Family business sold and inheritance?

[bowsna]

My dh's family used to have a business which was set up by his great grandfather. It passed down the male line to his dad, who made a decent job out of it, but other factors meant it wasn't as profitable as it was. He warned dh off going into the business. He sold it off as he didn't have a pension and so needed something to live off. Both his parents are still alive thankfully. They live a very nice life, 6 bed detached, daily cleaners, trips all over the world etc.

Each generation going back in his family, left/gave a very nice sum of money to their son to set them up in life. Enough to buy a house and to put the kids through boarding school. But dh's parents haven't done that, and are seemingly spending the dosh instead.

@AlternativePerspective you missed the point of the op. That isn’t what she was questioning.

I do think it depends on things that you won't know about.

The business could have taken a lot of sacrifice and been more like a millstone round their necks. They may have genuinely felt being left that was, not a positive thing. Though they are in a positive position now.

They may have felt, handing that over to DH was not going to be good for him overall. Or good for your dhs children that it went to.

Fact is your dh has benefitted and will benefit, in all liklihood. You also have no idea how they felt about it at the time or what they gave up to run it.

Inheritance is a weird one on MNs, on the one hand you shouldn't expect one & your parents have no obligation to help you but if you are a parent the right thing to do is save for your dcs uni/house deposit if you have spare & do everything in your power to limit your IHT bill for your dc!

It sounds like they spend a great deal of time mentally justifying their decision to keep and spend the wealth that prior generations were able to improve and pass along. I wonder what the grandfather thinks about their failure.

I slightly get your point but it sounds like they’d have to sacrifice some of their lifestyle to give you the sort of financial help you are talking about. They don’t have an income now presumably apart from investments ( currently nosediving probably) so whilst it may be a lovely budget it is, nonetheless a budget they live on.

DH never worked for the business and will almost certainly inherit a lot one day. Maybe they will be generous with your DC, holidays etc or maybe not. Being bitter isn’t worth it.

My own DP inherited three times and spent the lot on having great holidays. DM is now living in poverty ( in terms of income) and we, as her DC are having to support her financially to a fairly high degree. I’m actually ambivalent about this. I’m glad they had fun but frustrated they didn’t have the foresight to see what would happen.

I would be annoyed by this too, both their self-righteous bragging and the fact that they were the ones to take all gains from the business rather than passing it on.

I guess the real issue is that you will have to wait for your inheritance and risk it being largely spent before it gets to you so you can’t send the kids to boarding school/buy a decent house (assuming family help is needed for that) while you’re still relatively young.

So that begs the question of how this worked for DH’s parents. Did FIL get a well paid job in an established family business that he couldn’t have found elsewhere/a large monetary handout when young, in which case DH is right to be annoyed if he wasn’t given the same opportunities? Or did FIL take on a failing family business and sell it while young, using the money to benefit DH through a nice house, good education etc? If so, that isn’t something which could be done twice so more unreasonable to expect it.

I have always thought how ridiculous it is that people 'work hard and make sacrifices to give the children a good inheritance', those children then work hard and make sacrifices for their children, who in turn do the same for theirs. Nobody ever spends or enjoys the money they just squirrel.it away to give to their kids when they die!

My sister in law has loads of money, but she lives as if she has nothing. She wants her children to be given lots when she dies. But her expectation is they will save it so their kids inherit and so on.

Meh, what difference does it make. They're kidding themselves but it's their money so they can do what they like.

Sounds like several generations of entitlement has come to an end. Why do grown adults plan their future on money that have not earned is mind boggling.

Inheritance isn't a right and it's not even your parents ! My mum made her own money and that's fine if she wants to spend it ! So grabby to think any of this is yours to take .

They get to choose what they do with their inheritance the same way their parents and grandparents got to choose. You may not agree with their choices, because you are unreasonably feeling entitled and they don't benefit you, but it is absolutely none of your business.

You should plan your life as an independent adult based on your own achievements, no inheritances from anyone, and if you do get something it is a nice bonus.

I have DP like that OP. Given big deposit by their parents to buy at a time when prices were more affordable. House is now worth £3 million and completely out of reach for most young newly weds. They bought 2 more buy to let properties with their inheritance which have risen in value by 300%.

Other set of parents paid for their wedding and honeymoon. Both sets of GP were involved and provided regular babysitting, free holidays and contributions towards school fees.

Yet they regularly tell me how they did it all themselves and I am not to expect any help at all, they didn’t even give us a wedding present. They’ve never looked after my DC.

Yes it grates, as they have chosen to forget the massive amounts of help they received.

Is the AIBU that your don't think people should spend their own money, that they have earned, on themselves while they are still alive?

Even before the update, it was clearly the fact that they hadn't earned the bulk of the money themselves.

I was also wondering that happened to the daughters and younger sons - or did each just have one son and no other children? Also, is it definitely true that the business was struggling, or did they just see their opportunity to 'cash out', give up working and happily live a privileged life off the back of the previous generations' hard work, whilst barking at the younger generation about how disgraceful it is to happily live a privileged life off the back of the previous generations' hard work? Maybe they saw it that the business represented ongoing family wealth and, in selling it and taking the proceeds, that made it their money alone and broke any claim on it from others.

