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.

How very sad for your sister. She must feel like such an afterthought, just because she hasn't had kids. She needs the money, you would still be £150k up and you have the £150k to spare. I think it's the right thing to do.

I’d love to know the answer to this. I think it would seal the deal for me.

i would do what I know my Dad would want me to do. I think you know he would want you to be fair to your sister, however badly behaved she was.

So I need to start making a tally of all the days out and bits and pieces I buy my grand children and the child who hasn't had children should get that amount in my will before any body else.
Or if I have nothing to leave on death, my other children should then have a whip round between them and hand it over.

@hairbearbunches - they also made career choices on the plan they would use state schools not having to find £200k for private, so they never earned the money in the first place. Their savings largely come from an inheritance from DHs family, not the OP and her DH being high earners who have just banked the money.

Giving the money earmarked for children to their aunt does feel like history repeating itself.

OP - 2 of your DCs have SEN, you really can’t give away DHs family money to your sister who has had every advantage in life and is now just pissed off she’s not made the most of it. Your children may well need additional help as adults.

Perhaps you and your sister could see your own private education and the advantages that gave you in life as getting some inheritance early.

OP isn't £300k up though as she wasn't planning to send the kids to private school so she didn't save that money.

Her dad paid the school directly.

She didn't get £300k in the bank!

That's a ridiculous take. The OPs kids are hers. She desperately wanted them all to go a particular private school but she could only afford to pay for two of them. Her father paid for not one but all of them so the OP paid nothing at all. OP saved 200k right there.

Your father opted to pay for his grand children's private education.
If there was money left your sister would have got more due to above.
There was no money left and this may have been the case, even without him having paid for the private education.
If there is no money left it is not your place to 'pay off' your sister as she doesn't like the situation ... unless you really want to

If OPs husband came home and said “dear wife, I know my father insisted on paying for private school for the kids before he died, but my brother who he never approved of (and I’ve never been close to) is now kicking off there was no money left in the estate for him due to care fees. Can you please give your dear mums inheritance to him to ease my guilt, despite you wanting to help our kids with it?” there would be Mumsnet mutiny.

She also said it's mainly from her DH and inheritance from his mum. She can't give away her husbands inheritance to make up for a lack of inheritance from her father.

Inheritance isn't guaranteed. OPs dad gave a gift with the intention of giving his other child the same in inheritance. That decision was based on his financial situation at the time. He then made other financial decisions after that which impacted his ability to leave as big an inheritance as he'd have liked. Then he needed care, which ate away at the remainder.

OP doesn't owe her sister for her father's decisions. I totally understand why her sister is disappointed. But her father made those decisions (care needs aside), and ultimately didn't have the money to give her. If he'd known, maybe he wouldn't have paid for school. Maybe he still would have. That's a thing we don't know. But any money gifted whilst alive cannot be guaranteed to be matched as inheritance. That just is what it is.

Give her £150k and then you both have received 50/50 which was what your father wanted.

I think it is evident that you recognise @barenakedhazy that the situation is unfair and are struggling with the idea of putting your children at a disadvantage to rectify it. That is understandable of course. Is there any way that could use the £150k (or maybe less I don't know the local house price situation) to buy a small flat for your sister to live in with a lifetime interest? The flat could then pass to your children. As they would likely be a lot older when they received that benefit, you could perhaps frame it as pension planning for your children?

Exactly!

This isn’t fair at all and I think if you have the money you definitely should give her it, I know it’s not what you want to hear but regardless of what you feel she did or didn’t do for your dad in later life, he seemed by your OP that he was a very fair man and got fucked over by sisters children and now you’re really doing quite the same to her. I know it’s not the same at all but you took a lot out of that pot and then say well he wanted private school more than we did seems a bit of a ‘ that’s the end of it’ saying, to ease yourself from any accountability.

Shes hurt and might be making it about money but really it’s more like she’s just the one left that had no money, no children and now no family. I dunno if money means more to you that your sister but seems like it.

The DH inheritance from his side of the family is irrelevant here. The OP and her DH had worked out they could afford to send 2 kids to private school. They had 3, by way of twins. Stretching to 3 lots of fees was impossible. Dad stepped in and paid for them all, not just the one they couldn't afford to send as well. This saved them, as a couple, £200k. What did that money get spent on instead? Bigger mortgage payments, nicer holidays, house extensions? They have benefitted from not having to spend that money themselves, so it's a bit rich now for the DH to say 'what's mine is my own' because their savings is mainly made up of inheritance to him.

