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.

Nope, not new at all.

It is common sense.

Nothing deep or profound.

If you found it took you to a deep intellectual place I’m pleased to have helped you realise this.

Parents: we are NOT paying for private education, we can't afford it, we will keep working hard and save for our retirement and our kids.

Grand-father: I pay for the private education, it's important

Parents: keep working, make sacrifice, save money they had planned to save. What triggers posters is that they could find that amount to save, so what, it's still work and sacrifice.

Sister: give me half of your life saving. You should have splash all the cash you earned and inherited, your fault for saving.

How does this sound remotely fair 😂

Exactly. So we agree with her that sister doesn’t deserve a penny so OPs conscience is clear.
She has the means to help her sister but is justifying not doing so.

When he paid for the school fees - did you express concern that, as we all know, things can change? Whilst you have sat with your children in their expensive, already paid for schools and watched the rest of the money dwindling did you, at any point raise with your dad how it was going to be incredibly unfair to your sister?

Oh, OP, it isn't about the money for her, not really. After someone dies the money they do or don't leave to a person can become a metaphor for how much that person was or wasn't loved. I got written out of a loved relative's will because other family members needed money more, it was never explained to me and it hurts even though I know he had the best of intentions.

Your dad wanted her to have an equal share, and you were always going to pay private school fees for 2 kids. You've got the extra money sitting around because you didn't have to use it. You aren't legally required to give it to her but if you step back from all of this how fair does it look that you now have that extra money and she has very little?

@barenakedhazy Of COURSE you were benefitting! You had the school fees paid for you, saving you hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Astounded that you can't see that.{Especially with a private education yourself!}

The OP said that a lot of their savings have come from an inheritance from her MIL and the money they would give to her sister would come from savings!

I'm going to go against the grain here op. My siblings have received large lump sum payments from my parents over the years for very legitimate reasons. I haven't. My parents have said similar to your dad and whilst I've no doubt they intend to honour that, the reality is they're not obliged to and who knows what the future holds. Truthfully, I'm not banking on anything if there is something when the dreaded time comes to pass then great, but I know for certain I won't be knocking on my siblings doors requesting payment to even things out.

Your dad invested in his grandchildrens future. I'd leave it at that and not be offering anything. Either way the relationship is ruined.

I am aggrieved as I feel like the school wasn't a choice we'd have made and now we're looking at losing all our savings because of dad's poor financial decisions

I think you need to let go of this. He didn’t put a gun to your head. You had agency in your decision to accept that money, and presumably in persuading DH if he had reservations.

Bringing God into a morally corrupt persons post about what is just!

That’s my cue to leave the post.

Make sure every single penny of your dad's money has been accounted for.
(As is required really under your legal responsibilities as holder of POA... which many dont realise)

You don't ask for an audit of accounts for someone on a POA without good reason. She is implying that his money has been mismanaged. i.e. not used solely in his benefit.

Your poor dad - lots of people around him willing to take/accept considerable sums of money from him. You seem quite the grabby family.

I’d be absolutely furious if I were your sister. There should be 300k left on his estate and you should of course give her GBP150,000.

"You can’t just give your sister a gift of £150,000 even if you want to. It’ll be taxed"

Not necessarily, it'll only be taxed if the OP and her DH die within seven years. And even then, what it would mean is that their estate would have to take account of that amount of money when calculating any inheritance tax due.

This is what I mean. OP seems to regard them as joint savings, but we don't know how they're held, in particular the inheritance, whether it's a joint account or what. There's nothing to say DH is going to be up for this.

You and your H HAVE personally benefited from the money your father spent: your DC got private education - many parents would want and appreciate that - and you had plenty money for other things.

I think it’s unethical, as you have money, not to give some money to your sister to redress some of the massive imbalance in treatment.

morally you owe her. You said you are in well paid jobs and you have the money. do the right thing ffs

If he only had £200k left then it should have been obvious to all that the sister wasn’t going to get £300k. Even without care fees he’d need some to live on, house repairs, holidays etc.

The OP accepted a gift, she did not accept a loan and may not have accepted on those terms.

I know if someone said to me I’ll pay for your kids school fees with no strings attached I’d accept, but if they said I’ll pay your kids school fees and you repay at some future date I’d say no thank you, they’ll go to state school instead.

Who’s to say if he hadn’t paid the fees he wouldn’t have lost that money in bad investments or care fees anyway and the sister wouldn’t get anything anyway?

I also suspect that there would not be more than £300,000 in your dad’s estate had he not paid the school fees. It would have gone on a bigger loan to his sister, or another poor investment, or care home fees etc. I don’t think your sister would have got that money either way.

OP let the chips fall where they may. You did nothing wrong. Sister made some bad decisions, father lost his money - not your responsibility -

If your dad had said at the time, I can give you £150k towards private school fees, would you have accepted that and paid the other £150k yourself?

I don’t think you should pay her - she doesn’t have kids, it’s not like for like. If she had 2 toddlers and your dad had promised her school fees for them when they we’re old enough fair enough, I’d be more inclined to pay as that’s like for like and she’d have missed out in that instance. Or if she had kids the same age and they didn’t get fees then also fair enough. But grandkids being looked after is totally different to his kids being looked after and her not having kids isn’t your fault, you didn’t benefit in any real terms from the money either. If she was sitting looking at you in your massive house yea I’d be annoyed but that’s not the case

I really don’t think you have don’t anything wrong. I also think people are massively overlooking all the work it takes to care for a person in the final stages of their life. I watched this in my family with my mother running herself ragged. I don’t think you should be paying her money from your savings. Yes, it’s clear your father favoured you and you will have to sit with that. But no to paying over your savings.

You know morally what the right thing to do is.

You can argue it whichever way you wish.

Your children are an extension of you so you have benefitted from the money. They’ll have better prospects in life. You also benefitted emotionally from knowing they were getting the best.

Your sister sounds vulnerable. I would help my own family.

if you want no relationship then don’t pay.

if you do, then do.

Id not be able to sleep at night. It’s just not fair.