To worry we gave away 100k of my inheritance!

[howdidIgetthere]

My DH thinks I am, but if I'm right then it's in his interest to say that!

Basically, we were in a pickle buying a house last year. We were consolidating houses with my DF to purchase a big house, and hoped that myself of my DF could be on the mortgage or deeds as a safety due to my DF helping with the deposit.

To cut a long story and identifying details this wasn't possible. Neither of us could be on a plausible mortgage, and the lenders wouldn't like us on the deeds either. But we needed a house. So as I was already engaged, we agreed between us that my DF would 'gift' 100k of inheritance to my DH so that he could solely purchase the house, but we would get married beforehand to safeguard my stake.

So we eloped without telling anyone else, my DF gifted the money and the house was purchased in my DH's name only. We had a proper wedding a few weeks after and all is well. As far as I know, because the house was purchased after marriage, I have a stake in the house should we divorce, and can get some of that value back in lieu of my inheritance/not be left with no money and nowhere to live.

However, since the purchase the house has had extensive renovations and its value is increasing significantly. I have noticed that my DH keeps referring to people that the purchase date was back in the summer, months before our marriage. I know for a fact from the deeds etc that the closing date was not until a month after we were married, when the funds were transferred. Before the marriage, the mortgage may just have been accepted, but zero money had been exchanged.

When I ask him about this he says iabu for questioning him, that yes he bought it before we got married ie he's taking the acceptance of an offer on the house as when he bought it. This is obviously very worrying for me, as if he bought it before we were married or some other loophole then in the case of divorce I have lost most of my inheritance and have no stake on the house!!!

I don't know why he is saying this as at the time he agreed it was the best option so that all parties were happy and protected. I have resisted a marital rights notice on the deeds, but otherwise I am still not on the deeds or the mortgage (I don't have a high enough income). So who is BU? Have we been misled and given away my inheritance, or is my DH wrong and for some reason trying to say something that's incorrect?

Did you miss the bit that the op can spend what the heck she likes on her and her children?

I don’t think the op is a fool if this is genuine

she’s gone from a single working parent and studying in debt and with a poor credit rating

to not working, living a very high standard of life and seeing her children also to enjoying the standard of life, studying and able to spend freely.

yes he’s a verbally abusive arse but she’s not exactly in a worse position financially than she was is she? In fact - a whole lot more comfortable and managing to study and improve her career chances

Tbf, with the exception of saying "I do" at the wedding, the OP hasn't actually been a decision maker in any of this.

Her DH decided on the mortgage arrangement.
She was essentially told to rush the marriage to supposedly safeguard the £100k.
She was told to leave her job to look after his kids.
Etc..

She says she argued in favour of the deed of trust etc., but because it wasn't actually her money but her dad's, she wasn't able to enforce anything. She is now questioning how protected she is and trying to find out more.

Yes, the OP has been massively passive, but this smacks of a woman who was brought up in a very patriarchal home where the expectation is that the women do as they are told. Breaking out of the patterns that are laid down in childhood is really bloody hard.

Yes, sadly, it’s true that smart women can be abused too.

But in this story, all three adults seemed to have made some pretty poor life choices, given that (presumably) they have all had access to decent education and significant wealth.

The OP wants to peruse a phd but finds herself a single parent so young and now a full time carer for 5 people instead.

The dad is also reasonably young but pretty wealthy and hands that wealth over to another man without a second thought. How did he accumulate this wealth? He doesn't sound very business savvy.

The dear husband has a high powered job, so again, must have some brains but at some point has managed to have two children with a women who then falls off the face of the earth? Is she dead? A drug addict? His choice of woman doesn't stack up with what I imagine his social circle would be.

How can 3 (supposedly highly intelligent) adults blindly blunder into such a messy situation.

Divorce lawyer here
We/the court wouldn't look at the date of the offer, or even completion, simply on the basis that it was pre-marriage (in your case completion was afterwards anyway, but even if it hadn't been that wouldn't matter).
We'd look at the facts - ie who had provided the money.
in a shorter marriage this will obviously be more important as you'd be expecting to recover more as a result.
In a longer marriage it would all be shared anyway.
Assets are usually only ringfenced if they've been kept separate. Whilst the house is in his sole name, as the matrimonial home it has not been kept separate, plus it couldn't have been bought without you and you put £100k into it. So it would not be ringfenced.

It's a possibility that the older DH has been widowed. Widowers are usually very keen to find a new nanny/housekeeper.

I just am really struggling with the idea that this would happen in modern day Britain in a family with no cultural nuances to take into account.

If the OP is in say her late 20s and her father isnt elderly, just vulnerable, let's say he's late 50s.
Would a young woman in today's Britain really have money passed over her head like that? Would a British man in his late 50s who has accumulated some wealth really truly be that naive?
And getting a bigger house so she can care for him: whatever you think of that concept, it's not something that tends to happen much here. Moving down the road and getting a care team in, yes. But having a daughter with children as your live in carer...Not so much.

