Large sum of money being given to sibling

[Zippy27]

To set the scene: there is a 12 year age gap between myself and my brother; I am the older sibling. My brother has had a lot of help financially with uni costs (I didn't go) including rent. I was given 5k from my parents for my wedding 14 years ago. However, my brother's rented accommodation has recently been put up for sale and the landlord has offered it to him to buy. He will have a mortgage but it turns out my parents will give him 90k for the deposit. When I say give, I do mean give - not a loan, they won't own part of the house - he is just being given it. It is half of their 180k savings. Both parents are retired. I have been told that when they make a will, it will state that myself and my brother will have half each of what they have BUT it will be stipulated that I will get 90k before the rest is divided up. However, as this may well be in 20 years' time, this doesn't seem at all fair to me. Who knows what their financial situation will be by then. My Dad justifies it by saying that they weren't in a financial position to give me that sort of money when my husband and I bought our house, which I'm sure is true, but surely this is still grossly unfair? We're not exactly living in a mansion and the house we have lived in for over 10 years still needs a new bathroom amongst other things. Would anyone else by severely pied off in this situation? My Dad explained that it isn't because my brother is "the favourite" (he is and always has been) but because he is "high maintenance". I am so hurt, angry and disappointed that I haven't spoken to or messaged my parents or brother since I was told about this 5 or 6 weeks ago. For context, my parents live across the road. They don't even give enough of a sh to contact me and find out why I have stopped visiting (probably because they know). Would anyone else be upset by this situation?

I'd be upset by it, OP.

But it's going to hurt you more than anyone else if you dwell on it. If this has only recently happened then it's understandable that it's on your mind, nevertheless, a thread like this is only likely to increase the impact of it on your emotional health.

Sorry op but that's really shitty of your parents. Hugs x

Yes, I would be upset. It's patently "unfair". As many siblings, I'm sure, throughout history have said: why should I be disadvantaged for being the good one, while the other gets rewarded for being the opposite? As parents ourselves, we know that different children have different needs; but you're adults now. Your parents have done what they need to do in terms of raising you. All that's left now is time together (hopefully loving and enjoyable) and the matter of inheritance. Your parents are entitled to, and should, treat you both equally and in return expect you to act as the adults that you are.

What does your dad mean by "high maintenance"? Does your DB have specific needs that require help?

In your shoes, I would use this time and distance you have to get to grips with your feelings, and compose a way in which you can tell your parents that what you object to is the differing treatment between you and your brother. When it comes to inheritances where a little money can make a meaningful difference, that adds on a layer - but ultimately it's the same thing. One child always feels the parent loves them a little less than the other. It's a terrible thing you leave your children with.

Helping with university costs is irrelevant. They should do that. It was your choice not to attend.

my parents have given my sister generous, but smaller amounts of money over the years. In the scale of 1-3k. I haven’t felt it was unfair because I knew that if I ever needed help I could ask for a similar amount.

you could never ask them for 90k because they are spending everything, so it’s understandable you are upset. The division is definitely unfair and I would have a hard time not taking it personally.

Of course you are hurt. The 'it's their money, they can do want they want with it' crowd will rock up soon. It's a massive slap in the face. Did you ask why they couldn't split the 90,00 - surely 45 plus the money he is getting from the landlord will cover the deposit.

I think your parents are doing what they can to help each of you according to your needs.

It is extremely difficult for someone single to save a deposit and buy a house on one ordinary wage. You are already in a mortgaged home from the sound of it - and needing to finance a bathroom doesn't compare to trying to get a house.

I think you should take your parents up on their offer to alter their will to give you 90k before the rest of their estate is split. Yes inflation will make it less, yes their entire estate could go on care fees. Perhaps you could ask your parents to look into each leaving their half of the house to you and your brother (with the 90K to you first caveat) and the partner having a lifetime right to reside to make it less likely that the whole estate will be lost to care fees. I would ask them to do this sooner rather than later so it doesn't get "forgotten".

Do you have children OP?

I know many will disagree and say you should treat the children exactly the same but if one of my children was adequately housed and I could afford to help the other to get adequately housed I probably would - as renting is so insecure and expensive these days. Your parents can't afford to give you the same money as they will have no savings but they are trying to even up the situation using their will.

OP, it's their money, not yours. Look at it from their point of view.

