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.

The will wasn’t poorly drafted for goodness sake!!!! Even if it had said ‘to be divided between X and Y or equally between any other grandchildren’ it STILL would have gone to X and Y. There WERE no other grandchildren when he died.

So the money was for X and Y. And it was earmarked and spent. The sister was stupid to expect money off her niece and nephew a few years later.

I would have thought that the money would have been better spent on funding university education as your children could probably have good got A levels at their local secondary school. However, it really is the fault of your father who should have put a clause in his will saying the money was earmarked for all his grandchildren, including any future ones. You may have more children yourself so, if you've spent the whole 135,000, there would be nothing left for that one either.

I hope you get some clarity from the solicitor OP. What a difficult situation.

@Andro you did answer my question to OP.

The money should have been divided equally between you both in his will. I'd be awfully hurt if the total sum of my parents joint estate favoured one sibling over the other.

I don't think it's fair to dismiss the sister as huffy or grabby. She was expecting there to be a Grandad's Education Trust Fund to pay school fees for her DC and has just found out that it doesn't exist. I think in the same situation most of us would be upset about it

@Andro you did answer my question to OP.

Hazards of posting on a public forum, people will respond.

"The money should have been divided equally between you both in his will."

Why? People can leave whatever they want to whomever they choose. There is no "should" about it.

The OP and her DSIS were left equal amounts.

The two GC were also left equal amounts.

The other children did not exist, the dsis was single, AND had stated that she didn't plan to have any children.

There was no inequality at the time the will was written or executed.

Olennaswimple not upset enough to suggest children should be removed from schools and sisters house should be remortgaged just so her kids dont have to attend a state school.....
I'd understand being hurt and angry at the father about the will.... but taking it out on OP and her kids is grabby and huffy

If the op were to give some of the money left to her dc to her sis for her dc’s education, could her own dc later due her for depriving them of some of the money that had been left to them?

Just wondering as even if some people morally think that the op should share with the sis, if she were to share and then remortgage to balance the amount out, she could then find herself liable to pay back even more to her dc who could rightfully say the money had been left to them... not a lawyer but it’s certainly something the op needs to check out.

Also - have I missed who the executors were and if they have any thoughts on this? S/he/they are the ones that should have thought anought doing the deed of variation if allowed when sorting out the estate if it was agreeable to all - say a trust for all gc, either limiting it to half for the dc of each sis (sobif one had one dc they would have more towards that education whereas if they had 3 dc they would have to split the half into 3. And if sis had no dc then it would revert to the original gc to use for education. Or however they decide to do it).

I'm with you OP. Don't see that you can rectify this and totally agree your DF's will is shit.

That said, I'd say this is going to change your relationship with your DSis for the long term.

I'd understand being hurt and angry at the father about the will.... but taking it out on OP and her kids is grabby and huffy

People do funny things when they are upset and hurt. Particularly when it involves the death of a close family member. Possibly it makes DSis feel that she was the second ranked daughter, possibly she has always felt like that

Assuming that DSis has previously been a sensible person, I would chalk up her reaction as being human. Surely, on reflection, she will agree that expecting the OP to pull her DC out of school and re-mortgage her house is a silly suggestion. But, to be fair, there isn't really a good answer here, short of OP winning the lottery and giving he sister most of the money

This is one of those threads where I feel like I'm banging my head against a brick wall. Some people are being downright awful towards the OP. (@WendyCope I'm looking at you, Instant karma's going to get you indeed! )
OP, you've done nothing wrong, you are not selfish, please don;t remortgage your house! Your sister is a CF, and it'll never be enough for her.

As others have pointed out, this is very dependent on exactly what the will states. It is not clear at all whether this money has been left directly to the OP's DCs and she needs to clarify that ASAP (which it sounds like she is planning).

It is a very difficult situation and I can see entirely why both parties are struggling. The sister may well have expected that the money was to be split and that's why the subject hasn't come up before. This could be because she has just assumed that is the case, or she knows how the will is worded. It is remiss of her to not raise it, yes, but we don't know what she knows and what she assumes.

Either way OP, you need to tread carefully here because this could easily destroy your relationship with your sister. While you may not have done anything wrong (again this does depend on the phrasing of the will) morally her take on this is totally understandable.

Best of luck sorting it out.

It wouldn't matter if the OP put the actual Will up.

People would still want to go on their feelings and what they think the law should be rather than what it actually is.

Get proper legal advice OP and then leave your sister to decide on the monetary value of your relationship.

Am surprised at this thread, I have always thought of MN as a bit smarter than the general population, but apparently not.

Actually @PennyMaudauntsLadyBrain ‘I don’t doubt had there been the 4 grandchildren at the time he died it would of been split’ is what OP said about that, so as you can see I’m not making any assumptions here.

