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.

This isn't her being resentful about your dad shouting your kids a few ice-creams or a trip to the theatre.

£300k is life changing and it's disingenuous at best to suggest you haven't benefitted from it.

You can make it right, and you should.

How much was lent to the sister? She can chase that as it is part of the estate

if she wants an audit that will come out of any money left …

300k for school fees? Weeps.
I can see why your sister is upset.
You have no legal obligation to give your sister any money but you know it was your father’s intention that things would be fairly split.
I think you’ve taken the piss here with accepting this help from your dad. That is an enormous amount of money.

You don’t owe her anything, but I can see why she is upset.

She didn't close k because she was hands off with dad's care. She lives a long way away in fairness and I'm local so it made sense I managed things but she asked no questions. I assumed she understood.

150k is a huge chunk of our savings and we are hoping to give each child a house deposit at some stage.

Which you wouldn't have been able to do had you paid 2 lots of schools fees

So indirectly their house deposit funds have come from your father

It all feels a bit grubby and grabby to be honest and greedy of you to accept £300k when you only needed £100k

I agree you should calculate the total inheritance including the £300k you got early and then ensure your sister gets half that amount.

The £150k you have left is your Dad’s money because it is savings you would not have if he had not paid the school fees.

It would be very unfair and grabby of you to go against his wishes which was to have you inherit equally.

I wasn't directly benefitting - we weren't buying a bigger house and going on flash holidays. This was money we never saw that went directly to the grandchildren

But you did directly benefit, you had an extra £200k to spend/ invest that you didn't plan on!

You should absolutely pay your sister, and £150k is a drop in the ocean from what you received and benefitted on.

So much projecting on this thread 😂

OP, not only you are not destitute but your kids went to private school and are now at Uni. You tick all the boxes to shock/horrify posters.

Agree with this.

Yes sorry OP but I think the situation is terribly unfair on your sister. I would give her the money.

I disagree that you didn’t benefit from the money. You wanted to send your DC to private school, and you have £150k+ in savings, because you didn’t spend it on private school…

I would give my sister the £150k could not bear to think she was struggling but I am very close to my siblings

Of course she's upset, she was expecting £300k + half the rest.

That money was spent, don't give her your kids money, it's not fair on them and not what you father wanted.

Morally, I think you ought to pay - you're still better off than if you'd paid for two sets of school fees rather than three, and making things fair with your sister ought to come before nice-to-haves like house deposits for your DC.

Sadly, it sounds like you're not going to do this. Totally your choice, but don't be surprised if you lose your relationship with your sister.

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’s a joint executor, so it’s literally her job to look at the finances and will.

Easy for you to be judgey as you already got all the money in your accounts.

In all honesty if use it to pay off your mortgage now if you have it

How would you want this resolved if it were your own children in place of you and your sister?

So, your dad paid for all 3 children? Or you still paid for the 2 children you could afford to send and he paid for the other child?
I think you should give her something, especially as you can afford it.

Of course the Op benefitted! She was planning on spending £200k on school fees and saved the lot! If I was the sister I would be royally pissed off.

This is very unfortunate for both of you but really I feel most awful for your sister. If you can afford to pay her I would definitely do so. Or even £100k; argued that some was a direct gift to your children. To give her nothing is pretty dreadful.

Exactly.

Yes, this exactly.

You were £100K short for what you'd already decided you wanted and accepted £300K. It might have been rather different if you'd never planned private school and had categorically refused to allow your DF to pay for it but had somehow been forced by him to accept it - but that most assuredly isn't the case here.

And I don't personally buy the excuses that the money was for their grandchildren and 'nothing to do with you' - apart from the fact that YOU signed them up for the school, they didn't as children.

This is a familiar trope that we hear when it comes to money bypassing (adult) children and going straight to GC in wills - and it's usually quite conveniently invoked by the sibling(s) with more children than the other(s).

Your nuclear family has benefited from £300K from your DF and your DSis's nuclear family (even if that's just her) has had nothing. She has every right to be furious. It's the easiest thing in the world to criticise and shame her for 'making it all about money' when YOU are the one who happens to have had all the money!

I'm surprised that whoever drew up his will didn't warn him about this outcome.

It's astonishingly naive to think that gifts in life cen be balanced out by gifts in a will. Care costs are big news these days. Assuming that you're going to die with the same value as you have when you make your will is bonkers thinking, frankly.

Both my MIL and my MUM (both widowed at that point) had every penny they had in savings and the entire value of their houses, go to care costs. We didn't get a penny in inheritance from either set of parents.

Of course you did. As pp said you had all of the school fees paid when, according to your OP you only needed 1 set. You and DH have also been able to, in your words; “give up your demanding, full time jobs with long commutes for something more local and less stressful”. You wouldn’t have been able to do that without your DFs money.