They have one child who is happy & settled with a spouse and a mortgage, and one child who will be evicted, but has been offered the option to buy his flat/house if he can come up with the deposit. They have the money available..

Of course they are going to help. Why wouldn't they?

They're doing their best to make it fair by adjusting the terms of their will.

In the end, you are all grown ups, they don't have to give or leave either of you anything. Life isn't fair. They are responding to a child's (in their minds) need as best they can. I think you need to accept that in good faith and let it go.

“High Maintenance” as he is quite emotionally needy. Has had counselling, suffered from depression etc. He lives alone in this house and it’s a 3 bedroom detached, but he is so sensitive to noise and people and life in general that he woild never consider living anywhere attached. This is part of what has wound me up - if he were to buy somewhere smaller then they wouldn’t need to give him so much money, but they always pander to him.

I’d worry that the 90k is only the beginning. What when it’s him wanting a new bathroom? They’ll probably give him more money.

they tried to make it fair in the will - perhaps they should get the 90k adjusted for interest/inflation so that it’s fairer.

He can rent somewhere else and he doesn’t need to specifically buy THIS 3 bedroom detached house - there are plenty of smaller, cheaper place he could buy. He lives alone.

I can totally understand how you feel OP. Apart from anything else, and assuming that there is even £90k still in the pot when you finally inherit, that £90k will be worth a hell of a lot less, than if they were to give it to you today.

I do think it's terribly sad though when families fall out over money, so my advice would be, rather than not seeing or talking to them, to write them a letter expressing your feelings about the matter. Pointing out that you had to work hard to get your own home together, and think it only fair that your DB should do the same, rather than continuously benefitting from your parents generosity, which seems to only be toward him, and not to you equally, which is what a child expects from their parents. I would then suggest as a PP has, that if they have £90k to give away now, that they split it down the middle, and give you half each. That way you can go ahead and get any work done that you'd like on your own place, and your DB, still has a good start on a deposit for his own place.

You might also like to point out, if you do write the letter as I've suggested, that as they haven't yet made a Will, you are concerned that they might give this money to your DB tomorrow, but never get around to making the Will stating that you should get the first £90k, and that should the worst happen and they be killed tomorrow, having handed that money over to your DB, that no one would be the wiser as to their intentions regarding your share.

I hope you can get your parents to see how unfair they're being OP, but if they've always played favourites, then you might just have to walk away, if you feel strongly enough about it.

Exactly this - something is bound to go wrong with the house sooner or later and when he can’t afford it he’ll be back asking for more money.

I am someone that parents gave me help towards deposit and said that I would get less than the others when it came to inheritance (although it wasn't as much as £90,000)

Although I'm the least favourite in the family

Everyone else had houses and a better salary and partners.

Everyone else had marriages which I suspect that my parents also helped towards. Obviously I didn't have a marriage.

Yep, have had one rock up already…

Sorry, I’m not sure what you mean by money from the landlord…

Yes, I have 2 children - girl and boy, but with a much smaller age gap. I can hand on heart say I would never do what my parents are doing, with the one exception being life-saving healthcare costs for either a child or grandchild.

Actually you can't say that.

I know adults who have ended up with mental health problems so as a result their parent/parents end up giving that adult child more financially than their sibling(s).

DH went through this with his DP's, neither the Old Wills or the new one that his sister organised upon their DM's deathbed ever made the stipulation he was to receive the equivalant of the sister's house deposit, despite being told he would.

He tried to speak to his DM about it and the rest of the money sister was absorbing, and his DM just couldn't see the unfairness. She felt it was more about helping the grandkids keep a roof over their heads than being unbalanced between her offspring.

Another example was sister's bad teeth. DM paid for her to have full dentures etc but it went towards purchasing a new motorbike. MIL never saw that, I did on social media, but wouldn't believe DH what his sister was doing to MIL.

Moving forward, it is very likely your DP's will keep handing over cash or paying for your brother's things. If they are like my Inlaws, a lot of guilt was involved (re the bit above about the grandchildren) for SIL to obtain funds.

Can you get copies or photographs of your parents bank account statements? Would they give you PoA or as a secondary signature so you can log in and watch withdrawals? A good friend has just done this with an Aunt and he found large withdrawals being made and being paid to a former cleaner...

