To not want to go & see my sisters new house?

[Spoldge45]

Hello ladies, I am actually writing this on behalf of my DH as I thought it would get a wider audience than Dadsnet.

My sister who is 47 has lived in our family's original family home all her, thru 2 marriages & a child.

4 years ago our mother, who also lived in the house died. In her will she left the house worth £650k to my sister & her 12 year old son & £50k to myself & my young daughter, who at the time was 2.

Undeniably this was very hard to take, it felt as tho my mother didn't care about me & my family as much, despite me always being a very loving/caring son.

Eventually over time I came to terms with the hurt this caused, although it's still something I think about nearly every day. I paid a lump sum of our mortgage & got on with my life, still maintaining a very good relationship with my sister & her son.

2 months ago, my sister sold our family home & her and her 12 year old son downsized to a smaller property, worth £350k.

This I have found a lot harder to take...my sister now has a very nice house, with no mortgage & has in excess of £200k in the bank. While I have to carry on working & paying a mortgage until I am 75.

Since moving my sister has said absolutely nothing about the money situation, she has asked myself & my wife to go to her new house, but to be honest, neither of us feel that we want to.

Sorry I am not very good with emoticons!

I'd tell the sister to shove her house and her visit up her arse. She didn't have to go along with her mothers unfairness, she has chosen to out of greed. There is very little to be gained by having a sister like that in your life, leave her to her selfishness and move on.

Very foolish of the mother to not have talked this through with her DCs in advance to avoid this upset after her death, when she can't explain why she split her estate in this way.

As a carer myself, I can confirm there is a WORLD of difference between someone who comes into the house several times a week to care - and is able to leave and go to their own home, and someone who lives there. It doesn't compare in any shape or form. Caring for someone day in day out is all encompassing, draining, desperate stuff. And there's no escape, because even when you are able to go out, you have to come back and face the next day, and the next - in full knowledge that tomorrow is probably going to be worse than today. So please don't underestimate what your sister did for your mum.

When all's said and done, it's not worth falling out about. It's just not.

I think I would leave it. I have lots of siblings, but if my mother were to leave more to one of my sisters, for example, who she has always got on better with, I would understand. I would not want money to destroy my relationships with people.

OK, so your husband is upset at the disparity between his inheritance and his sister's. But that inheritance comes at the end of twenty-plus years of a particular living arrangement, and the more I think about it, the more I wonder how that living arrangement came about.

So, a series of question for you to ponder OP, not necessarily to answer here on this thread:

• The house was split into two flats twenty years ago. Was your sister still single at that point, or married? Was your FIL still alive at that point? Who instigated the house split, your PIL or your SIL? Where do you think your sister would have lived if the house hadn't been split?

• Your FIL predeceased your MIL - by how long? How was your MIL affected by the thought of living alone after his death? Would it have helped her that your SIL was just downstairs?

• Your sister never moved, despite being married twice. How did her husbands feel about that? Would they have wanted more distance between them and their MIL? Some choice in where they lived? Would it have been a cause of friction? Could it have been a factor in either/both marriages breaking down?

• Over twenty years ,the fabric of the house would have required repairs. Who arranged, supervised and paid for these? Would your MIL have been able to afford these repairs alone? Would she have been able to afford to continue to live in the house at all without it having been split the way it had been?

I am wondering if the 'disparity' is due to your mother making recompense for twenty years of your sister sacrificing her choices and her husbands choices, and maybe even her marriages.

I would second WhereYouLeftIt's post
Do you think your mother chose to split her assets as she did due to consideration to the caring your sister did for her and the contribution to the running costs/repairs to the house over the last 20 years?

Maybe your mother felt your sister had made sacrifices on her behalf to stay close to her (I have no idea if this arrangement was purely for your sister's benefit or not)? Maybe your sister feels she has made sacrifices and also sufficient contributions towards upkeep of the house to warrant the apparent disparity.

