To think inherited money is not family money

[Viviennemary]

There have been a lot of threads about partners not sharing their earnings when the other person earns less or is a SAHP. And of course money needs to be dealt with in a fair way and shared with the other person having access.

But what about inherited money. I think that belongs totally to the person inheriting. Of course if it was a huge sum you would probably give something to your partner but I certainly wouldn't think it was half theirs.

@timeisnotaline

With inheritance, someone chose to leave that to you, and if you let someone else just take it, it feels like you've trampled over their wishes. Really? If my parents left me money, ‘me’ would be a shortcut for ‘us’ and they’d know it would be used for my family. I would be doing exactly as they expected, not trampling all over their wishes.

If you chose to spend it on things that benefited more than just you, then that would still be you in control of the inheritance.

If your partner expected to share in the inheritance and decided how you were going to spend the inheritance, that would feel wrong to me. It should be the recipient's call, and whilst they might ask for opinions, it should ultimately by the recipient's decision IMHO.

Inherited money would be joint money here. What would I do with a load of "my" money other than spend it on my family? I could probably manage to spend a few hundred or even a couple of grand on hobbies etc. But an inheritance at the house price level? Treating that as individual property just wouldn't make sense to me.

Really? If my parents left me money, ‘me’ would be a shortcut for ‘us’ and they’d know it would be used for my family. I would be doing exactly as they expected, not trampling all over their wishes
And that's fine if j deed that's how your parents sees it. They don't all do. My parents will be leaving their assets to me, and up to me how I spend it. It won't be left to 'us'.

All the financials are shared in our marriage. Joint account, which everything goes into, is 'our' money.

Both of us are savers not spenders though and big purchases are chatted about so we've never had any friction at all over money.

He did bring significantly more into the marriage though, so if we ever divorced I wouldn't expect half of that and in my mind his funds pre-marriage are his. :)

My DP inherited some money fairly recently and has decided he wants to use it to pay a chunk off the mortgage or to help us move to a bigger house in a few years. I tried to persuade him to buy something for himself as well but he doesn’t want to!

When I inherited money from my father I paid off the mortgage and bought a new family car (which we still have) as well as a car for my mum. And spent another £2k or so on some new furniture for the house which we (DH and I) chose together. The rest went into savings, some joint, some just in my name, some of which has since been spent on holidays etc and some is earmarked for DS while at university.

DH and I have a joint account and pay into it proportionate to our incomes but don't have joint finances. He pays for some things, I pay for others and it all balances out in the end.

But anyway yes I think it's the money of the person who inherited, but it's good to use it for the benefit of the whole family. I don't think the person who inherited should squirrel it away when there's a mortgage to pay off or a car needs replacing.

For us it would be spent on the family, but with the inheriting person have the bigger say in choosing what to spend it on (eg. Pay off mortgage/ home improvement/ investment etc). Whatever it was spent on would then become a family asset.

DH and I have been together for 23 years and have three children together. Of course inherited money is joint money, how could it possibly be considered as anything else? There is simply no concept of 'my money' and 'his money'.

The person inheriting has somewhat more say in how the money is used (for example, when I inherited from my DF, I wanted some of it to go towards a very special family trip in his memory), but only on things that are to the benefit of our family, especially the children.

Family money. My DP inherited money last year from one of his parents its contributing a fair chunk to the deposit for our house.

@PunchyAnts

When we married, we made a vow that, "all that I am I give to you and all that I have I share with you". It's not half theirs - it's all ours.

I was going to say this too!

We've had a few inheritances over the years and it does depend on what 'stage' you are at in your life .... when my DMIL died we used the inheritance to invest in a time share type holiday (obviously we have both benefitted from that), when a relative in my side died it was invested in savings in 'my' name - the same when a relative on my DH's side died, I have recently been gifted a large sum which went into 'my' pension fund ... (we paid our mortgage off some time ago from income & sale of a previous property when we moved to a much cheaper area).

Obviously the long term savings/pension income will benefit us both in the future... the only issue that might arise is if we divorced, it could then get messy - we have roughly inherited similar amounts so I would hope that it could be split 'equally' .... but who knows? We also have very similar 'spending' habits ie; the idea that one of us would buy something 'extravagant' is totally alien to both of us ... we are boringly frugal. I can't imagine how I'd react if my dull, sensible 60 year old DH suddenly announced he was going to buy a sports car for example . In theory he also could afford it with his savings .... as could I if I wanted to.

I'll never understand these marriages/families where your money is yours and mine is mine and we will each pay this and that and ill lend a tenner off you. You must really not trust or even perhaps plan on being in your relationship until death do us part huh

Nothing to do with trust as we are joint directors of our own company so our finances are linked in that way. We just genuinely don't care who pays for what and we don't keep tabs. It's worked fine for us for over twenty years so why would we change.