OP, you can paint it whichever way you want to, but your family benefitted hugely from this substantial sum of money. You were prepared to move house, presumably to a catchment area where prices were higher, you would have had to pay extra stamp duty plus however much more the new house would have been. You had to do none of this, whilst keeping all the money that was going to be earmarked for it.

But dad lent sister money and that hasn’t been repaid

dad has 5 years in a care home and that it what has eaten the cash

it is not OP’s responsibility to cover those events so that her sister has an extra £150k

Yep!

Dsis would also get her arse handed to her. There'd be a bazillion posts about inheritance not being a right, she shouldn't have assumed etc.

They still could have refused.

I find it hard to believe that, upon accepting the £300K, neither of them thought about the implications on future inheritances and possible care fees.

It is bad luck for your sister but you have a moral right to help her. Your kids had a great education so hopefully they will all get good jobs too. You don’t have yo give her everything in one go, but maybe start helping her top ip her pension

You have said a lot about your point of view but little about the DH's views.

If I were the DH hell would freeze over before I handed over inheritance from my own parents' money to a sibling who had done nothing and shown no interest in your DF until he was dead. Especially as the "gift" was one I opposed in the first place. Your sister's beef is with your father.

Gifts to grandchildren are precisely that - gifts to grandchildren, not surrogate gifts to adult children. Its common for grandparents to leave sums direct to grandchildren without deducting that from their parents share when the residue is divided. The obsession on here that each child must get exactly the same in a will is ridiculous - nobody has a right to inherit, nobody should assume anything is left to inherit after care costs are covered.

Your DF supported her when she needed it - it was smaller sums but it was as needed at the time. However telling her she would inherit X when he was in no position to do that was stupid and wrong and presumably said to fob off your sister. She was equally foolish to take a residue for granted, especially when he went into care.

All that said if you want a relationship with your sister you need to consider what you can do. Take your in-laws' money out and what is left to share?
You have made a lot of her bad choices but "bad choices" can also be a consequence of circumstances - I'd be interested in her side of the "bad choices" label.
You also accepted the money - you could have refused it but you didn't and you have indirectly benefited from the gift. Less worries about your younger children at the very least.
Your DF was savvy enough to make an outright gift to avoid inheritance tax but not savvy enough to investigate the problems with retirement flats? The fact that your total savings is precisely the sum she asks is a handy coincidence.

Did she refuse to be involved in the PoA (you can do a lot from a distance) or was she not given the chance?

Actually there’s a good point in here - if the OPs dad gave them £150k and free choice what to do with it, would the OP have gone private?

because in her OP she says that along with deciding to go with state schooling, they were considering moving house (presumably to get into the catchment for a good state school).

if the dad had given them choice, would they have spent the money on a more expensive house near a good state, which would give them an asset they could release funds to help the sister?

But the dad didn’t offer them money to decide what they wanted to do with it, it was the private school he send his dds to, and the money went straight to the school, giving limited choice. (Longer term that might have been a better use of limited funds for the dgc, but the dad appears to have spent a lot of money on bad financial choices.)

They didn't save £200k because THEY WERE NOT GOING TO SEND THEM ONCE THEY HAD TWINS!

They saved £0.

They could work out if they saved any money by having the kids at private school so stamp duty, moving costs minus the extra costs that come with private school and the £15k OPs sister was gifted, then offer her sister half of that.

This is true.

I think you should give her the money. I can’t imagine being in the very privileged position that you are in, and it’s partly because your dad paid the school fees.

Your father made his own decision on how to spend HIS money on his grandchildren whilst he was alive. Inheritance is whatever’s left to be divided how your father wished. If there’s nothing left then so be it. That’s life I’m afraid.

See it from both sides.
I think we have to accept that we don’t always get an equal amount off our parents. My sister has had way more help than me and I have accepted she will prob inherit more too. She has always made bad financial decisions and lives in my mums second home for free. That’s life. I am secure.
Personally I would meet her halfway and give her something like 50k or 75k. But if she is going to be a cow about you doing that then I would t bother at all. Depends if you want a relationship with her at the end of all this.