Have you considered in time, depending on where you live,that upon the death of your parents placing a caveat on his property? If you can get in writing that your parents intend to balance things out on their death, it gives you an interest in his asset as they partially funded it. Of course you would need to confirm you can do this where you live. In DH's case, the house was long gone and the funds never re-paid back to his parents.

I'm in exactly this situation. Except my brother is even less functional than yours. He doesn't work hard. He has never worked hard. He can't hold a job down. And is extremely entitled. So not even grateful. He comes for a meal and doesn't bring so much as a bottle of wine.
My partner and I work hard for every penny. It grates.

However. It's not my money. I can't tell them what to do with it. I also know the house will fall into disrepair because he can't look after anything. I won't be giving any handouts when my parents are no longer here.

I am not prepared to fall out with my parents about this. My mum has enabled him all his life. She feels guilty that he is how he is. But today he would be diagnosed with PDA - when he was growing up it wasn't understood. My dad is doing it because my mum wants him too.

I can't change what they do. Only the way I react to it. I count my blessings I have a family and a home.

Or would upset me yes.

But more so when they state it's sue to him being high maintenance.

It annoys me when parents treat other kids differently for an easy life rather than parent them.

I'd also be concerned that if he needs 90k for the deposit he will struggled to pay mortgage. That's clearly way more than the 10% required.

The likelihood is he has either asked for the money or discussed it in a 'I need 90k to do this I don't know what to do' sort of way,

I'm guessing you have never asked for money you have found your own solutions and it's frustrating that he gets a free pass in life.

Sil has a similar situation (also younger) her parents have always helped her out /propped her up. It became more apparent after we had kids. With ds they saw him every few weeks (usually due to us visiting) with sil baby they practically lived there for first few years. Sometimes they will give us £50 because dn needed new shoes or a coat (great they want to be fair but it's never our ds first) There's also lots of times they buy dn stuff and not ds too. (But think we don't know) Same with childcare, they are often too busy for us but sil needs them (despite having a lot of help from both sets of grandparents)

It use to frustrate me (on behalf of dh and ds) but I've learnt to accept it's a different relationship on both sides .

Do you need money? Could you ask for a share of your money to reduce mortgage/buy a bigger house?

I don't think they're doing anything wrong really. You are adults not little children so everything does not have to be equal. It sounds to me as if they are trying to support their adult kids according to need.

He went to university and of course they had to support him. It was your decision not to go.

You got married and they gave you some money. Your brother didn't have that because he didn't get married.

Now your brother has an opportunity to buy his rented house or presumably face the upheaval of moving. They are financially in a position to help by giving him part of his inheritance early so they are doing that and changing their will to make sure you receive the same amount in the end. You already own your own home and bought at a time when they weren't financially in a position to help.

You sound scathing about his mental health needs but maybe they have a better understanding of that than you and want to see him safely and securely housed.

To me, they sound like parents who are giving according to need whilst still making provision for fairness. The fact that you brought up university sounds petty and jealous.

Yep this is unfair. Similar thing has happened to my husband.

His brother lives in the family house and it’s in his name. His parents seem to think this is fair because my husband has a house… yes a mortgagee house we bought because we saved hard for it!

They said that my husband will get their other house (the one they live in) when they pass but it seems so unfair that one child gets the “help” now and the other has to wait.

£90k sounds a lot for a deposit but he has probably applied for a mortgage and is £90k short on the multiple of his salary. Or he needs the mortgage to be no bigger than a certain amount in order to afford the repayments. If he asked for help, it would be very hard to say no in this situation I think, knowing you had the money in the bank and could help.

And they have presumably told you about this. Nobody is being underhand about it.

In my experience parents concept of what is "fair" is about equal outcomes not equal inputs. Its similar to those adverts about reasonable adjustments for people with additional needs showing that its "fair" to give a shorter person a step stool to reach something, a taller person doesn't need to be given a step stool as well as they can reach without.

Do you live in a 3 bed house? Do you earn more than him?

They probably want to help him out to ensure he's got a relatively similar lifestyle to you.

I understand your feelings though op. My parents have helped a sibling of mine a lot, and it used to feel "unfair", but as I've got older i mind less, what isn't "fair" is that their key worker job will never pay what my finance job does, no matter how hard they work. I want my sibing to have a good life & they need the money more than i do.