To think I won’t get my inheritance?

[Islands81]

I discovered a few days ago from my db1 that my df is planning on selling one of his houses, and splitting the money between me and my 3 brothers. It will likely be around £40-£50k each. The money will only be given in order to put towards a deposit for property though. Which is totally fair enough, however I can’t see that I’m ever going to be in a position to buy a house, whereas my brothers all already have or will be able to.

DB1 - age 40, currently trying to get a mortgage. No DC although he lives with his GF who has just started her own business and has one DC. He would get a mortgage just in his name based on his earnings from his own successful business which he’s been running for about 10 years.

DB2 - age 34. No DC and single. Was given the deposit to buy a small repossessed flat by my DM (divorced from my DF) over 10 years ago. He has a tiny mortgage and is looking to buy something bigger.

DB3 - 27 years old and the most sensible of the lot of us. Has a good career and long term girlfriend. They have just had an offer accepted on their first property near London.

Then there’s me. 38, 2 DC both with disabilities. Single parent (100% of the time). Dd1 is Home educated. I have ME and whilst sometimes I can be ok for a few days or if I’m very lucky, a few weeks at a time, a lot of the time I am completely exhausted or asleep. As in, I will pop to the post office for example, and then need a nap. It’s really boring and drives me mad. It’s very difficult to plan anything as I never know how much energy I will be able to muster. On the occasions that I do go out for a whole day, I’ll be completely wiped out for at least a week afterwards (literally unable to move and aching all over).

As you can imagine, with all this going on it’s very difficult for me to get a job. I am not reliably well enough to even take on very part time hours. I do run a small business which makes a little bit of money but it’s something I can do as and when I’ve got some energy spare (online selling). Also my credit isn’t brilliant from years of having to manage on practically nothing.

My family think I’m just lazy and a scrounger, and that I just need to ‘get off my arse and get a job’. We’re not particularly close and they have no idea how much I struggle day to day. So AIBU to be a bit sad that my brothers are all going to be given a massive leg up onto the housing ladder, but I’m very unlikely to be in a position to get my own place? I’m not even supposed to know that this money exists at the moment, as my DF hasn’t mentioned it to me.

His money, his choice as to what it's to be spent on. He obviously thinks property is a good investment hence his choice to gift for house deposits.

It's not his fault your siblings made different choices and haven't get had children.

You don't have to buy right now. Presumably he would just keep it safe until you are in a position to move to a cheaper area or manage some form of work.

Im not surprised you are pissed off. They call you lazy, they sponsor your brother for uni but let you struggle...not good parents.

Of all four of you, you are the only one with dc and they disparage you. How is their relationship with said gc?

missing the point but i thought inheritance came along after the person died and that anything before that was a gift ?
people talk about getting /expecting it translates a grabby to me normally, but op you really are having a rough time so i have full empathy with you.

I think it's away to stop inheirtance tax, by giving it early. You are right though fecketyfeck21 It is a gift and, as a gift should have no conditions attatched. Anything else is an investment.

Aargh woken up with a hideous lurgy today (another fun thing about ME is a weakened immune system). So will try to answer any questions but my head is super fuzzy, apologies if I miss anything.

Yes I claim benefits - WTC, CTC, CB, HB, carer’s allowance and DLA for one dd. And have a small income from my business. I am very lucky in that I have a HA house in a nice area where we are very settled and happy. We got this house through MARAC because we were in danger from dd’s DF. So at least we have a secure place to live and are not paying crazy private rental prices.

I have lived here for 5.5 years and my DF and his partner have been here briefly once. They are not really interested in my DC. About every other Christmas they will take them somewhere like the panto (they have done this 3 times in their life times). Other than that they have only seen them if we have gone over there, which is maybe a couple of times a year (it’s always a bit weird because his partner isn’t very welcoming). They live 40 mins away. So no, he has no idea what my life is like. To give you an idea, last time we went over dd2 couldn’t remember his partner’s name. She’s 8 and they’ve been together since before she was born.

And to answer the question about what I did before DC, I did a full time office job, but that was 15 years ago. Since then I’ve been working from home, and I did my degree. I do a bit of private tutoring in my degree subject and I have been looking into qualifying as a teacher, but I know I’m not well enough to do a PGCE at the moment.

My sympathies, OP, as I come from a similar family. What worked for me (able-bodied, bought abroad pre-referendum) possibly wouldn't work for you. So you need a cheap property for cash and are quite rightly worried about Brexit: this rules out abroad (too uncertain) and England (too expensive). I looked into Mountain Ash some years ago back when those £45k properties were going for £17-25k, and it appeared to be a crime-ridden shithole (happy to be corrected by anyone who's actually been there in person). This leaves the cheapest properties in Scotland and NI, with the advantage that Scottish flats are freehold and independence will possibly allow Scots to escape from the Brexit morass before the English do. If you could buy a property big enough to rent out a room, that would give you an income that would replace some of the benefits you would lose, though I believe Universal Credit is quite favourable to owner-occupiers, so there's no reason you couldn't start a claim after buying the property.

