AIBU to my sister over inheritance?

[LadyDracula]

6 years ago my father died leaving a generous amount to my sister and I (around 35k each) and left a substantial amount (135k) to my two children who are now 14 and 15. It was my fathers wishes for the money to be used towards educating my children as education was something he truly valued, yet at the time my sister and I growing up, he was unable to fulfil.

Fast forward to now, my sister has had 2 children (aged 1 and 3.5). I met up with her for lunch over the weekend for a general catch up and mentioned I have just been buying additional uniform for my Dd14. She said to me that she was looking around local private schools for her son who is due to start school next year and that she wanted to know how much the ‘budget’ was per term or per year. When I asked her what she meant she explained she wanted to know how much money was left for her two children’s education from the inheritance Dad left. When I explained none and that it had been spent (or will be spent over the next few years) on my two dc she went mental and ranted on about how selfish I had been and she had never thought for one second I would spend all of ‘our’ money on my own kids. I was totally blown away and hadn’t for one minute assumed he expected any of the money. My children both attended state primary schools and I only enrolled them at the local private schools for their secondary education. At the time I enrolled my youngest she was only just pregnant with her first child and when Dad left the money in his will he said for X and Y (my kids). My sister was an older first time mother (39) and I suspect my father thought she had chosen a career over a family. I suppose I had that thought too.

My sister left and after ignoring my calls for 2 days has said today that she needs to know my next steps. She went on to explain my best option is to move my children from their current school - including my eldest who is now studying for GCSEs - to a cheaper one and she can have the difference. I told her that won’t be happening and that my children are settled and happy. She then went on that yet again it’s all about my children etc etc.

I have no idea how to make this situation any better and don’t want to lose my relationship with my only sister over this. I am a single mum so there’s no way I could ever afford to subsidise the costs either to appease my sister and give her some money. Equally I do feel awful because I know there’s no way her and her DH could afford to pay for a private education for their children either, and now she feels like her kids have been treated unfairly.

I'm going to go against the grain and stick up for the OP too.

The money was left, named, for her children. Depending on exactly how this was done then as several PP have pointed out this money is not the OPs to share with her sister.

If sister had any thoughts that you should deviate from your dad's wishes then she should have raised it much earlier, not once you had two children well settled in their schools. She certainly shouldn't have just assumed.

And around here, £135k wouldn't quite cover two at high school - cheapest private high school fees are just shy of £12k per year, 6 or 7 years per child depending on curriculum. The other £35k is a red herring as the sisters both got that sum.

Then you can't even if you want to. Even if the money is spare and sitting in the bank not allocated to anything, that money is your children's and you would be breaking the law if you deprive them of any of it.

It would be nice if you can afford to remortgage but if you can't then don't get yourself into financial trouble. Your sister should be angry at your dad, not you.

Morally- YABVU
Legally - YANBU

What a mess. How could your dad do that, it’s so unfair of him. Even without his other daughter having dc, she should have been left 50%. It’s quite a message that your weren’t as valuable.

If the money was left to your DC by name the it’s not even really your money to give to anyone.

I feel bad for your sister but you’re not doing anything wrong from a legal or moral standpoint to say no to her

OP - you’ve been clear enough. The money was left to your children for their education. That is what you have spent it on / earmarked it for.

Don’t remortgage your house. By the sounds of it, and in your situation, that would be foolish and leave you in a poorer financial position.

Your sister is not in a poor financial position. She just isn’t able to educate her children privately, which ultimately was the wish of her father, not you. I’d make that plain to her and be prepared to lose your relationship. Your financial well-being moving forward, and your children’s education, is more important.

Yanbu but you (and mainly your sister) should have seen this coming the second she got pregnant.

Personally, I wouldn’t move them and I would finish their secondary education but move them for 6th form and give your sister what, if anything, if left.

I would not remortgage unless I was very confident the payments were, and would remain, manageable.

I get why she’s mad, but she’s mad at the wrong person.

Read the flipping post...named beneficiaries so no abuse has occured.

Lots here about the relationship with the sister, another vote here for her being a proper cheeky fucker. Do not just give her money or remortgage OP, when would it stop?

What about your children’s thoughts on this? It’s their inheritance after all.

birdiewoof - I am thinking exactly that. My in laws left dh a lot of money, more than being discussed here and it has never crossed our minds to contemplate private schooling ! Our local state school isn't outstanding but so far two out of four kids have done well at GCSE and A'levels. We would rather save the money to help them with first cars or house deposits and improve our home to make it comfortable enough should they need to live with us into adulthood or return after Uni to save for a deposit themselves.

It depends on the wording of the will. It sounds like the money was explicitly left “for the education of Jack and Jill” (OP’s kids). In which case OP has no control over that money. It isn’t her money and she doesn’t have the authority to give any of it to anyone else. She isn’t selfish. The matter is legally out of her hands. It sucks for the sister but that isn’t OP’s fault.

OP I certainly would not suggest putting yourself in financial hardship to compensate your sister for her unhappiness about your DF’s decision. If she was unhappy about the terms of the will she should have contested it at the time. Not years later when most of the money has already been spent in accordance with the terms of the will.

She's trying to steal from minors...

Go back to will. Get a copy if you can. Was it written by a solicitor? If so, your father would have been questioned about his wishes and a decent solicitor would have wanted to cover all eventualities. Consider contacting that solicitor to find out what was discussed.