Ultimately, only your DH can decide if his current anger/hurt/feelings of injustice are worth cutting his sister out of his life for.

I Agree with Wishiingchair that it's a shame that the mother didn't explain her reasons to your husband years ago.

YANBU. Not at all. So your Dsis looked after your DM for three months ill health before her death, with assistance from you. And benefitted most of her adult life from not having to buy on the open market. Not all adult children stay at home due to difficult care responsibilities. Some, sad to say, have their eye on the prize and i kind of think if your sister was fair minded, she would have evened things up by now.

So sad when parents reward the less independent sibling in this way. I think you'd have to be a saint to avoid the perfectly understandable reaction to distance her. Not your fault for reacting in this way to what other people have done.

After last post is it yourself or your Dh posting? You seem a little hung up on what to eventually tell your 6 year old and iPads etc.

I think seeing that sil lived there always and had mortgage on part of the property that has come in to play.

Maybe the visit is to gift something to your dd and visit house. I don't think stopping seeing them is the answer as your dd obviously missed them. They are part of her family.

You are coming across as bitter and jealous.

You seem to have a happy family life and a good marriage. SiL has 2 failed marriages and a not so happy life. Her mother wanted to be sure she would be secure in the future.

Be happy with what you have which is far more than SiL.

it's a sad situation but, although people are up in arms about this i wonder how many in reality, would share ? it's easy to take the moral high ground but a different situation in reality.
i like to think i would share but i honestly do not know if i would, it would depend on various factors and the people concerned tbh.
o.k flame me but if you are really honest, what would you do ? most posters aren't going to admit to thinking against the most popular view.

SIL was left half a house (she had already bought half of it years ago.) You were left £50k. Maybe at the time the Will was made the amounts were more equitable? Also DM probably wanted to make provision to ensure you couldn't kick sister out to get your share of the house.

Additionally if sister hadn't lived there there may have been care home fees which would have come out of the cash - so you'd have got less. Arguably this would have made it seem all the more unfair and it doesn't do to dwell on what-ifs, but £50k is a bloody good amount to inherit

YANBU to feel as you do - feelings are feelings and cannot often be helped. YABU to let it effect relationships with sister and nephew at a time when you all need each other.

My DH shared in similar circumstances although his brother was thoroughly 'undeserving' it still seemed like the right thing to do. It was a lot less money.

I can understand why you would feel bitter, but on the other hand:

£50k is nothing to sneeze at. This is a huge amount of money - maybe not as huge as you'd have liked - but it came to you as a gift. That's really not bad at all.

Your sister spent 47 years in that house, 29 as an adult - and presumably all that time she was contributing to the running costs of the house. After nearly 30 years of paying in, it isn't unreasonable of her to think of it as "her" house as well as your mother's.

Did your parents throw you out on adulthood? Because you could have stayed too, if they didn't. You made a different choice, and had a different life, presumably one you wanted.

I think the real problem here is that your mother didn't discuss it with you beforehand. I am in a slightly similar situation, where one sibling was left everything as they have a substantial disability, and while the rest of us have our problems, we've always been able to earn our own livings, more or less. My mum rang each of us when she was making her will, said "I'm leaving the house to [sibling] - is that OK with you?" and we all said sure, no prob, and job done. None of the rest of us got £50k, and I can assure you I am very far from financially comfortable. But I have a good life and can mostly earn a living and you get on with it.

Enjoy your £50k, OP, and let go of the rest.

Something similar happened in DH's family although the amounts were smaller. DH's grandfather favoured one grandchild over the rest and this was reflected in his will. There was no reason for it other than gender. The parents, between themselves, evened it up so it was more fair.

I worry however that PIL (mostly MIL) are likely to go the same way and it would destroy DH's relationship with his brother, which is already strained.

If you and your wife would rather have lived with your mother for 20 years then I can see why you feel a bit aggrieved.

Your mother may not have realised that her flat was worth as much as it was so didn't intend to leave you less than a half share in her flat. Your sisters flat was bought and paid for fairly.