That said, they are shameless hypocrites - they seem to think that they are deserving but nobody else. It reminds me of (among other things) university tuition fees, when they were first brought in - when the (mostly university-educated) politicians were spluttering indignantly that university was a tremendous privilege and how dare students expect the ordinary, often low-paid, taxpayer to fund their education that would enable them to end up in a well-paid job.

It also irritates me intensely when smug billionaires will proclaim that they don't want to leave their money to their children, as they need to learn to make their own way in life. If you end up with a few millions, it may well be a direct result of your own effort, hard work, sacrifice and risk taking; but nobody can ever work to actually earn or deserve billions: you might have worked hard, made a few wise decisions and/or got lucky and then it all effectively just fell into your lap by default by some quirk.

They can't have it both ways, though: gratefully taking what was handed to them on a plate and then complaining about others who would like (not even necessarily expect) exactly the same as they had.

I agree with PP about immigrants, too. So many people are blue in the face about 'these people' wanting to come and take, when all that they (like me) 'did' to get to the UK/other wealthy country was to happen to be born here to parents who happened to be born here and so on. Either that, or they were immigrants (or the children of immigrants) themselves!

It's the easiest thing in the world to tell everybody that we should all be happy with our lot in life, when your lot just so happens to have been the (comparative) equivalent winning the jackpot in a lottery.

We have enough to live a life of relative comfort AND help our children, so of course we will. Why wouldn’t we? It’s irrelevant how we came to be financially comfortable.

There is still a six bedroom home as inheritance , I think you are in danger of sounding grabby

I have always thought how ridiculous it is that people 'work hard and make sacrifices to give the children a good inheritance', those children then work hard and make sacrifices for their children, who in turn do the same for theirs. Nobody ever spends or enjoys the money they just squirrel.it away to give to their kids when they die!

I agree with you when people live like misers and only ever hand down savings that are barely touched or properly enjoyed by anybody, but it doesn't sound like OP's PIL are living such a bad life, with their 6-bedroom house (just for the two of them?)

Also, a large part of most people's wealth is their home. If you're in the position to be able to get yourself an amazing house and come to own it outright, you can then pass it down the generations (at least one child in each), who can then get full enjoyment out of it without its intrinsic value ever needing to be touched (save in the event of care fees and the like).

We have enough to live a life of relative comfort AND help our children, so of course we will. Why wouldn’t we? It’s irrelevant how we came to be financially comfortable.

That sounds like common sense to me. I get that people don't care about strangers (immigrants, politicians pulling up the ladder for future generations etc.), but I'm staggered by the sheer number of people I read about on MN who have very wealthy parents who could greatly help out their own children without it making much difference to them, but just don't bother.

Even if you don't care about charity or anybody else, why wouldn't 'being selfish' with your money naturally include using it to help YOUR OWN children in life?

I think the issue is here that there is no business or inheritance for your DH.

I think they are cheeky saying they don’t believe in inheritance when they have inherited and making out the money they are spending was their hard work, especially when generations before have worked for the money they now spend/enjoy.

Hopefully you will have some left over money but don’t bank on it.

My dh parents also have big house and lots of money and I'm glad. 1. If they need care they will be able to afford it and 2. If they don't need care they can enjoy life and not rely on us.

I like them but I don't want to look after them.

Also they've lent us money when we've needed it.

Just try and look at the positives!

@bowsna

Sorry!! I posted far too soon, and seem to have lost what I was posting.

Anyway. When we were having Sunday lunch with them the other week, they started saying about how many good decisions they had made during their lifetime which afforded dh a nice childhood. They were saying that they are enjoying their money now because they are the ones who made it. They said they didn't believe in hand me downs from previous generations and the youth of today are lazy and expect things given to them.

Dh and I have done alright for ourselves, but they live in a far nicer area than us. We live very frugally compared to them.

So the point of the post was to say. The fact that they were bought their house outright is also frustrating when they say they don't believe in inheritance. It's as if, every generation worked towards making sure their offspring had comfortable lives, but suddenly they think it was their own decisions which led them to their lifestyle. AIBU to think that being handed a family business counts as inheritance?

If they say it again. I would ask sincerely which charity they gave the money made from sale of the inherited family business.

It’s not unreasonable of them to enjoy their money and not live on a pittance to enable grown offspring to inherit.

But it’s disingenuous at best for them to pretend it’s all self-made when they were the beneficiaries of 6 generations exactly what they’re sneering at.

(Btw, your husband may not stand to inherit, but he’s benefited at least peripherally from this)

They are hypocrites for suggesting they created all their wealth as it seems the business they inherited was worth something when they took it over.. whatever it’s worth now should technically be for future generations as it has been in the past.
However, as with all these things it’s very unreasonable to expect any inheritance yourselves, if your dh was sent through private school /boarding school, his education already cost a smal fortune and hopefully it gives him the tools to make his own money

Your results are messed up as you posted too soon.

They’re hypocrites. It’s amazing how people handed things think they earned it and look down on others.

Inheritance doesn’t work anymore. People used to have much shorter life expectancies. When the owner of all the family wealth dies, they might have only had 2 generations beneath them. Now, they die at 86, and have 4 generations beneath them. Having inheritance from wealthy parents is no longer a route to financial security, as the parents will most likely hold onto their wealth until their children are well into their 60s and possibly retired themselves. The need for the inheritance has come and gone, and so it gets passed down to the youngest generation instead.