Inheritance or gift?

[YellowWolf]

My MIL recently passed away & left DH a sum in the region of £80k. He says she left it to him, & that it's not "the inheritance" as his father is still alive. We have been married for more than 20 years & have children. I know if we divorced the money would be included in the marital assets. I believe the money is ours. AIBU?

@YellowWolf

Yeah it's definitely an inheritance.

But only the most tight-fisted, mean-spirited arsehole would keep the money to themselves after being married 20 years.

I think this would make me SERIOUSLY reconsider the marriage.

Me and DH had been married 4 or 5 years, when he got an inheritance of £15,000 in the late 1990s, from his gran, (probably about £25,000 in today's money,) and he put it into our joint savings account, and booked us a cruise for our birthdays - they are a week apart.

He also bought me a bunch of gifts, including some lovely jewellery, a new pushbike, some new clothes and new shoes, and an expensive perfume that I wanted but wouldn't have bought myself. And he left the money in the joint savings account.

It didn't even cross his mind to keep the money to himself, and we had only been married 4 or 5 years, and together for about 7 years.

So YANBU to be pissed off at him keeping the money, and to think he should share it.

Well technically it is an inheritance if it was something she left in the will, rather than a gift she gave before her death.

But I agree with others, it's a red herring. When you marry you jointly own your assets (assuming your in the UK) and the starting point is to split everything - including both gifts and inheritances - 50/50 in the event of a divorce.

I find it quite odd when people keep separate finances after marriage. I mean, DH and I do have bank accounts in our own names that we keep a small amount of money in, but we know everything is really jointly owned.

legally it is your husbands money whether an inheritance ( which it is) or a gift
once an inheritance or gift has been spent say on repaying part of a mortgage or an extension it becomes a marital asset but it is his and would remain his in the event of a divorce if unspent provided adequate provisions had been made elsewhere though it might mean a lesser share of equity in house / pension etc
80 K is well below the inheritance tax threshold and is DM limit can be transferred to his DF and combined later
I think you need to discuss this but maybe you have jumped gun by immediately try to veto something you need to find out more about it, has the guy at work had 2 failed start ups or do you mean DH has previously invested in things that didn't work out
I would not invest in someone who has failed twice but if it is a different venture with different guy it might be OK it just needs research and some external advice on how to reduce risk to the investment

Gifts are given before death and subject to taxation if they are gifted in the seven years prior to the death of the person giving the gift, surely? Anything after death is inheritance, and this is in her will?

@thecatsthecatst Is this a start up he wants to do himself, or investing in someone elses? Have you proposed other investments? Does the investment come with any bigger lifestyle changes? E.g. would he be changing his job or considering going part time as a result?

Investing in someone else's; I've read the pitch doc having worked in the industry, and it's not great.
Yes I have suggested other investments (have been mentioning it for ages actually, no response)
No lifestyle changes.

Definitely his, it's his mum' money she chose to leave to him. You don't even have joint finances.

You can be annoyed at his choice of career, not believe in his investments, but that doesn't make the money yours to decide what to do with it.

It wouldn't cross my mind for a second to tell my oh what to do or not to do with any money he might receive from his parents in life or after death.

If it was the other way around, and you wanted to spend the money to do something that meant a lot to you, would you be happy for your oh to tell you to forget about it because the money was as much his as yours?

OP, I had a thread recently because my husband is blaming me for his wittering away his inheritance, nearly as much as yours has inherited.

It’s made me question an awful lot. To be honest, I wouldn’t have cared how he’d spent it but he hid it from me as if I was some gold digger and is now angry that it wasn’t put to good use. But he didn’t want to hear anything I suggested. It was enough to change our lives and now we can’t.

My view is he could have done whatever he wanted with it but it should always have been with open and honest conversation, and respect for me and DD when doing it. It’s completely changed how I see him because it’s the idea that he didn’t trust me.

It shouldn’t matter how either of you come into a substantial amount of money, that really is a red herring. You’re either a team or you’re not.

@swingofthings

"If it was the other way around, and you wanted to spend the money to do something that meant a lot to you, would you be happy for your oh to tell you to forget about it because the money was as much his as yours?"

Already been there: every bonus and redundancy money I've ever gotten has been used for family holidays and house renovations. I've even given him chunks of cash.

@ILoveEurovision

I find it quite odd when people keep separate finances after marriage. I mean, DH and I do have bank accounts in our own names that we keep a small amount of money in, but we know everything is really jointly owned.

This. ^ Never understood it - ever - why people have separate finances when they're married (and often when they have kids too.)

@YellowWolf

Already been there: every bonus and redundancy money I've ever gotten has been used for family holidays and house renovations. I've even given him chunks of cash.

Words fail me. I don't know what's going on, but this is not a marriage I would be happy to be in. Him keeping HIS money from you, then YOU giving him big chunks of YOUR cash?!

What a bizarre set-up. Honestly makes me wonder how people can call themselves 'a couple,' let alone a married couple, when they are like this with each other regarding finances.