If you don;t much like your sister and have plenty of friends and family to spare then by all means cut her off. If it were me in a reasonable financial position as you seem to be then I would be inclined to make my peace with the inequality and try to let it go.

If you can't then tell your sister you can't get over the unequal split of money and need some time to come to terms with it and will call her again when you have. then you can leave it forever if you wish. It's a shame if the childrne all want to see each other though.

Perhaps your mother didn't really want the family home to be sold, so felt this was a fair way to distribute her money? You say you are upset for the 6 year old about how to tell her nanny left her nothing 50k is nothing? That loses me all sympathy for you to be honest.

How much of that money gets swallowed up in inheritance tax.

A care home for the twelve weeks with cancer would amount to £12000.

Is there other tax to pay on the estate.

I think your sister deserves her good fortune. I think she's paid for it many times over.

Being a full time carer is very difficult.

£50k is a good sum to inherit. How many of us here would welcome that. I've never had a penny in inheritance money.

Don't mention it to your sister. Don't fall out over it. It's really not worth it.

Enjoy your good fortune.

I imagine your sister has done any caring taht was for your mum? And has provided her with daily company until her death?

That makes a difference, IMO

In this situation, if my brother moved in with my mum and cared for her, looked after her in her final years, I would simply Not begrudge him a penny. Even if I got nothing. You got 50k.

Sorry, but thinking this over it sounds as if you need to get over it. Can't you see what your sister has given?

And agreed that it is ridiculous to present the situation to your child as "nanny leaving her nothing". £50k is not nothing.

I thought that also Annie

I bought my first flat 20 years ago for £18k.. £30k doesn't sound like a cheap price for a flat in that era. Of course it had gone up in value over two decades, most property has. So I disagree with those saying the daughter ripped the mother off and got a bargain.

Sounds to me like you need to talk with your sister. There are lots of complexities here, including that your sister lived with and provided a lot of emotional and other support to your mum - I don't think that makes it necessarily unfair that she got the house, and you don't say much about why your sister did this or why you think your mum made these decisions (and it was her money to leave!). I'd have found it really hard to live with my mum, much as I love her, throughout my adult life. Sounds also like your sister needs the money, if she has downsized so as to be mortgage free etc, and you don't say much about whether your sister has other debts/works etc. Life isn't easy for many people and not everything is always known (or that you'd want to share on a public forum). However, going forward, family can be really important - they are one of the biggest joys in my life, despite the tensions I have with my sister (and my mum!). I think you should go round there, and also that you should try and talk about this and understand each other's perspective and try and see if you can agree (from where you are currently) what is fair - it may be that actually she would give you guys a cash contribution to your mortgage (if this is what you want). You may also discover that your sister has carried burdens you haven't known about - or shared burdens of your mum's. It's hard, but I'd try to approach the situation with an open mind and a determination to build a relationship going forward.

Why on earth would you tell a six year old anything?!

I do question your judgement if you are even considering that. My mother will be leaving her grandchildren nothing but a token in her will - DS aged 9 has placed dibs on the PS3 and her computer but I have pointed out that we're rather hoping that Nanny will live long enough for them to be way out of date by then.

My sister married a millionaire - it really isn;t difficult to handle the obvious disparity.

"Some people have more than others. We are lucky that we have enough and so much more than many other people. If you want more "stuff" DS then you will have to get a good job and earn money for the things you want"

There you go, job done.

Don't use your child as a conduit for your disappointment and resentment, she's six she hasn't and won't have a clue about it unless you droop around letting her know it's a huge issue.

I am afraid I think your dsis did the lion's share of supporting and caring for your mother during her life time and her death and as such has been left a fair proportion of the inheritance. Also there are two of you working and benefitting from being in a partnership, your dsis is alone with a child to provide for.

It may feel unfair to you and I would probably feel pissed off too but in my opinion it is fair and I think you're just going to have to get on with it.