Will you give this "high standard of life" shite a rest?

Living with an emotionally and verbally abusive man is not a high standard of life.

Having the threat of divorce flung at you in arguments is not a high standard of life.

Having no independent access to money is not a high standard of life.

Even if the OP is fake, there will be women in comparable positions (abusive relationship, comfortable house and lifestyle, but financially controlled) who are reading this misogynistic bilge about how they should be grateful for having a high standard of life nd applying it to their own situation.

This kind of patriarchal shite should not be what MN stands for.

I don't think I've ever come across anyone so obsessed with another person's thread. You are not coming across as mentally stable.

💯 this ⬆️

@Tierne There are white communities in the UK that have different cultural norms (travellers for example, specific religious groups such as JW). But I agree, for a white British family, the behaviours seem unusual.

Absolutely @Octomore . Well said,

Why is he going on and on and on about how the OP should be grateful for the 'lifestyle' she has. It's seriously damaged thinking.

Yes exactly. A white British man who is not that elderly, with his own house and then a spare £100k on top, is much more likely to make arrangements for a care package and a smaller property for himself. Before gifting his daughter some money.

Good luck OP. Please take care of yourself and find someone who treats you as an equal no matter what salary you make.

@Octomore
To be honest traveller community was one of the first things I thought of. It might explain how he is a businessman without a credit rating as everything is happening in cash.

I agree that it's hard to break out of patriarchal patterns; and of course highly-educated people can be in abusive relationships too.

My point is that a degree isn't just a passport to a higher-paying job. It's a (hopefully) rigorous training in detached and analytical thinking - which can be applied to every aspect of our lives. Including untangling OP's current situation.

'Brains: not just for Uni, for relationships too!'

This thread aside, one thing that MN has taught me over the years is that it is perfectly possible to be in possession of large amounts of cash despite being thick, lazy, ignorant, or unworldly.

People can come by money through many means - luck, connections, inheritance, having the right accent etc. There is nothing to suggest that the dad must be intelligent just because he has £100k. The OP makes no mention of her mum - it could be a life insurance payout on her mum's death, we just don't know.

The world is not a meritocracy, no matter how much we want to believe it is.

A motto we should all live by!

Traveller community would explain the highly patriarchal attitudes as well.

That's not to say it definitely is that, but there are certainly groups within the UK that don't live in the ways that we might think of as 'normal'.

I also considered this. Access to large sums of cash but a chequered credit history?

But then surely the lender would have needed proof of where the £100k came from.

I would consider calling the advice from the broker and the bank into question. It seems negligent at best.

Now thats a fuckup in capitals.
Why on earth did your df help you make such an epic mistake...

Get advice but…. where the beneficiary’s interest (yours) under a trust of land arises under an implied, resulting or constructive trust rather than by deed, the interest may only be protected by restriction, not notice, and again the form RX1 application should generally be for a restriction in Form A. The statement in panel 12 of form RX1 or conveyancer’s certificate in panel 13 must set out how the beneficiary’s interest under the implied, resulting or constructive trust of land has arisen (gift of inheritance from your father to you)

This kind of application is one that relies solely on the fact of marriage or civil partnership and/or divorce or dissolution proceedings cannot proceed unless it is also supported by a statement, or evidence, that confirms the applicant is also a beneficiary under a trust of land and explains how their interest has arisen.

GET ADVICR - strong urging - not shouting!!

My now ex-husband tried to sell land we had purchased during our marriage, into his pension, (prior to divorce, without me knowing) whilst he was having an affair, during my second pregnancy. He didn’t put my name on the deed at the time of purchase 6 months before, as I hadn’t been able to travel to the conveyancing solicitor’s office given my spine had 4 breaks in it. His excuse - you couldn’t sign - well, actually I could if she had lifted a piece of paper from that office to our home, address a return envelope and popped it into the letter box (poor excuse for NOT having it in both our names given the funds for the land came 3/4 from the proceeds of sale from my house and 1/4 from his father. (I purchased my house 8 years before marriage ergo pre marital assent). My lawyer put a notice on the land preventing the sale PDQ when I found out I wasn’t on the deed, through a chance overhearing of a conversation, waiting to be served in a golf club. My mistake, assuming I was on the deeds, not KNOWING I was on the deeds.

But the problem is the OP didn’t put 100k into it - her DF gave it to her DH. The 100k was never OP’s. So it wouldn’t be seen as OP’s contribution, so surely she’s more likely to lose it all if they divorce soon?

It would also explain the cramped unstable living conditions they were living in before, if family had put them up. However I didnt think abandoning your children was looked on well at all in the traveller community so would they really both be single parents? Plus I thought they had intense weddings, so would they really elope?

To have two single parents remarrying is definitely a white British thing.

Who knows. I just cant get my head around how some parts of this are so old school and patriarchal and other parts really modern (blended families).