I'll never understand these marriages/families where your money is yours and mine is mine and we will each pay this and that and ill lend a tenner off you. You must really not trust or even perhaps plan on being in your relationship until death do us part huh
You can be married and be there for eachother no matter what but still care to remain a level of independence within the marriage.

I like to make decisions for myself and would hate to think that I have to pass everything by my OH first. I'm married but still my own person

@dontdisturbmenow

I'll never understand these marriages/families where your money is yours and mine is mine and we will each pay this and that and ill lend a tenner off you. You must really not trust or even perhaps plan on being in your relationship until death do us part huh You can be married and be there for eachother no matter what but still care to remain a level of independence within the marriage.

I like to make decisions for myself and would hate to think that I have to pass everything by my OH first. I'm married but still my own person

Me too. I have no need to pass everything by my husband because our money is shared freely. I don’t need to ask to access his greater financial resources.

We aren’t married yet, we’re living as a family and have a child. If either got inheritance it would stay in our own name, in our own banking/savings account, but would be family money. We use our money as family money, and don’t have feelings of “ownership”, because we are a family unit with a child we both have parental responsibility. But we are both clear in whose money is whose in reality.
We’re both agree once we are married (after Covid, basically) finances will be truly joint in name/reality as well as in the way we spend them.

Inherited money would be joint money here. What would I do with a load of "my" money other than spend it on my family?

Agree. Realistically for lots of people it isn’t a question because the things they spend money can’t be easily separated into his and hers.

Obviously it’s different for some blended families, but for most people any extra money is easily earmarked for replacing a boiler or a new house or children’s needs.

I have no need to pass everything by my husband because our money is shared freely
But ultimately he knows what you spend all your money on, including presents for him.

And what happens if there's only £100 left and you want to spend this on a wedding present to a friend of yours. Wouldn't you ask him if he might need some of that money too?

This is a very personal question to answer and depends on each persons circumstance.
I will never inherit anything from my family. In recent years I've lost grandparent's but they lived in council houses. Any money they did have was used towards funerals and headstones. The same will apply with my parents when they go.
My DH's family all own their homes. An inheritance he had years ago was used as a deposit on our first home.
Another inheritance a few years ago, a couple of thousand, so not mega bucks, was used to do a few necessary jobs around our house that we hadn't had the money to do and he used around £500 of it to buy something he really wanted (but unnecessary) that he otherwise wouldn't have had the money for. I wouldn't begrudge him that.
If it was a bigger inheritance, I know that he'd prioritise us and paying our mortgage etc. Before all else. But on the whole, I would leave it for him to decide, maybe drop a few hints here and there though

It would be joint here too. I think it can depend on each family though.
DH owned a house before we married, he signed over the deeds into joint names after we married. He's also a much higher earner than I ever will be.
He will never inherit anything though whereas I am likely to inherit a sizeable sum so I would never keep it to myself - what would I do with it anyway? Anything I want to spend 'big' money on is for us as a family.

I would share with my DH in terms of joint things like house and kids. But ultimately decisions about how they money was spent would be down to me as my parents would want it.

I like to make decisions for myself and would hate to think that I have to pass everything by my OH first. I'm married but still my own person

We share money (each have our own accounts too though) and I've never asked my dh if I can spend money on something. Perhaps it depends how much spare there is.

Would be family money here, both ways.

And what happens if there's only £100 left and you want to spend this on a wedding present to a friend of yours. Wouldn't you ask him if he might need some of that money too?

I think if you've literally only got £100 left if you are both sensible it won't get spent on a luxury. But if you have a high income with significant savings you never need to have this discussion, at least, not about £100. So there's an implicit assumption that neither of you are spending significant sums of money on 'treats'.

I think it depends. £1000? Sure, use it to treat yourself. £100,000? No way you should keep that all for one member of the family.

The reason answers differ to this is that people have very different nature relationships. And people often struggle to understand that all relationships are not like theirs.

People in long term, trusting, first marriages which are straightforward, with no children from other relationships or complications, often share all their money. Decision making about big spends, like other things is about team work. Because there is trust and each act for the family unit this works well. Each can rely on the other not being selfish and spending on themselves beyond what might be reasonable, or engaging in large spends without discussion...it’s not asking permission, it’s just discussion and reaching agreement.

But lots of people aren’t in relationships like this. They are in insecure relationships which might well be temporary. There has been no long term commitment. Or they might have a scenario where there are children from other relationships who are either still young or grown up and they want to ring fence some money for them rather than have it in a current family pot. Or often there is mistrust about money in the relationship. One person either has historic debts or isn’t good with money or is selfish and if the money was shared, might choose to spend on themselves on large items and without consultation. Or there simply might be tax reasons not to share.

Most people seem only able to picture their own type of relationship and what they would do with an inheritance.