OP

we can't afford to lose this much money

How can you not afford to lose some money which has fallen out of the sky, unplanned? Surely you have not taken on financial commitments on the basis of "Well MIL will die soon so we'll be okay repaying it"?!

Well, as per my statement upthread about how I see inheritances - in our relationship, THIS decision would be a shared one. Deciding to invest - my decision. Working out how, and how it would affect our lives - shared between us.

That doesn't help though - I guess the bottom line is that you need to get him to agree that he won't risk more than you can lose, and have a talk about the principles.

DH and I are always going over hypotheticals for our future, to test each other out on what we think about scenarios.

Ok if he’s done this twice before and lost money I would absolutely be against him using a single penny of it on start-ups. I’m a family pot person but so is DH so not an issue for us. But he’s just chucking money away. 60k is a lot. Also if you have looked at that pitch and poked holes in it, it should be enough. And frankly is you have always put money you receive in the pot its not too much to expect from him. Christ he needs to give his head a wobble.

@FuriousVexation
How can you not afford to lose some money which has fallen out of the sky, unplanned? Surely you have not taken on financial commitments on the basis of "Well MIL will die soon so we'll be okay repaying it"?!

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Because DH doesn't have a pension and we may be older than some of you. Investing money which doesn't come to fruition is a gamble I'm not willing to take. We can use that money to live on later in life (I have a pension which I guess I will be sharing with him!)

We have separate finances and my inheritance was most definitely my money. I paid the mortgage off with some of it and then decided what to do with the rest. It was never up for discussion nor expected to be.

From what you've written, he didn't intend to put all of it in the business, just a chunk, the issue is you saying no to him doing what he think his a good investment.

A better comparison is if you'd recieved £50k in redundancy, decided to take a year off work and retrain for 6 months for what you felt would lead to a better job you'd love, and he told you absolutely not, that the training was useless and wouldn't lead to a better pay and that redundancy money was as much his as yours.

If you say that you'd think that would be acceptable, then there are control issues in your marriage.

My mum recently decided she wanted for my health's sake to get fit so she bought a year's gym membership for me for £600. She didn't buy one for my hubby. My hubby didn't ask me to split the £600 with him

You honestly think you can compare a £600 gym membership to £80k in cash

@thecatsthecats

My perspective on inheritance is that it goes from a person to a person - it only goes to a couple or family if left to be split between them jointly.

I've told my husband that any inheritance is left to me I will make the 'big' decisions about the money, that it will mostly be spent on things that benefit us both, and that we can agree the specifics together.

Completely agree!!

I have a pension which I guess I will be sharing with him!

Well it's simple then - just tell him that he can invest in what he likes, but you WON'T be sharing your pension with him any more than you need to.

Thank you all, some good perspectives here.

I think it depends on your finances to some extent - if your house is crumbling then it should go towards renovations, if you have money to burn then there is less of an argument against the start-up. As you say he has no pension I would be very annoyed he isn't saving it for your future.

My husband has received a couple of inheritances - they went towards the mortgage/family holidays etc with no pressure from me. He wanted to buy an artwork in memory of his gran - I had a say, then he picked something we both liked. That's how it should be.

Two issues here.

He is wrong about inheritance. It was bequeathed in a will so its an inheritance. I'm not sure why he's saying "gift" entitles him to keep it to himself. I'm sure I've seen some comments on divorce threats that it's inheritance that can be ring fenced. ( I have to say I don't know if that's true!)

As for whether he is mutually entitled to keep it to himself, I'd say it's informed by the financial dealings between you so far. Some couples prefer separate finances for various reasons (me and my husband have semi-separate finances because I'm frugal/a saver and he is much more profligate) that might suit them.

But it sounds like your husband it's very "what's mine is mine and what's yours is mine too". He's had no qualms about sharing your bonuses, redundancy packages, future pension ... I bet if you inherited or won some cash he'd expect to share that too. So I'd say he's already set the parameters and it should be considered a shared asset.

My PIL were like this. My FIL was a good earner, paid for everything including private pension and other investments for MIL. MIL never worked. She did a degree funded by PIL, tried working and decided it was too much, well, hard work. His parents died and left him some money, he shared it all. Her parents died and left her some money, she kept it all to herself and told him it was none of his business! What a cow!

Agree that it doesn’t make any difference if it’s a gift or inheritance. Are you in England or Wales? Just asking because under Scots’s law a gift or inheritance is excluded as a marital asset - it would be regarded as your DHs money. Though I do think with an amount that size there should be a discussion and hopefully agreement of how to invest/spend.

If you have seperate finances, then it's his surely?

Or are finances not really seperate?

Morally entitled I meant to say, not mutually!

Also meant to say H and I gave both inherited and ploughed it all into paying off mortgage and them moving house/renovating. I've paid more technically but it's just "our home", no more mine than his.

Shouldn't make any difference as far as you're concerned it should be a joint asset