Wills related are we being unreasonable to leave our house to just one DD

[fortifiedwithtea]

We are mid fifties still have not made our wills. We have 2 daughters. However I have been open with the eldest girl that the house is to be left to her younger sister.

Our DD1 love her to bits but she’s not the easiest of character. I would describe her as highly strung And suffers with anxiety But doesn’t take any medication. She has been with her partner 4 years, he lives with us too. She has one more year of uni. Afterwards she is likely to move to another part of the Country and will most likely have an extremely well paid career.

However, DD2 has a learning disability and is dx with bi polar. She is unlikely to be able to live independently without support. Her greatest fear is that in the future she will be homeless. She has no qualifications and will struggle to get a job or keep it frankly as she has disorganised thinking.

I have reassured DD2 that she will never be without a home. Dd1 has told her quite bitterly in the past that she doesn’t need to worry as shes getting the house.

I went out with DD1 the other night and death came up in conversation because I am not well and I not likely to reach the great age of my own mum who is still going strong at 84.

I am an only child. Assuming my mum doesn’t ever need to go into a home, I will inherit her house. I told DD1 that if I inherited my mum’s house I would pass that on to DD1 and Dd2 would get our family home.

Dd2 said she understood my wishes but didn’t think it was fair.

I want to be open about wills with dd1 because of my experience with my Dad. He was the youngest of 3 . His eldest sister died young. She was also widowed at the time of her passing leaving an only son. His other sister is still alive at 94 and has lived in a nursing home for the past 4 years.My Dad assumed I would inherit the grandparents home and with that assumption put in his will that if my mum and him died at the same time their house could not be sold until DD2 was 25 and then the estate would be split 3 equal ways.

Lesson from that never assume an inheritance!

I was quite shocked at my Dad’s will. He passed when DD2 was only 5. I could have been liable to upkeep a house I could not sell for 20 years! As my mum survived him his entire estate went to her. She then made a new will that everything should go to me..

How can I fairly financially protect my girls?

What if I die within the next few years and my DH gets a new wife? What then?

I do not think you’re thinking clearly about this, and I think you’re dangerously close to replicating the experience you didn’t like with your own father’s will.

Leaving the family home to DD2 is very loaded. And probably not the best thing for your DD2 anyway. Family homes are larger and need maintenance. A better property for someone with a diagnosed MH issue and disorganised thinking would be a smaller, easily maintained property - a 2-bed flat, say, in a small block. Work towards your DD2 living independently. How can you finance or assist with this?

If you inherit your DM’s property, is this actually more suitable for DD2? It would be mortgage free and - probably - smaller? Then in your will you could leave DD1 a greater share of the family home.

In order to protect your own assets if you predeceased your DH you’d need to state that in your will - your 50% of joint property (family home) would be left to the DDs with his ‘life interest’ to stay there.

What is your DH’s opinion on leaving assets to DDs equally or unequally?

That plan is unreasonable, I have dyspraxia and dysgraphia. My brother doesn’t have either and has a PhD. My mum said her will is 50/50 and l don’t have an issue with this

I don’t think you are being U to split assets in favour of a dependent who is unlikely to ever be fully independent. However, I would absolutely not cut out your other daughter completely. I agree re selling the inherited and family homes and splitting the assets that way, much less emotive and as others say, easier for your DD2 to manage a smaller property anyway.

I'm sorry this is vile. You are treating your DDs mental difficulties so differently. Why does DD1s anxiety make her 'highly strung' but you coddle DD2 for her learning difficulties. Sort it out OP.

@fortifiedwithtea speaking as a private client solicitor specialising in Wills, I would seek proper legal advice about this.
Both daughters have issues so it might be better to set up a discretionary trust so that funds are managed for them.

You need to make a will now. It will be best to split your estate equally between your children. It will lead to resentment otherwise.

Not unreasonable at all, and I think your elder daughter needs to grow up in all honesty. Does she think its 'fair' her younger sister has had to live with a LD all her life? For what it's worth, I'm in the same situation as your elder daughter......our family home has been left to my younger brother who has LD. My younger sister (who is also younger than my brother) and I inherit nothing (unless our brother dies first!), just the way it should be!

My grand parents left their house to my uncle.
Not because he's more loved or important than my mum, but because he needed it and she didn't. He still sleeps in the room he was born in, he's never lived anywhere else. Barely spent a night anywhere else, and even then it certainly wasn't in this millennium.
Mum understood, and in fact got a bit upset that Gran was worried she might be upset about it! Of course she wanted her vulnerable brother to be taken care of, why on earth would she want him homeless and adrift (house is lucky is it's worth more than £100k) just to add to her pile of cash and property?
In your shoes, id look after my vulnerable child first and expect my other child to recognise their own good luck.

Just dealing with house/s issue I don’t think it’s a great idea to do this. Far better to allow the estate to sell the houses and the estate then to be split eg 60/40 or whatever split you wish and feel won’t creat family tensions which could be avoided. Don’t land your daughters with a large asset they may not want and which may need to be sold in any even to pay early or any instalments of the estate’s inheritance tax liability.

