper he has been treated more generously.

But it is he who feels hard done by, because DS1 now has a house in a nice part of London, albeit a small terrace, currently worth well over £1 million, and going up thousands every month, whereas DS2 lives locally, and though his house is twice the size of his brother's its value has not increased in anything like the same dramatic way.

He feels we should leave him an extra amount in our will, to compensate for this disparity. We feel, as of course does childless DS1, that DS2 has chosen to live locally and have three children and we cannot be responsible for his choices.

All this is quite openly discussed, our sons are not grasping (though no doubt some on here will say they are) . At the moment DH and I are more or less decided that equal shares in the will is the only way to go, but I do hate the notion that either of them might feel less loved than the other.

Any opinions welcome, and, OP, I understand how you feel.

You could give them equal shares but also leave other amounts to your gdcs, that might satisfy? Or go over to Vegas and blow the lot if they continue to discuss it. It's up to you.

..to Tentedjuno

Thanks Iggi, we are not Vegas types, more squirellers. We have thought about the DGC angle, but then if DS1 has kids after our death, his lose out. The discussing does not bother us, and I know it is up to us, but it is better I think to have this sort of stuff out in the open rather than resentment setting in when the will is read.

Tentedjuno- your ds2 is being completely unreasonable and greedy. I suffer from a serious chronic health condition and earn much less than my siblings as a result. I also have a house in the North whereas they live in London/South so I haven't profited from house prices rises as they have. It isn't my parents job to compensate me for that though and neither is it yours.

A similar thing happened to a friend of mine years ago, except she was the one in London who was given £50k for a deposit and her brother given £20k as this was an equal deposit percentage wise. However his house up north stayed at a similar value and he has still not managed to move to a bigger house as he has a large mortgage in relation to his salary. My friend sold her house in London for around £70k more than she bought it for, moved away and is now mortgage free.

She has already given £10k to her brother and is going to give him another when she can as she feels so guilty about how having the large deposit in the first place meant she could buy a more expensive house, watch it increase in value and now live mortgage free for ever! Although obviously she was thrilled with the opportunity to own a home and lucky that she bought at the right time in the right place, she is aware that she did much better from the deal and though her brother has never said he resents it, she is aware of the inequality of their lives now, even though she is taking some steps to even things out.

OP YANBU to feel a twinge of 'why more for them than me' but otoh, you aer luckier than many, you can now get a house, probably a lovely house and it could be your forever home meaning that the equity in it would be irrelevant. I hope you can put this behind you.

My goodness I don't think you can control for house price appreciation, juno. The one complaining is incredibly ungrateful. Op, I think you should discuss it with your dad, I can see why he did it because it achieved the goal, and remember you're lucky to have been given a deposit it would have taken you ages to save.

Sometimes as a parent you don't dish out money equally as circumstances aren't equal. 1 of our 4 kids/ stepkids went to uni in England, 2 will be in Scotland the other is still at school. We have needed to give the student in England more money as tuition fees, higher living costs etc. On e of the Scottish students has ended up with alot of expenses relating to his course and trying to get his business going. We have paid to help with this. We don't think "Oh we've given x this so must put an equal amount in a pot for y z and w"
The house deposit thing does sound unfair though if he has said it is inheritance because normally children do expect inheritence to be divided equally unless property you don't want divided like farms etc are involved.

Thanks, Gen and whatever, I know you are right about house price inflation not being my responsibility, but I don't like to create a situation where siblings resent each other. Celia I can't see either of mine handing cash to his brother, your friend is a very generous person.
It seems to come down to convincing DS2 that he is being unreasonable.

You didn't create it juno, the ds who's let himself get so out of check with reality that he wants to be insured for he downside of his choice created it.

That is a very interesting point, Gen, I have not looked at it quite like that before - the out of check with reality.

Yes, I didn't realise that you insured dc for potential future failure to perform of the investments they make with your money. It is completely cuckoo :) I don't envy you, I hope I don't end up in this situation with my dc. But if I did, I'd be saying exactly that, mummy and daddy can't insure you for the risks associated with your choices. What next, he fails to get a promotion and expects a payrise from you because his brother earns more?

