Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

DP’s mother being a CF

144 replies

annoyedofrichmond · 29/08/2018 17:29

I’ve lived with DP for about ten years. When we met he had (student) debts and no job, just left university. I owned a house (privileged background, I had a trust fund but always saved it and bought my property) and a sum in the bank through saving. Trustfund stopped when I was 21 but I was working by then.

DP’s sister is going through her second divorce and, as with her first divorce, coming out with very little. The house has not gone up in value in the few years they’ve had it so breaking even on selling it, and not many assets.

DP’s mother has just asked me whether DP and I have wills. I said yes. She then wanted to know what would happen to my house (she called it DP’s house) if DP and I split up Hmm . I just said we weren’t splitting up! She then wanted to know what would happen if DP died Shock because her and DP’s dad are his “legal next of kin”.

WTF?

I think this has come about because of SIL’s
sad predicament but who asks questions like that?!

I started to remind her the house was mine before we met but then shut up, it’s none of her business is it?!

OP posts:
Holidayshopping · 29/08/2018 21:03

So are you or DP going to say anything more to her to clear up what she’s thinking?

Nacreous · 29/08/2018 21:06

Depending what the values of your estates are, it’s worth considering marriage from an IHT perspective, as it essentially doubles your allowance in cases like yours (where everything goes to the remaining living partner).

Seeingadistance · 29/08/2018 21:06

I don't think that parents ever expect to inherit anything from their children. You hope for your children to outlive you, and to be perfectly honest, I'd consider it quite traumatic not only to have to experience the death of a child but then also to benefit in any way from that death. Most people would see that as entirely outwith the natural or desired order of things.

Anyway, this thread has reminded me that I need to make a will! I'll phone the solicitor in the morning to make an appointment.

Dollymixture22 · 29/08/2018 21:08

She sounds awful!!

Cheeky question now from me! Could your other half not leave something to his neice/nephew? In a trust fund? You mentioned his sister is a single mother

cheesefield · 29/08/2018 21:09

I think your DP needs to have words with his DM and manage her mad expectations.

billybagpuss · 29/08/2018 21:11

I think my answer to the original question would have been 'Oh DP has a house??? he never mentioned it! I'll have to ask him about it tonight'.

and left it at that. Yep CF

Morethanthisprovincallife · 29/08/2018 21:13

Can we clarify she isn't worried about her son.

She is wondering what happens to his assets on death.

letsdolunch321 · 29/08/2018 21:17

Instead of questioning you about your property and wills etc, she should be educating her daughter on what men she should be hiding from 🤣

Original poster
annoyedofrichmond · 29/08/2018 21:22

Yes after all expenses. We haven’t got a funeral plan or anything.

Will look into the tax thing. Never occurred to me.

OP posts:
Original poster
annoyedofrichmond · 29/08/2018 21:24

Could your other half not leave something to his neice/nephew? In a trust fund? You mentioned his sister is a single mother

She didn’t have children when we made our wills. I’ll mention it to him!

OP posts:
Jux · 29/08/2018 21:30

Love billybagpuss's suggested response. Can you tag on the end of it a request to know what's in their Wills, too?

Heartily endorse what Morethan said.

ReanimatedSGB · 29/08/2018 21:34

OK, it sounds broadly as though she was rude but with non-evil intentions. Is this fairly typical of her? Would you say she's more silly old bat than interfering grabby monster? If you get on well enough with her, you might like to reframe it as she inadvertently did you a bit of a favour, as some of the things PP have suggested are clearly going to be useful to you.

Original poster
annoyedofrichmond · 29/08/2018 21:35

Holidayshopping I’m not, DP might but probably won’t because he’ll forget!

DP makes more money than his Ps. I think they do think money when they look at him because of that if that makes sense. It’s unusual in their family to have higher paying jobs. He was the first to go to uni, first not to leave school at 16 I think! But I agree, nonparent should think to inherit. It’s an odd thing to say.

Might try and find the thing about wills on YouTube that was on the tv this morning. See if I can find the trigger lol!

OP posts:
Original poster
annoyedofrichmond · 29/08/2018 21:41

Would you say she's more silly old bat than interfering grabby monster?

It annoys me that when we meet and eat out they always leave it up to DP to pay. It’s the whole money thing mentioned above, sort of “you have more money, you pay”. I’ve always found that rude.

But the inheriting thing, I can’t believe they are wishing their son dead or anything!

OP posts:
MarthasGinYard · 29/08/2018 21:50

'It annoys me that when we meet and eat out they always leave it up to DP to pay. '

That's rude

Do they not even offer?

NameChange30 · 29/08/2018 21:53

Does your partner only have one sibling (the sister you’ve mentioned) and does he dislike her? The cause may be worthy but it seems strange that he would leave everything to the institution and nothing to her, if you died before him. Even though she didn’t have children when he wrote his will, it just have occurred to him that she might have children in future.

Then again his parents sound a bit strange so maybe there are weird family dynamics that you haven’t gone into and that’s why he isn’t leaving anything to any of them!

NameChange30 · 29/08/2018 21:54

it must have occurred to him

Original poster
annoyedofrichmond · 29/08/2018 21:58

Do they not even offer?

Never for a meal, sometimes for a cup of tea in a cafe!

OP posts:
Original poster
annoyedofrichmond · 29/08/2018 22:09

it seems strange that he would leave everything to the institution and nothing to her

Yes, only one sister, older than him. When we wrote our wills she wasn’t married, didn’t have children. Then when she did have one she was married and doing ok, then she divorced but married again very quickly and had another. They’ve just split up recently.

Also, when we did them DP didn’t have the amount of savings he has now.

Until today I had forgotten all about the wills. Don’t suppose DP has thought of them either. Circumstances do change over the years so I suppose it’s goid to review wills every so often. The original motivation in our writing them was purely so DP would get the house if anything happened to me. That still stands.

OP posts:
HollowTalk · 29/08/2018 22:25

I think you've got a really nice, decent guy here, OP, and you're clearly mad on him. I would marry him!

NameChange30 · 29/08/2018 22:30

Well, yes. Romance aside, inheritance tax is 40% of anything above the threshold (currently £325k), so marriage would avoid that.

There are other implications too:
www.citizensadvice.org.uk/family/living-together-marriage-and-civil-partnership/living-together-and-marriage-legal-differences/

Puzzledandpissedoff · 29/08/2018 22:47

If we both die, everything is split down the middle ... and “DP’s half” goes to DP’s beneficiary (which is not his family, it’s an institution)

Worthy medical institution or not, I hope his family don't know about that!! Grin

Then again, perhaps he should tell them, if only to avoid them polishing the stairs ...

SabineUndine · 29/08/2018 22:51

Wonder if she’s thinking about her own old age?

Original poster
annoyedofrichmond · 29/08/2018 23:43

SabineUndine Maybe. Maybe she’s thinking where she could go if FIL dies before her as her daughter (lived near her, we don’t) no Ionger has a house. Doesn’t make sense why she asked about wills though.

OP posts:
Inertia · 29/08/2018 23:52

Leaving the cheeky PIL out of it, it seems pretty hard-faced for your DP to leave his sister and nephew out of his will entirely if there’s no history of major disagreement between them. Leaving money to a medical institution is very worthy, but he should consider leaving something to his sister and nephew- it could make a huge difference to them.

I would be very very wary of leaving a ‘share’ of anything- house, total estate value etc- to an institution or charity. Many organisations have stepped up their assertiveness in terms of getting legacies as quickly as possible- the last thing your sister will want to contend with is a pushy organisation wanting house sale proceeds straightaway.

Your partner should consider leaving a set amount to the medical institution, paid for from his savings.