Step mother gifting half brother his ‘birth right’ inheritance

[Undertherainbow00]

I just need somewhere to vent - I’m sure I will be shot down for being unreasonable but maybe someone will see my point of view or will enable me to view this through a different lens…
Family history in brief - step mother has been in my life since just before I turned five (I’m now 43) and she and my father began dating. My parents marriage broke down because of his alcoholism but being the 80’s, the judge decided he could still have my sister and I every other weekend. As a side note, step mother was eight years younger than my father and was approaching her 21st birthday when they got together. She too had a problem with alcohol but they masked their problems to the wider outside world… Her parents were not happy that she was dating an older man who was divorced with two children. However, as time went by, her parents (mainly her mother) warmed to my sister and I. When I was fourteen, my father and step mother had their child, a son. I should add that at this point neither of them drank but my father still had his uncontrollable temper that was often directed at me. She actively encouraged his discipline methods but would also be there to comfort me through my tears.
I fell pregnant at sixteen and to my astonishment both my father and step mother were supportive of my choice to keep the pregnancy. However, it could been seen as fulfilling a prophecy of their making… Problem child, pregnant at sixteen. I would just like to add, any problems I had were directed at myself - eating disorder, self harm and suicide attempts.
I completely got my life together once I was pregnant - worked and set up a home on my own.
That was all many moons ago now and since then I have made an attempt to improve my life chances. I returned to education as an adult and I have a career. However, at the ripe old age of forty three - I have never owned or have been in a position to save a deposit for a house.
Step mother engineered hers and my father’s will like this - their house split 50/50 her share to my half brother and my father’s 50 % share split three ways between all three siblings. Fair?
Anyway, her parents died several years back and left her a significant inheritance. She bought her two siblings out of the parents house as she didn’t want to sell it at that point. Today she has told me that she is selling it as my half brother is very anxious about approaching thirty without owning his own property. She is gifting him the entire proceeds of the house sale - a minimum of £500,000. I just sat there listening to her monologue of how much of his income is wasted in rent - I really can’t relate can I?
She waffled on that it was his birth right as they were his grandparents.
I feel SO angry as their property was bought from the sale of my parents house - so by that logic, my sister and I should have a greater share of their house.
My step mother has always spouted that she loves us all the same but words and actions are completely at odds with the reality of what our lives have been.
I feel bitter that I have forgiven them for their appalling behaviour when I was a child and I have never shared my experiences with my half brother. I have stood back and watched him have everything in life that I didn’t but this has really rocked me and I feel terrible for feeling like this. I am jealous that he will have a home of his own as I fear I never will.
I apologise for this ramble but if you got to the end - thank you! It was cathartic to just get it out of my head!

Sorry just seen your update - this wasn't at all clear in your original post, hence the responses you've had.

So yes, not unreasonable on the financial aide but also totally reasonable to still feel so hurt by the past. Good luck working through it all

A fair world?

I think a big part of the problem here is when someone claims to love their step children the same as their own, but their actions prove otherwise. It would be better to not make that claim if it isn't true. It just hurts children when the truth becomes apparent.

In a world where each person has two parents to inherit from.

I know this is legal, but don't understand why people think it is fair. There's a shared asset and three beneficiaries. 3 children, 3 way split would be fair, surely, unless there are other complications such as a child who will always need care, or a child who can not expect to inherit from anywhere else.

This is where the rubber meets the road...step families are biologically agnostic, 'families' in all senses until it comes to* *inheritance. This feels problematic for OP because she had been led to believe that she was an equal member of this family and she is now discovering she is not and rather that biology does in fact trump all.

The arrangement is perfectly legal and logical but devoid of emotion. It is not the kind of arrangement one would see in a family. Ask yourself, in what other family would treating supposedly equal siblings so differently ever be considered reasonable?

From what OP has said, her mother has no assets to will anyone anything, as the assets she would have been entitled to were lost when she fled the marital home, which had been partially funded by OP's maternal grandparents, as a result of DV.

OP, I disagree with earlier posters, YANBU.

In pretty much every single blended family. Look at any thread discussing wills.

This is not only common but what is advised every time.

But that would have been split according to their divorce settlement. So what has that got to do with your SM? You are looking to fault her, but you have no grounds for that. She may love you but you are not her child, you have your own mother! Her parents money is nothing to do with you. I think your attitude is just disgraceful. You are bitter about something, these people are still alive!

Utterly irrelevant what goes on with the other parent. When you have a lifelong blended family where you consider all children part of that family and the family has been blended since the children were very small then you split equally between each child.

It might be fair, but it’s unpleasant. Your SB does all the eldercare tho - result.

I'd talk to a solicitor about whether you could contest this, based on where the money originated from.
Having seen your update, I do think it's very unfair and the family home should be split 3 ways. I do think your step mum is entitled to leave her parents money to her son though.

