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.

I feel very sorry for your sister.

Surely this can't be true. Nobody would think that this was OK.

I am team sister on this... you were able to give your children something that did want, it also allowed you to change careers away from the full time exhausting jobs with long commutes so your whole family benefited from this generous gift - that your Dad said he would make fair in the will, but that was something he could never guarantee.

In addition to being given an expensive education for your children - your family benefits, and you are a unit - I see this as one.. you are in a position to gift your children large housing deposits, while your sister suffers..

He gave your more than £300K more than 10 years ago - if he had done the same for your sister, it would / could be worth much more now (disastrous investments aside!) or could have significantly altered a significant portion of her life.

You say that your father was manipulative - I think he probably was - he rewarded you, with strings attached, for making life choices he approved of, and he kept your sister on a long string based on a promise of some later reward.

From experience - she has probably felt this manipulation, disapproval, favouritism in more than one way and maybe deliberately kept her distance to protect herself.

You could choose to simply take the benefit from being the favoured child and walk away with your £300K or you could try to see if from her perspective and 'make it fair'.... you would be showing her that at least one member of her family loves her and thinks she is worthy.

Put it in the hands of a solicitor to tell you what the correct LEGAL position is.

only your own heart can then tell you what the correct MORAL decision is.

Honestly we don't see each other often. She's 350 miles away. Calls twice a year. Visited dad 3 times in the year before he died and managed to have one visit when I was on holiday and one when I was in hospital having a hysterectomy and in no state to talk.
Honestly I thought she knew. There's so much in the press and online about care homes. She was involved in trying to speak to our cousins about the loan. She knew about the flat repairs and I just don't understand where she thought the money was coming from?

You owe her nothing. She could have stepped up more to save your dads' money paying care fees.
Obviously private education was important for your dad and his gift to his grandchildren.

I'm someone who was left nothing in my father's will where 3 other siblings did. You have to just suck it up.
I would never have lowered myself to say any of them owed me anything.
Do not give her a penny of your money you haven't inherited anything at all

.

She's quite vocally child free. She doesn't like kids. Shes no relationship with my children through her choice and actually didn't recognise my youngest at the funeral. I added the "by choice" as it's not like she's mourning a family she wanted but failed to have due to circumstances.
I think some of her ire is the fact the children benefitted not her.

You were POA. this was your call to make. Sounds a bit like you wanted to keep your head down and hope for the best. Shame on you.

All this stuff about it "going directly to GC" just isn't true is it? Otherwise why would the dad need to reserve the first £300k for the sister?

Because if the "straight to GC" is true and was in a will instead of as a gift. Let's pretend there's £1million estate left behind for the sake of discussion.

The "it went to GCs" scenario would read;

I have a £1million
£100k to each of my GCs, to be spent on School Fees.
£350k to DD1
£350K to DD2.

But, as it is, let's pretend the fees were in the will as the OP describes them being given. So, like, he paid the fees from the will... It would be;

I have £1 million
£500k to DD1, of which £300k must be spent on school fees for GC
£500k to DD2, to be spent however she pleases.

The father "forced" OP to spend £300k of her inheritance on school fees. So that's not fair either?

Nope, he have the money to his grandchildren, not you directly.
I understand why she's pissed off though but don't think you should give her half

Yes what a horrible manipulative man, gifting you 300k! Honestly op it’s very obvious you don’t want to give your poor sister anything even though you had a lot. I don’t blame her getting the accounts audited. Wonder what it will come up with.

Would love to hear the sister’s perspective on this.

The majority of people here are team sister, as am I. You owe her 150,000. It’s morally the right thing to do, would change her life, and you can afford it. Do the right thing OP.

Yes, this.

He paid the equivalent of 21 years (7 x 3 children) of school fees upfront, just 'to ensure their education wouldn't be disrupted'.

What did he think might disrupt it? I'm sure the school wouldn't have refused to continue their education if he/you hadn't paid the whole lot years in advance, but only when it became due. Surely the only thing he thought might disrupt it would be if he didn't have the money or assets in the future: the money that he'd promised to your sister, which he then used as insurance to make sure that your children had everything guaranteed.

Even though he knew that you were very well-off in your own right - as in you could have afforded to send two children but not three; and, as it happens, you have managed to amass an extra £150K because he did this - more actually, as you say that £150K is a huge chunk of your savings: you could have half a million, for all we know, and £150K would still be 'a huge chunk' of that.

If only he had agreed to pay you £150K for the education, with you clearly very easily able to make up the rest, and then given your sister the same. That would have been perfectly fair for everybody. Even £200K each would have been very doable.

It speaks volumes that he wanted your family to have £300K upfront, but even though he had a huge amount left that he could have given to your sister then and there, he still insisted that she wait to see if he had anything left to leave her after he died.

I suppose I’d be asking if your DF had capacity to understand that his intention to even things up wasn’t panning out as he wanted. If you had poa Op, did you discuss what was left in his estate and what he wanted to do with regards to the money no longer left for your sister? And if so was there a discussion on keeping her in the loop or her lack of involvement in your DFs care?

Would you father have paid the fees if he knew his other daughter wouldn’t get her share as he wanted?

Oooh op is told she IBU and is now starting to paint her sister in a bad light. Predictable.

Doesn't charge my view.

It's still the right thing to do to give her the money.

She can ask the grand children for 150k because they got the gift, not you. It would be perfectly reasonable for them to tell her to f off.

She's grieving. Her anger is misplaced.

Your sister got shafted.

Gosh I’m not surprised she’s feeling hurt. I think you should give her something; your family has benefited so much. Would your dad have done the same if he knew it would leave her nothing at all? Of course not, you can afford to give her something.

Suspect this isn’t going the way you thought it would OP.

Your poor sister. Would your father be proud of you?

I with your sister. You should never have taken so much money, he was not cash rich or there would have been money left now.

OP - as you can see I think ppl’s opinions are now clouded by the fact that you have £150k in savings and people have disregarded the fact that you wouldn’t have sent your kids to private school at all so probably would have saved the same amount anyway, if not more, given the additional costs that come with private education. Then they say you have benefitted because you took £300k instead of £100k.

It’s clear that your sister was happy with the arrangement in the will and had therefore taken on the financial risk of waiting till your father died to claim that inheritance. It absolutely isn’t on you to take on that risk morally and the fact that your are financially better off than your sister doesn’t create a moral obligation either because you are then having to take from your children to give to your sister. Hypotheticals around what your dad would have done had he know what has transpired are irrelevant - he would have known his inheritance was getting smaller and smaller but didn’t appear to try and give anything to your sister or even secure the loan to his cousin.

Your sister’s financial loss is not yours to fix. However if you want to maintain a relationship, as I said before, gesutes like paying for dinners out, holidays with the family may help with this.

The money from the OP's dad was not a LOAN. OP does not have to give that amount, or half that amount to anyone.

It was payment of the school fees, his choice. The OP used that money for the school.

No way on earth do you now need to deprive your kids from help because your sister suddenly woke up.

Your mistake OP is presenting your kids coming from private school who will have a little bit of help from their parents. MN posters HATE that.

Another one chiming in to say that if you have £150k+ in savings, and would have paid for 2 DC to be privately educated, but couldn’t afford a third set of fees, that morally you owe her money.

If you want to keep the money for your DCs house deposit then own it - you’re doing so to benefit your DC over your sister.

You, and your family benefitted from not paying school fees for at least 2 DC. If you want to elevate your DCs position to the detriment of your DSis then at least own your position, instead of this hot air and bluster.