School fees and inheritance. I have my hard hat

[barenakedhazy]

I have 3 children, currently all at Uni. My sister is child free by choice.

11 years ago my husband and I sat down and did the maths about school fees for secondary school. We had planned to send our children privately but the youngest two were
twins and while affording 2 would have been possible, 3 wasn't. We were disappointed as we'd planned for this school, but instead started looking into moving house.

When we told my dad this he made us an offer. He'd recently sold his house to downsize to a small flat in an over 50s block and he was cash rich. He offered to pay for the kids to go to school. He felt really strongly about them going and this mattered to him- more than it mattered to us frankly. To ensure their education wouldn't be disrupted he paid the school for 7 years up front for each child. This was just over £100k each.

He then changed his will stipulating that my sister would get the first £300k of any inheritance, with the remainder split between us. (Look - before people start pulling this apart it was a lot more complicated and involved- this is just a simplified summary). He felt confident this wouldn't be a problem as he owned a property he'd paid £250k for and had another £200k left after paying the school fees, as well as a good pension for day to day living.

Over the next 10 years things weren't brilliant. In summary- flat was a terrible investment which cost £50k in 5 years for leasehold repairs and eventually sold for less than he bought it. There were some mistaken investments. He helped out his sister with a loan and she then died and our cousins were dreadful and said without a legal loan agreement they wouldn't repay from her estate. Finally there was a fall that hospitalised him and left him wheelchair bound and needing full time care.

My dad died 7 months ago and after over 5 years in a care home there was almost nothing left for an inheritance.

My sister and I are joint executors and she is furious. She says I got over £300k and she got nothing. She wants £150k off my husband and I to make it "fair".

I understand she's upset and do see how it seems wrong. However we weren't going to go the private school route as we couldn't afford it- this was something that mattered to my Dad and which he did for his grandchildren. I said I see it as a gift to his grandchildren- she says she's being punished for being child free.

I was sympathetic but she's been so bloody horrible that I'm at the stage of just telling her to get lost and never speaking to her again. She's made Dad's death all about money and seems more upset that there's no inheritance than the fact that he's died. She visited rarely and had nothing to do with setting up the care home or managing the fees- I had POA and did all of that. Now she wants his accounts audited and I'm so angry at the implication that I mismanaged things.

Anyway. AIBU to tell her that she's not getting £150k off us? We do have the money as we are both in well paid jobs and she's always struggled to find her niche which I think makes things harder. She lives alone and doesn't have a lot saved for retirement which has been worrying her, so I think some of this is because she was relying on dad's money. However if she'd have bothered to get involved in his care she'd have seen the situation in real time.

No dear - you managed to save that money because your father paid for school fees!

I can understand your sister's feelings. Your dad disinherited her in favour of your kids. That is going to feel very hurtful, especially as he obviously disapproved of her lifestyle etc.

Your dad created this problem - he should have given you both the same at the same time, or if he couldn't afford to do that, he should not have offered to pay for the schooling.

As it is you are left in a difficult position that is not of your making. It's unfair to expect you to give her 150k, as you didn't profit from the money and as you say it wasn't even for you. It's also not fair that she got nothing from your dad. I guess it depends a bit on whether you want to remain friends with your sister. If you don't care then don't give her anything. If you do then you could negotiate a smaller amount maybe? Could you explain to your sister and ask her what she thinks is fair?

But no-one ever has to pay school fees. It’s a massive luxury like a big fancy car, huge house etc.

well, you cannot give away the savings contributed by your partner, that would be ridiculous. The most you can give away are your own savings

You must have missed the bit where the OP said they were not going to use private schools as they couldn't afford it...

Perhaps it was a tax dodge.

But if he paid the fees directly then he wasn't gifting it to the OP. He was spending his own money. Might have been a Ferrari that cost £300k.

I think the fact that you had decided against private school is a red herring here. Whatever you say about your dad wanting them to go and it bring his gift, your dad's will made it clear that this was not to be at the expense of your sister (hence leaving her the first £300k). If he'd have known then that this would be the ONLY £300k for both you and your sister, how do you think he would have split it?

If you'd have wanted you could have declined your dad's gift. If you'd have wanted, you could have just asked your dad to pay the extra £100k and asked him to gift the same to your sister.

If you had power of attorney and knew the money was dwindling, and knew she might not get her £300k you really should have spoken to your sister at the time (and your dad if he was able to understand). With POA you could have made sure your sisters £300k (or as much of it as possible) was safe.

