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.