In theory the OP ALSO gets half and a third though!

Son - half from his mother, third from father
OP - half from her mother, third from father
Sis - half from her mother, third from father

Overall all 3 children should inherit the same percentages, if OP’s mother cuts her out or has less money then that’s not the step mother’s fault.

It al sounds a horrible situation for your mother.

Assets not split fairly because she wouldn't stay with an abuser?

@Lizziekisss I don't have stepchildren either, and this kind of situation is the reason I will never remarry. I could not bear to have someone else take away the property I have worked so hard for from my children. I don't think it matters that he won't inherit from OPs mum as she isn't holding a joint asset with his father. I think I mentioned I do know a blended family where the couple have two children together, and the mother had two children from a previous marriage. They have all been together a long time and would not dream of doing anything but an equal division between all four children.

Yes, that's something to consider - don't be running after your step mother and father and doing all the caring if they reach old age. If you aren't a 'real' daughter to inherit her assets or for your father to insist on more equitable treatment, then you aren't the one who should get saddled with their care. Your brother can do it all!

Honestly, if I was the brother id give you and your sister a bigger share of the family house to even things up a bit. I can't understand siblings who don't do this tbh.

Your step-mum is a bit of a hypocrite with her claim of loving you and your half brother the same. I think that's probably a really common, and maybe necessary, fiction for step parents when there is a mixed set of children in the family home. She ought to have the insight and respect for you to have been more honest by now, though, given you're in your 40s. She is tactless and either oblivious or a bit mean to talk to you about your brother's situation the way that she did given your own position. She and your father both sound pretty inadequate as parents to you and your own mum was presumably pretty similar if the reason for your poor start into adulthood is down to your childhood.

So I see why you'd like a little of the boost that your brother is getting. But your step-mum's actions in gifting money to your brother aren't unfair or particularly unreasonable. You weren't her child. You have a mother and father. You wouldn't expect your mother to leave money to your half brother, would you? Your parents were the ones responsible for ensuring your childhood was good and for providing support now.

@whumpthereitis @WooNoodle How the hell do you know she is getting inheritance from her mother?

Her dad has three children, so one is going to get a 66% share of his estate, and the other 2 are getting splitting 33%. Yeah that's really fair.

Caveat, I'm not a money grabber or a selfish twat. Our will is a mirror will, so if one of us dies, it all passes to the other. My DP has a child, I don't. If he dies before me, she will still eventually receive 50% of our estate, even though everything passes to me. If I die first, then my sister's, or their children will also receive 50% when he does. See, fair.

If anything it sounds like a problem with your parents divorce settlement, rather than what the step mum has done. Does she experience domestic violence or abuse from your Father too?

Nope.
They are blended but she Is not her child. She spent barely any time there.

Step mum wouldn't have had a say I how OP was schooled or raised etc
Her child is her priority.

Its brilliant that OP was under the illusion that she was equal. What a brilliant Job Step mother did

But she is not her child and its again naive to belive she is in the same standing of the baby she grew, birthed and raised every day

My mother was a victim of domestic violence but was expected to stay in the marital home until the divorce was finalised and financial settlement agreed. If she left beforehand she would be penalised - the latter happened as it was intolerable

I don’t understand why the OP’s mum left the marital home and therefore losing her right to any claim.

was the dad still living with them until the divorce was finalised? Isn’t this unusual?

Yes, so well put. Your story makes me so sad, @Undertherainbow00 . Your poor mother, and you and your sister. I don't have practical advice right now, but you have every right to feel angry and hurt.

OP - let it go, if you want to be able to buy a house of your own then do it on your own.

Her dad has three children, so one is going to get a 66% share of his estate, and the other 2 are getting splitting 33%. Yeah that's really fair.

No, that’s not the plan. Her Dads three children will each get a third of his estate, it’s just that one of those children will also inherit 100% of his mothers estate.

Her Dad only owns 50% of the house. He doesn’t have the right to decide what happens to the other 50%.

I don't disagree it's common. What I take issue with the fact that step families often feed children this notion that the step family is a 'family', that all children are equal. They aren't, cannot be and in my view it's best to simply be honest about that rather than mislead.

I can't imagine wanting my assets to go to someone else's kids, no matter how much I might care about them. In that sense, I agree with the SM in this equation - I'd do exactly the same. However I wouldn't mislead any child into believing I cared about them anywhere near as much as I do my own flesh and blood. I couldn't be complicit playing out some multi-year charade of 'nuclear family life' where unrelated kids 'play happy families' together and grow up believing they are all siblings on equal standing.

If I'm reading it correctly I think people are misreading.
I think what OP is saying is that when her dad died the stepmum perhaps sold the house she was living in & bought her siblings out of their share of the grandparents house (step mum's parents).
So by selling now & giving her son the whole lot (I don't know where she's going to live unless it's with her son in his house), it bypasses her completely.

I might be wrong of course!