With this information, contact your sister and say that these are the facts and that you cannot spend money that was specifically allocated for your children in the will on her children. If you want to preserve your relationship with her, you could say that you are willing to remortgage your house and give her 10k/whatever as a good will gesture because you think that is what your parents would have wanted.

You could also suggest that if she is not happy with that, she should speak to a solicitor about challenging the will. Again, if you want to preserve your relationship, you may want to consult a solicitor about this yourself (I think a challenge would be highly unlikely to succeed but you need that confirmed) but that way you can be supportive of her without detriment to your children.

Just thinking that is a way of redressing the balance a bit. You dad clearly didn't think ahead to this situation but if you are able to balance things out in this manner, it seems fairer Your children had the prior need as they were older and you were a single parent whom your dad must have known would struggle to educate them privately on one income. So more money has been spent on them because there wasn't time to invest the money before fees were due. But the remainder of the money might still yield a similar total for your sister's DC in a few years time. If you still have your £35k, could you also invest that and use the interest towards your sister's children's fees in a few years?

IMMORAL

OK so years ago you DF died.
At the time you had 2 DC
Your sister had none and had no intention of having any
Your DF left money to you & DS
You DF left money to your (existing DC) for their education
He left no money to sisters DC as they did not exist. And there were no expectations of any.

Legally it’s clear they you owe her nothing.
Morally I think she is a CF too.

She now has a husband, a home, is financially ok and expects you - a single parent- to somehow stump up the cash.
I understand that you don’t want to lose the relationship, but seriously she is wrong.

This sounds like the dangers of being non-specific and not talking about things at the time.

As it happens, my dear grandfather died at the weekend and my brother took my sister and I aside to talk about what would be happening with inheritance and we were talking about the specifics of what we'd do about some money he wants to go to our kids in future, although it is up to us to ringfence it. Had we been in a position where one of us hadn't had kids but we knew might have them in future I think we'd have made some allowance for that, but as it is we've just agreed certain things, and that changes may be made by mutual agreement if needed.

I understand your sister's anger to some extent, but it was also up to her to potentially say at the time 'I want kids some day, can we put some of this aside for when I do?'

But at the end of the day, she does have to accept it's not 'her' money, it was his and presumably he was clear what he wanted it for, and it sucks for her and her kids, but she couldn't necessarily expect you, without discussing it, to just hold it back for her.

This may be a good time to find a family mediator/counsellor to try and avoid this escalating.

People actually expect a single mum with two kids to re-mortgage her home to pay for her sister's children's private education? Bullshit would you do it yourself, it is easy to say that on an anonymous message board to make someone feel bad, but I don't believe any of you would actually put your money where your mouth is.

That the OP's children got a private education and her sister's won't is her father's fault. Not the OPs.

The OP has don't nothing wrong.

OP your obligation is to your children, do not risk their financial security because your father made a bad decision.

Op,did it not seen unfair at the outset that you had 170k and your sister 35k?

Op didn't get 170k though. The 2 sisters had 35k each. The rest went to the grandchildren. It wouldn't have been OP's to use as she wanted as it was left to the grandchildren for their education.

I'm in the 'sister is a CF' camp.
The money was left to your DC - asking for part of it years after the will was settled seems unreasonable and not something OP could ever have planned for.
It was OPs dad's money. He was entitled to leave the money however he chose.

I am going to speak to the solicitors who dealt with the will tomorrow and ask to arrange an appointment with them to go through everything explicitly and put it in writing so I can approach my sister with the facts.

She’s not replied to my text this afternoon so I’m going to give it a couple of days to do more research, find out options etc and then contact her Saturday.

I was contemplating whether to contact her DH who I usually have a great relationship with, but as I’m unsure how he feels I don’t want to be getting more people involved over such a sensitive matter - although he’s obviously going to be fully aware of the situation.

Money shouldn’t skip a generation like this. If there’d been bequests of a few thousand each there wouldn’t be a problem I don’t think, but your two dc got the bulk of the estate - more than 50% of it even. I’d find that hard to swallow and I’d be wondering what ideas might have been put in my parent’s head to make it happen.

you've done a shitty and selfish thing OP, whether or not it was your legal right to do so.

You knew your sister was pregnant when you enrolled your eldest, and yet you still did it. You purposely spent all of it when the reasonable fair and decent thing would have been to split it in half yourself, and leave 50% for the education of her children, regardless of how many she would have or what her financial situation was.

Your Dad clearly received bad advice and the Will did not reflect what his actual wishes were. The obviously thing for the lawyer to do would be to draft for a percentage of his estate to be held in trust for the education of grandchildren, not naming them specifically.

If you had had a third 'surprise' baby, would you have excluded them from the inheritance because they weren't named?

If you want a relationship with your sister I suggest you take a big step such as withdrawing your eldest, selling your home or making an undertaking to pay her X amount a month while her children are in school. That's what I would do anyway.

I don't think you are under any legal obligation but morally i think the answer is clear.

Agree with the poster that says legally fine morally hmmm.

It's spent now but I can't see why this conversation hasn't happened a lot sooner.

You hadn't spent it when she first got pregnant so I think that's that really it's been done.

It probably will damage your relationship though as with it being cash from her dad not some distant relative it's going to really sting.

Do you have a copy of the will? If you don't you can download it online - think it costs £10.