We don’t actually know whether the money can be split or not yet, OP has refused to answer the many questions in the actual terminology of the will, you can be named in one but unless the money actually is to be kept for them in their own accounts with a stipulation it only be spent on education then actually legally their mother can do with it whatever she pleases with it.

That is quite surprising snowball28, do you have an authority for that?

In my humble opinion OP your dad left the money for your kids end off! If someone is left an inheritance it’s theirs .. unfortunately your sister either chose to have /was blessed with kids after your dad passed. The money is rightfully your kids as it was left for them by their grand dad whilst he was of sound mind in his will. Your sister has no right to this money. Morally’s .@&£( !

I kind of see why your sister is upset and feeling hard done by but, if I understand the will correctly, there isn’t actually anything you can really do about that money. The money was left to your children for their education - if this is the case I don’t think you have either the legal* or moral right to give it to your sister for her children’s education. The fault here lies with your father who should have made arrangements for any change in offspring or left your sister a note explaining why he isn’t able to do so.

If you as a family earn more than or similar to your sister’s family you might consider offering to subsidise secondary school for her two to some extent as an act of generosity commensurate with the generosity your father showed your own children. That would be an act of kindness, though (as was your father’s act towards your children), not an obligation.

I think, given she was pregnant when you were starting to look for private schools, you should have foreseen this to some extent (not her expectation necessarily, but that there would be a feeling of a lack of balance). But your sister seems far more “to blame” in not addressing it IMO.

*I’m not a lawyer and don’t know the wording of the will so I don’t know if the money is legally your kids’ or yours.

You can't leave money to children not yet in being
What would have happened if your sister had never had a child? There'd be money in limbo in perpetuity waiting to educate children who never came or some other circumstance where ni cousins went to school.
I'm fairly sure any legal advice your sister could take will make this clear abd I suspect that is why your father structured his estate as he did.
Maybe your sister needs someone who isn't you to explain it to her

I have to say that this £135K would have been one of the very first things I would have thought of as soon as my sister announced she was pregnant.

Couldn't agree more, if her oldest kid is 3, then 4 years ago you should have stopped spending that money and had the conversation about the child's rightful inheritance.

Surely you know that morally you owe her half and should never have spent it all until it was clear she wasn't going to have kids.

All the PP might be technically correct that as it was left to your children then legally its theirs etc. But your dc are old enough to understand and I'm sure they wouldn't feel comfortable £66.5k jointly better off than their cousins. It's a huge amount of money OP, I'm just so surprised that you thought it was OK to spend it all without any consideration of your niece/nephews.

Your sister is not a cf, I would be every bit as aggrieved with what you've done.

You have to make amends in whatever way possible, even if it does involve remortgaging your house. It's not such an amount of money that you can't pay back before you retire, and presumably in any case you can downsize when kids have moved out and probably be mortgage free somewhere smaller.

But you must rectify this as the resentment will almost pass down to the next generation of both your kids.

Of course not @IAmNotAWitch she hasn’t answered therefore this is all speculation and possiblities until she does and I would need to actually read the will not hear it through third parties, terminology is everything.

I worked in probate many moons ago before I had the children, so I’m basing my opinions of what I learnt then.

I’m getting confused about the timings. If your sister wasn’t even pregnant when your father died there is no was she should expect any money. Also the will states the money is the children’s. Not ops not her sisters so there is no discussion about it. It’s unfortunate but the sister has to just accept it.

I'm with @incywincybitofa on this.

We had a similar situation in that in order to come under certain limits, my grandmother (not yet deceased), gifted each of her grandchildren and great grandchildren a sum of money.

While my sister had started her family much younger, at the time she had 3 dc to my 4 and was a single parent to her family got 4 sums while mine got 6. She was furious and felt it was completely unfair that I got 'so much more' than her.

But you cannot plan for 'what ifs'. It would have been better if your dad had simply split his estate 50/50 and allowed you both to do with it as you see fit, whether that be invest in education, invest for a return or spunk up a wall. But he didn't and I don't think you should be made to feel guilty for the life choices your sister made.

If the shoe were on the other foot I am sure she would feel the same but you will never know.

snowball28 My apologies I should have been more specific.

I was requesting authority for your statement: "...it only be spent on education then actually legally their mother can do with it whatever she pleases with it".

Now, Equity was a little while ago for me, but I am fairly sure that a Trustee/Executor "doing whatever they please" with the funds of minor beneficiaries under a Will would be a breach of fiduciary duties? The law is, of course, always changing so I could be out of date. Hence my request for authority.

Of course this all hinges on exactly what was in the Will. However, we can only go on what the OP has actually stated which is that the OP's children had a sum of 135k shared between them by name for the purposes of their education. If this is the case, the OP cannot dip into those funds for any other reason - it may be that the children could have the funds released to them for other purposes.

Again, I am frequently wrong about many things, but I am fairly sure about this based on the information the OP has provided.