If you were saying you were stoney broke then there wouldn't be much that could be done. But you say £150k would put a dint in your savings. You are in an extremely fortunate and privileged position to have £150k in savings, never mind more than that. The fact that you want to give your children a house deposit is irrelevant (don't we all?)

I'm sorry OP but if you even hesitate before giving your sister that money, then you are behaving with incredible disrespect to your father.

To put it another way, if he was still alive and came to you and said he was financially on his knees and is there anyway you could repay him half what he spent on school fees, as he needed it, you'd have given it him, right? If he had dropped dead the next day that money would have been your sister's - just as he wanted and intended.

Morally you do owe your sister, even though you don't legally. See it as repaying your dad for his kindness, with only half of what he gave you.

I don’t think you owe her anything OP. Your dad chose to pay for your kids schooling. That was what he wanted and what he did. Without it, you would have sent them to state school so it’s not like you took the offer when you could have afforded it. This was his gift to his grandkids. Not you or your sister. Your sister has no right to demand money from you at all.

How do you know this? I’m pretty sure both sisters knew when he put that in his will and the OP said he changed his will almost immediately.

Also, what difference would it make if the sister knew DF’s finances were worsening? As you stated in your first post, it’s not like she can ask DF to give her the money early. The sister didn’t make an error and nor did the OP - the father did.

But what will happen if you have no inheritance to leave when it comes to it - if it's all gone on care or evaporated in some other way?

I wouldn’t give her the 150k but I would give her £50k or so as a peace offering. Having read all your posts I understand where you’re coming from but equally it’s time to give something back to honour your dad and make things a bit fairer.

Are you seriously asking if your sister is being unreasonable here? You’ve benefited to the tune of £300k for unnecessary private’s education and you’re cribbing about your sister wanting her fair share. I’ve read some unpleasant posts on MN over the years but this takes the biscuit. You’re laughing all the way to the bank OP and to hell with your sister.

The fact you have the money but won’t give her it makes you out to be very tight.

Your sister has got nothing, you got 300k.

You mean the bit where she said they had planned to send their children to private school? the reason they couldnt afford it was because their second pregnancy was with twins.
I wonder who approached who about the idea of him paying all the fees upfront? Neither the OP of her DP seemed to have said no to her DF.

It was crazy of your dad to give away such huge sums. What if he had needed care for longer and run out of money to pay for it ? It could have been the local authority asking where all the money had gone. If you have the money to give to your sister then you should do so.

It sounds like you see becoming estranged from your sister as a good way of getting out of giving her her half of the inheritance.

It seems very clear that your dad desperately wanted everything to be equal between you and your sister...If he had thought for a second that he wouldn't be able to make the finances equal in his will, do you think he would have gifted you the £300k? Because it doesn't sound like it

This nails it for me.

If I was in the same situation I would give my sister half of the 'early inheritence' that I'd received. Because regardless of what it was spent on, that's clearly what it was.

This.

Give her half.

I've never left the thread. Check my posts! 😀 I'm genuinely looking for personas I think I'm just so bloody upset and grieving and angry that I'm not thinking.

It's a good idea thinking about how we would feel if it were our own kids.
Frankly we'd never do anything so daft and unfair. Everyone involved didn't talk or think enough and as someone mentioned upthread the advice dad received was probably not good.

Was there a point where your DF still had capacity and knew his wealth was diminishing and he had less than 300k, where he could have chosen to rectify the will?

Your father gave money for his grandchildren - of course you don't have to pay it back. I cannot imagine insisting that money given for my niece/nephew must also be paid to me.

I find the insistence that everything always has to be exactly equal very tedious.

He was still gifting the OP.
Paying direct to the seller of goods or services for an item of value is still gifting.
Ever have a parent pay a restaurant for your family’s meal? Have you said, oh that isn’t a gift to me because you didn’t hand me the money and then I handed it to the restaurant. You paid directly to the restaurant, so that’s nothing to do with me.

@barenakedhazy - don’t listen to all this ‘do right by your dad’ nonsense. He made
the will, he paid the money and he made the bad decisions. To be honest OP, I feel like you should close this thread. People are emotionally twisting the narrative and it could lead to you making a poor financial decision.

Or OP as she had POA?

Can you give her £50,000 as a gesture? I assume she doesn't know the ins and outs of what savings you have so it's not like she'll know you could potentially afford more. Some money is better than none and it sounds like she really needs it.

Sounds like there's a bit of complicated family history. I know it's easy to look at someone's life and judge what you perceive as bad decisions, but in lots of cases people who have personal struggles can be prone to self sabotage. If she suffered from addiction bad enough to need rehab, I suspect she's battling trauma of some kind.