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.

Your dad’s inheritance skipped a generation and paid for his grandchildren's education. I don’t think it’s fair for you to have to give her your nest egg so she can have a nicer retirement that she’s not planned for - unless you want to (and you don’t need that cash for your own retirement).

I think it would be a different situation if he’d gifted you the money directly to buy a house - but he just spent it on their education himself.

I do t think projecting a different family’s situation onto the OP’s is helpful.

The decisions the sister made out her life don’t appear particularly relevant as their father intended 50:50.

Like someone else said, how would you feel if this was your children? Say you gave two of your children money to help their families right now and told your third child you'd give him money later. Then you didn't. Can you imagine how your son would feel to not only be let down by you, but to also have his siblings, with money in the bank, shrug and say to him "It's not our problem mum and dad spent it all."

The OP benefitted massively from having her children privately educated. She has set out the positives it had for them herself. Any parent would be delighted for their child to be given such advantages.

And then to go further and pick apart his life choices and accuse him of not being upset his parent died and only caring about the money.

Don’t feel guilty, this was simply your dad’s gift to his DGC. I don’t think you should give your sister anything. I don’t think she’ll appreciate it and I don’t think it’ll have the intended outcome. This is your father’s error, not yours. She should be pleased your children have had the same start in life that you both had

Why would her sister be pleased her sister’s children whom she has no relationship with had a great start in life while she sorries about her retirement. It’s the OP who has the responsibility to educate her children not anyone else.

It was a gift he made after the OP told him she was looking to move because she couldn’t afford the private school.

I really don’t get the mentality of seeing a gift to minor DGC to educate them as somehow not a gift to the OP.

So there is nothing left in the will at all? He did intend to give her the first 300k soif there is anything left, even a few thousand, maybe you could just let her have it all. Then keep your savings. It always seems to end in trouble when people gift school fees. I think you just need to have a proper talk with her. Don't lose contact though. That would be tragic.

Also if my niece's were gifted a lot of money I would be happy for them, because they are my family too.

I think you’re being disingenuous. You took around 40% of his assets at a time where future age and potential infirmity can mean additional expenses. You had the opportunity to decline, but decided to take it. At that point, it was already unrealistic that his future estate would cover the proposed 300k to your sister. Then you blame him for his subsequent decisions. And any money/savings you have, you want to use to give to your kids to buy houses - money you are unlikely to have if you paid your way. I can’t see what role your husband had in this, so I can’t comment on any inheritance he received. You come across as self absorbed. You won’t give anything to your sibling. Legally you’re covered, morally - from the start 11 years ago - I’m not so sure.

I presume what you have described in respect of the inheritance is set out in the will? Therefore legally you don’t have to give her the money. However morally your dad gave you the inheritance up front because you couldn’t afford the fees. He also wanted you and your sister to have equal money. You now do have money aside (probably because you didn’t pay fees!) and so morally you should give your sister at least some money but you don’t have to.

I think you have no intention of gifting your sister £150k, and you are being quite nasty about her, which i see as you trying to justify your decision

this is not appropriate unless you generally support women only having a say with money they earned, despite supporting their husband to do his career. Inheritances are different, but savings from a long period married should be joint.

I think you should give your sister the £150k. I'm puzzled though by the number of posters on here who can't seem to comprehend written English. Op said in her first post that her late dad (may he RIP) paid just over £100k to the school for each of the ops 3 childrens schooling. So at least 300,000 pounds. Yet numerous posters have said he paid 200k for two lots of fees!

Offer her some money!. You said you were going to pay the fees anyway but couldn't pay for 3?. She got NO inheritance because it was spent on school fees for your children.

Did you not read the ops posts? It seems highly probable there would have been no inheritance either way, if not gifted to the op the 300 would also have been lost in bad investments and care fees.

If you had paid for school fees out of your own pocket then you wouldn't have had 150k savings for your kids future deposits. A lot of hardworking families I know can just about manage either school fees or deposits but never both! But you have both because of your dad so yes I totally disagree that you haven't benefitted from this, of course you have benefitted. You benefitted from not cutting off from your lifestyle whilst your kids were privately educated plus having enough help so you can also give them deposits. Fml your sister is so right to be furious. You sound so cheeky, grabby and entitled.

Inheritance is never guaranteed, especially in today’s world of care home fees. It was equally possible that your Dad’s £300K got swallowed up by another few years in a care home, poor investment decisions or a bigger loan / gift to his sister, with nothing left now despite not paying school fees.

It sounds like he got immense pleasure out of spending his money on his only grandchildren, as he had done previously for you and your sister. It was his money to spend and he spent it. I’m afraid your sister is going to have to grow up and realise that, having had a fabulous education, it was up to her to use it to be a financially independent adult. It is not your father’s fault or your fault that she has failed to hold down a regular job and contributes to a pension for her retirement. Thank goodness he had you in his life to make sensible decisions about his care needs in his old age. It sounds like she would have prioritised reducing expenditure on care to a minimum in order to inherit it herself.

Absolutely you should give her £150k, it's clearly the right thing to do.

I'm on your side OP. I'm an executer of my mothers will. She has given my sister a chunk of money to buy her first property. This will come out of her end 'take' from the estate. If, for unforseen reasons everything that had been left to us has to be used to facilitate her care then that's life. I'm not going after my sister for a chunk of money that was given in good faith that we would get other parts of the estate.

An inheritance is a benefit, not a right.

My mother can choose to do whatever she wants with her money. Your dad did not set out to give you the lion's share and her none but life happend. I dont see how it's on you to give her your savings. I would definately be saying an absolute no if my DH was suggesting giving all our savings to his brothers due to a promise his parents made. Your DF should have ringfenced 300K while he had it, if he wanted her to have it.

Didn’t you say your sister is struggling? I understand the desire to help your kids, but you’d be doing that at your sister’s expense. You benefitted massively from a large gift from your father and your sister didn’t. That’s the long and short of it.

Given the tension here, is there room to negotiate the amount? Offer 100k instead of 150k. That’s a decent amount to be getting on with for your sister, but leaves enough to help your kids with deposits.

Also, it’s kind of irrelevant that the money in your savings came from your DH. It’s joint money.

You don’t owe her anything

if you don’t want to, don’t give!

I forgot to add - you at least not trying to see your sister’s POV, and coming to an amicable solution, is quite similar to how your “awful” cousins behaved, don’t you think?

Why did you ask? You and your husband clearly have no intention of doing the decent thing. You have a long list of excuses why you can’t/won’t.

Your poor sister, you don’t sound that much better than your cousins. Everyone has benefited from her father but her, she must be devastated, and pretty scared for her future.

It’s a difficult one and I totally sympathise and sorry for your loss. However your dad did what he wanted with HIS money while alive and compis mentis so while it’s hard for your sister you are in no way obligated to give her any money. Any funds you have above daily expenses/treats/luxuries etc are for you, your husband and potentially your children/grandchildren. It would grate me especially as your sister didn’t even help at the worse times. Having no children means nothing, your children’s grandfather wanted them to go to the school so he paid. I do see your sister’s side but if I was in your position I wouldn’t give her 150k. Things change unfortunately and your dad spent his money on what was important to him.