Gen, I don't think he's that bad

I'm sure he's not Juno, I sometimes think people with good verbal reasoning skills can talk themselves into thought processes that aren't logical, that's all. I'm sure he's a lovely person who's probably struggling to fund 3 dcs of his own and anxious, if he's at that stage of life. Didn't mean to be unkind.

Juno I'm just staggered that someone could be gifted 175K and still be unhappy with it! It was his choice to buy ouside of London surely? You say not your children are not grasping but it certainly sounds like it. Gen makes a very good point that he is effectively asking for his life choices to be underwritten.

OP in your first post you say that your father gave you both your inheritance early to get onto the housing ladder. The gifts he made to you were for this purpose, not to buy cars/holidays etc. Why then should he help you get further up the housing ladder than your sister by purchasing more equity for you? I do appreciate you will feel it is unfair but if you ignore what was given to your sister and think about the gift he made to you in a bubble, are you happy with receiving 20K?

I would strongly resist mentioning this to your father for the following reasons:

1. He has split the money as he sees fair. He was the one gifting the money so it his judgement which counts.
2. You will seem ungrateful for the astonishingly generous gift he has given to you
3. He may feel obligated to even up the financial amount - how would you feel if he changed his retirement plans to afford this?

I strongly disagree with posters who say the sibling who gets less would feel unloved. That is only true if the SIBLING equates money with love. The parent's pragmatism should not be confused with a lack of love.

Yab a little U... it's your dad's money and

Best definition I like for fairness is about equally needing needs (& according to one's ability at the time), not treating ppl equally. You each got what you needed, so it was pretty fair.

Well on the flip side- my DP offered to give me and my brother some money towards a house deposit when we bought houses. Obviously very kind of them. They gave my brother 3K towards his house depost, and they also gave me 3K. They doubtless thought this was fair (along the lines of OP).

However ... as I bought my house about 10 years after DB, his 3K was his whole deposit, whereas mine was a drop in the ocean (house prices having risen by such a large percentage in the interim).

But still 3k you don't owe now and didn't have to save redsky, you are effectively also arguing about your investment being worth less than a sibling's due to macroeconomic factors your parents have no control over.

Ps my dh's parents helped us all with equal cash, one sibling bought in London, made a killing, one in the se, probably a safe investment, and we lost our shirts in a declining US market as we had to sell quickly due to a job situation going south - can't blame them for that, not envious of my siblings for making better choices with their deposit money.

YABU to expect anything

Get off your arse and earn it yourself

It might be your self entitlement that's making him make his decisions

Gen, i didn't think you were being unkind, I am just grateful for your perspective on it, and you are so right about the DCs and being anxious.

Amillionmiles, yes I know it is a lot of money, but it's the comparison that causes the problem , it would be the same if it were £10 versus £15.
He bought locally because he works here, also when his DP left him the last thing he would want to do would be to move away and disrupt his kids' lives even more, so he chose to be a good father and have a home for them here where he can share care with xDP who lives very close. So in a way he is suffering financially for doing the right thing.

Gen but how can he feel upset at the comparison when you have given him 25K more than his brother? The gift you made was higher, it's beyond your control what financial reward that gift brings isn't it? You could look at it another way and say because he has been able to purchase a higher amount of equity than his brother has because of the disparity in property values, and the brother may have significantly higher mortgage payments (no idea if that is true of course, but I would assume so if the increase in values is so far apart).

But I must confess, I am always horrified at children expressing an expectation at what they will be left in a will so maybe that's what has jarred with me.

If you look at it from a different angle perhaps your dad have you 10% of the value of your property and your sister 10% of the value of her property, presumably she has a bigger mortgage to pay . I can see why you feel it is unfair but sometimes its difficult just to say treat children equally .

I don't get the idea that parents should give money according to "need" and I suspect that the people who think that it is fair, do so because they are/will be the ones to benefit. I doubt that any child "needs" several thousands of pounds and even if one child is currently better off than the other nobody knows what the future will be. The "better off" child may end up worse off.

Sorry, last post to Juno not Gen.

Also, I've mangled one of my sentences but I hope the gist of it is still there?