Realistic for SIL to rely on inheriting mother's London house

[Opalfleur2025]

SIL is 25 this year and told me she plans on "winging it' through life like her father. What her father did was that he got 100k out of the divorce settlement (despite not working through most of the marriage but he did buy a house jointly with MIL) and then moved to an Asian country where he has a new wife.

I think she is saying this because she knows that MIL would pass the whole house to her which I am fine with. She lives at home and earns a modest amount every month writing online i.e £1k per month. No plans to move out or increase earnings, and limited potential as she has no gcses

I am interested if this is realistic. I read that care can cost up to 65k per annum so assuming MIL goes into a care home for 3 years, that would only be around £210k? House is a 3 bed victorian terrace in zone 3 london so worth around £600k today so there should be plenty left for SIL? MIL's mum died of dementia and I suppose these things are hereditary.

I am a fan of Gary's economics and his view is that for poorer people who own homes (where they don't have other assets) all of the assets will be absorbed in retirement or end of life costs. MIL doesn't have a pension other than state pension and she is self employed (but her profession is under severe threat from AI and she is in her 60s). I know Gary's parents lived in London (owned a house that is pretty much identical to MIL's house) and so probably so did his grandparents? Yet according to him, there was absolutely no inheritance even if they did own their homes.

I also expect that many older people may sell their houses to pay for ancillary medical costs due to long nhs waiting lists.

DH and i own our home in London and we are making provision for our old age so inheritance not a concern for us.

She's extremely privileged to be able to live in a £600k london house despite earning so little and having no GCSEs. Unfortunately, I think having such a privileged background has given her a warped view of life

That's not privileged. Those were ordinary family homes when the parents of today's adults bought them. Nurses and plumbers and teachers and all those ordinary workers bought them affordable. Millions of us grew up in those London family homes. A lot of us can't afford such large ones as we grew up in because prices have gone doolally. (We are in terraces instead of semis or semis instead of setacheds or moved out altogether...) But that doesn't make it a "privileged background".

You should look and see what sells for that much these days. It's insane.

As far as we’re aware sil hasn’t said anything about getting all the inheritance , it’s all on op and her surmising, sil probably said she would ‘wing it’ due to probing questions from op,

Exactly!

I doubt she's said anything about moving in with OP, either. It's a really weird overreach from OP and an obsession that's been going on for months.

That's the point though, prices have gone up. She is privileged compared to her peers because she has access to multiple rooms in a family home in one of the most expensive cities in the world. Most young people will be paying through the nose for a single bedroom and not even have access to a living room.

I don't mean she's privileged compared to her mother's generation. The baby boomer generation (and those slightly younger) are also privileged so saying it was normal for them doesn't mean anything. It's something like 1 in 5 boomers are a millionaire, largely thanks to unearned wealth generated from property. The more property wealth they have, the less accessible property is to the young. However, this young woman has landed on her feet somewhat - benefiting indirectly from her mother's property. She's very lucky!

A friend's mother recently died at around 80 years old. She owned a very modest, ex council house in London. It was valued at around £1.25 million. Even after inheritance tax, my friend and his sister will inherit an extremely large sum. They are in their late 40's / early 50's.