The first thing to do, which might be tricky, is talk to your DF and find out if this offer is genuine and extends to you as well as your siblings. Broaching this tactfully does not sound like it would be easy. But if he genuinely wants to give you money for a property, the problem is not insuperable. What might be a problem is if he's making buying property a condition of the gift in order to exclude you, meaning that he would just move the goalposts if you were actually in a position to buy: controlling parents tend to do this kind of thing. However, his belief in real estate as an investment seems to be sincerely held, so perhaps the offer, such as it is, is genuine. Good luck, whatever you decide to do.

May sound out there but have you thought of those static caravans in holiday clubs? You could rent it out and use it as a holiday home.
I will never be able to buy a home but I'm considering one of those holidays.haven.com/ownership/searchresults/index.aspx?park=DF&priceLow=10000&priceHigh=250000&p=1&l=5&VNF=null

A static caravan would be an "asset" which would leave the OP ineligible for means-tested benefits, without actually being an asset in any meaningful sense of the term. OK, I'll give you the one about rental income, but it would have to be one hell of a lot of rental income to replace the benefits package the OP is getting now. That idea's a non-starter IMO.

@charlotte thanks for the candid review of Mountain Ash, I’ll rule that one out then. I don’t think my dad is trying to exclude me, he just genuinely wouldn’t see any reason why I can’t just go and get a full time job. He’s a right wing daily mail reader if that helps.

A caravan to rent out mightn’t be the daftest plan, although the caravan itself would be pretty worthless after about 20 years.

Yes that did cross my mind re the caravan. That’s my problem, I guess that’s why they call it the benefits trap.

@Islands81 Would your Dad mind you buying in and moving to a cheaper area, e.g. Scotland? If not, it's worth looking into. If you bought somewhere that needed a bit of work (not a huge amount obvs) you could apply yourself to the "renovation", and, hey presto, you're a "property developer": guaranteed respect from every Daily Mail reader!

If, on the other hand, he expects to dictate where you live, his conditions might be impossible to meet.

You're in a catch 22. Any money he gave you would mean you lose those benefits, which would mean you had to live off the inheritance and it would be gone. If he knows that, it may well be part of his reasoning. He sounds quite logical (rather than emotional) and he may be thinking that he'd rather buy houses with his inheritance than replace benefits, although that is a cold outlook.

They don't sound like they're the most supportive of you in any sense. I hope you've got other sources of support.

It's not an inheritance, it's a gift, and I can see why your father is doing it now (presuming he is not ancient and fairly healthy) with regards to inheritance tax planning. However, you haven't heard this from him, he has yet to sell the house anyway, so you have got plenty of time to think about it. (And it may not happen.)
I think it is fair to split the money evenly between siblings. Our family has been in a similar situation, and I think it's unfair to penalise one recipient because their life/finances are better set up than the other recipients. I think it's wrong though, to attach strings to any gift, whatever it is.
Being given a large sum of money is going to play hell with your benefits. You sound as though your accommodation is secure though, which is all to the good. If the money is forthcoming it might be better in some kind of trust set up to benefit your children.You would need professional advice on this.
You really need to get checked out re your ME in case it's something else that could be easily treated.

Regarding benefits, it's worth remembering that someone in the OP's position can have up to £6k in "savings" (i.e. their current account balance) before they start to lose benefits, and each child can have £3k in their own account before it affects benefits. Therefore, a single parent with 2 DCs can have £12k between them, quite legitimitely, while being on benefits. That's enough to buy a very basic house in France (for example) including fees and taxes, provided nothing catastrophic happens to the exchange rate between offer and completion. The OP is fortunate enough to have an HA home, but it's worth considering for others who are renting privately. I'm not saying it's easy to save £12k or that it's much of a reward to then choose between the risk of being deported from the continent after Brexit and the risk of being left destitute by UK welfare reforms and our predatory private rental sector, but many of us are in a situation where hard choices are all that's left, and we have to face them dispassionately and constructively.

To get WTC you have to be working at least 16 hours a week at minimum wage or more. Therefore with a big deposit, it's not out of the realms of possibility to get a mortgage even if in a couple of year she as you gradually increase your hours. Maybe that's what your dad is thinking.

Brexit shouldn’t affect the house buying really it’s more if you want to visit or work...it’s only going to f up my life and my family really and all of us living abroad.

OP, I think some people here are giving you a hard time. I totally get where you are coming from. 'Fairness' is a relative term. It depends on how people choose to define it and I'm with you. The monetary meaning of the inheritance value is determined by the situation of the recipient. So, the same sum of money inherited by you has a different monetary value to that inherited by your brothers. It could be argued that levelling the playing field of life is fairer and as such, you should inherit more.

Charlottejbt is spot on about benefits. And if your HB stopped, you would have to claim UC when your money dropped below the £16k upper limit, and you could end up worse off.

Buying property that you don't live can also jeopardise your benefits, even if it is overseas.

You also have to be careful how you spend the money. If the DWP think you've blown the money so you can get benefits again, they can treat you as though you still have it.

Shared ownership is a good way of dealing with a windfall. The DWP don't regard buying property as "intentional deprivation of capital" and you can still get housing benefit/UC for the part you rent. Under housing benefit rules, the bedroom allocation didn't apply but I'm not sure if this is the case under UC. If this applies to UC as well, you could buy a house bigger than you need.