@GreenTreess

I'm sorry this is vile. You are treating your DDs mental difficulties so differently. Why does DD1s anxiety make her 'highly strung' but you coddle DD2 for her learning difficulties. Sort it out OP.

Agreed, sounds like both your daughters have their own struggles, why are you only sympathetic to one?

Is there likely to be enough in your estate to pay inheritance tax without selling either property?

The thing about wills is that it isn't just about the money. You clearly describe the things you dislike about dd1 when talking about not giving her a dairy share of the will.

There is nothing wrong with treating children with different life expectations differently. Presumably your eldest daughter does not want to see her younger sister homeless when it comes down to it.

*a fair share

DD2 does not need the family home in order not to be homeless. Given her struggles, I would think a small flat would be less stressful due to the cost and time needed to maintain a property. Given that there is a simple other option, this does look you love DD1 less or think she should look after herself - in contrast to DD2. This may not be why you are doing this but it is easy to understand how hurtful this is.

@GreenTreess

I'm sorry this is vile. You are treating your DDs mental difficulties so differently. Why does DD1s anxiety make her 'highly strung' but you coddle DD2 for her learning difficulties. Sort it out OP.

This

Your elder daughter will have been affected by living with her sister. Now you are telling her that she is not getting the same inheritance. I feel really sorry for her.

OP I would really not underestimate the impact that being an anxiety sufferer can have.

i don't think you should assume anything about what their circumstances will be in years to come and think everything should be split equally.

I have a son with autism and learning disabilities and a dd who is very high achieving / no disabilities. Everything will be split equally between both, despite Ds needing care and support for the rest of his life. It just feels wrong to leave more to one than the other.

How can a child with Sen cope with managing a sale and buying a flat without extortionate ground rents service charges, awful dangerous neighbours?

In your shoes I would leave the estate split between your two DDs but with DH having a lifetime interest in the house.

Is it worth looking at whether a Vulnerable Person's Trust would be suitable for DD2?

As a PP wrote, your will is your last message to your DDs. If my DM's latest will intentions come to pass her final message will be that I am good enough to do the grunt work regarding her estate (executor, house clearance, trustee) but it is DB's desire to control her estate which is overriding everything.

If DD2 is eventually in some form of supported living/supported by social services then any inheritance above £20,000 (I think that is the amount) will be taken away and used for her care. You need some specialist financial advice and I would suggest money in a trust fund for DD2. I think you are very naively going ahead with plans which work in your head, based on the feelings you have for each daughter that in practice may not be wise. Really feel for DD1. I also have 2 young adults and we are in a similar situation but will not be making the choices you suggest.

Of course she wanted her vulnerable brother to be taken care of, why on earth would she want him homeless and adrift (house is lucky is it's worth more than £100k) just to add to her pile of cash and property?
In your shoes, id look after my vulnerable child first and expect my other child to recognise their own good luck.

But DD1 does not have any cash or property. She may in the future (these things are never certain), and if that happens the decision could be re-visited. Given that DD1 also has anxiety, it seems a bit rich to berate her for not 'recognising her own good luck'. The situation in your family is not comparable.

oooo boy.....are your daughters not your husband's children? What does he think about your will? I mean yes you have every right to leave what you own where you like but when it comes to the house that he lives in and his own children then its not so cut and dried....come to that depending on how the house is owned, it may not be yours to leave to anybody.
Do not DO NOT consider your mother's house as "in the pot" you have already said she is likely to outlive you.
lastly as has been said, be REALLY careful about favouring one daughter over another for any reason at all.
In fact, give your head a good wobble and think again.

Did DD1 take a back seat whilst you supported DD2 through out childhood too?

You don’t know if you are going to inherit your mums house, it might be eaten up in care home fees, and the most you’ll get out of the estate would be the 23k she’d be ‘allowed’ to keep from the sale (that’s when socially funded care comes into play) less funeral expenses.

Depending on the level of DD2s LD then she, as PP have said, may well not be able to cope with the running of a house and be better suited to a sheltered/warden controlled living arrangement. Giving her a large property could leave her open to abuse financially from ne’r do wells.

DD1 has her own issues which you’ve just brushed off, this is what made me think she’s been overlooked in favour of DD2 all her life and you’re going to perpetuate this on your death.

Is DD2 capable of consenting to relationships? If she is and has a partner at the time of your death or soon after, her having a partner living rent free in your house might not please DD1 massively if she ends up with nothing due to your mum needing care. If you are determined to leave DD2 the house I would ask the solicitor to grant it to her for her lifetime. Then for it to be divided amongst your grandchildren or other family members. If she is vulnerable and has leaning difficulties and unscupulous person might manipulste her to leave them the house. My Dad had some great aunt who had no husband or kids and somehow she had a will done when she was elderly and vulnerable that left everything to the solicitor who wrote it despite being close to her family.