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.

pretty sure the father knew the OP accepted the money to pay for school fees 😂

Are you under the impression she went and stole the silverware after he died?

And?? Not relevant. At all.

This thread has it all, I'm not surprised you put your hard hat on!!

As you said, you would have paid for two children - your father paid for all 3 in the belief that there would still be an equal amount available for his other daughter.

It seems fair that you use the money that you would have spent already to make things more equitable.

This.

As I was reading the OP I saw red flags everywhere in this plan, thinking 'what if he needs to go into care?!'

I am so sorry he's passed and it's a horrid time, but come on OP, your poor sister must feel double sucker punched.

He didn't though, by reserving £300k.for the sister, he gave the £300k to the OP, and compelled her to spend it in school fees.

It wasn't a case of "here you go GC1,2 and 3...here's £100k each I'm the form of paid free and then DD1 and DD2, here's your 50/50 split of the remainder..." He spent £300k of his money on school fees. He then, intended to give DD2 £300k, and then split the remaining money 50/50 between the two daughter.

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.

What? No one can tell their parents, sorry no I can’t take the financial risk of waiting until you die, give me my inheritance NOW. Respecting a will and not financially abusing a parent isn’t a choice.

I would give her the money - you did benefit and she has been left in a much worse position than her father envisioned.

"We're not loaded. When we hoped to send them privately paying ourselves we both had demanding full time jobs with big commutes which ultimately still didn't pay enough.
We had a rethink about 8 years ago and both changed jobs to be more local and less stressful. We have a house which is still mortgaged for 5 more years but do have good pensions. £150k is a huge chunk of our savings and we are hoping to give each child a house deposit at some stage."

@barenakedhazy so your father's generosity enabled you to send three children to public school, save hundreds of thousands of pounds, change careers to lead less stressful lives, ensure you have good pensions, and ensure that you can gift each of your children a house deposit?

Tell me again how you didn't directly benefit?

You clearly don’t think YABU OP so wondering why you’ve asked the question

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.

Its scary people think like this 😆

Perhaps it might help if you think about what you'd want your DC to do if they find themselves in a similar position when they're older. What if one ends up in a better financial position but gets more money from you, whilst one of the others is struggling financially but gets less or no money from you? Would you want that? And would you want bad feeling between your DC?

When your mortgage is paid off in 5 years - how much will your house be worth? You don't have to answer that - but I am guessing that if you had 2 salaries, that would have covered 2 sets of private school fees and you have more than £150K in savings, your total family wealth will be sufficient to house your and your husband with a decent pension income and give your children a generous housing deposit, without you all looking like you are close to the bread line, even if you do give your sister £150K.

Yes - you have both worked hard for your successful careers and to provide a great start for your family... but you got a disproportionate share of your family's wealth - and your sister is not in anything like the same position.

You sound a touch judgemental when you talk about her lack of pension planning - you might be right - you she did have reason - if somewhat flawed - to believe that she would be receiving a substantial inheritance from her father. ... yes ... she shouldn't have relied on that - but you didn't have to face that risk because your family received and spent that inheritance 10 years ago.

I'm on your sister's side here. I feel really sorry for her b

Technically OP.got shafted. By Dad forcing the first £300k of OPs inheritance was spent in school fees.🤷‍♀️

The fact you admit you have 150k sitting around tells me you really should give that money to your sister.

You definitely don't "owe" her 150k.

I suppose that had your father known that there won't be even the 300k left, he would had make different choices/give her something earlier instead of the bad investments, not scratched your children's education fees.

If you want to show some good will, think about what would be the honest sum you would have been willing to spend on your three children's private education. Let's say 100k. In that case you saved this amount and could consider going half on this, thought you obviously made some choices based on your real situation when those money were yours, so even that isn't absolutely necessary.

This was all so entirely predictable and avoidable. You must have known that there was a chance there wouldn't be enough left for your sister, yet you let your dad go ahead and spend the money on your kids. I think you need to give her some of it, as hard as that might be, because this is partly down to your own misjudgement in accepting an early inheritance.

And can you imagine doing that to your own children? I know we say to our kids, they get what they need, even if it's not all equal at the same moment in time... but I believe we try to ensure there are no glaring inequalities. Your Dad didn't expect it all to go the way it did... but he made damn sure your kids were not going to miss out..

She intended to pay for two children, just couldn't pay for 3. So she no longer needed to spend 200k of her own money. What a terrible way to be shafted. The sister is being punished for daring to be child free.

I think you should give her money - how much, not sure, but it’s awful you benefitted to such an extent and she got nothing. I couldn’t live with myself knowing there was such an inequity. She must feel like he didn’t care about her :(

This is really hard.

If you can take emotion of the moment out of it, and consider that if you love your sister and the £150k may do a lot to improve her life & future, and you can afford it, then it would be the decent thing to do.

But you are not obliged to. Just seems to me that you have the opportunity to do a really good thing and for someone who you (presumably) care about. Especially if you know that doing so would fulfil in some way your dad's wishes to make things fair, and regardless of how vicious things have become between you right now.

Re childlessness - some people who are childless NOT by choice make a big song & dance about it being their choice, because it's the only way to make to bearable. Just a thought.

Whatever you choose to do, I'm really sorry for all you've been through with your dad and for what you're going through now with her. I hope with a bit of time and space your relationship with her recovers.

Exactly this.

Do you honestly think OP that if your father knew the situation as it stands now, he would believe you should keep that money and your sister have none of it? You genuinely believe that is what he would have wanted?

Believing you aren't well off when you have more than £150k in savings is very out of touch with reality. The fact you've earmarked it for your children to have deposits doesn't make you any less well off.

I'm staggered you've called your father manipulative to be honest. I'm sure you could have told him to only pay for one child. Or none. You're an adult, not a passive participant in this.

If I was your sister I would be most upset about the fact you don't see the injustice in this and would feel that while your plan follows the legal obligations of your father's will, it doesn't reflect his true wishes. He wanted you both to benefit equally after the kids school fees were paid.

I really think you need to reflect on this. Perhaps consider how you'd feel if your kids were in your place. Would you be proud that one child had £150k + in savings due to your will while the other was left without, because of the will's technicalities rather than your moral wishes? You'd really be proud of that child making the decision to keep it all even though they have even more on top of it saved already? I don't believe you would be, would you?

You and your husband have personally benefited from the money. You have saved £200k that you were prepared to spend on school fees. If your dad had been able to see into the future do you think he would have given you all his available money and left your sister with nothing? I hope not.

You don't have to giver her anything but I'd find it very hard to live with myself in your shoes if I didn't.

It’s very apparent that your Dad’s intention was for everything to be equal, hence earmarking the first 300k remaining for your sister.
If you weren’t happy with your part of the inheritance being used as school fees you could have said no. Ultimately your children could not have gone to their school if you hadn’t wanted and allowed it.

I’m not surprised your sister is angry with you, you introduced the idea of private school, got your dad to pay for three rather than the one ‘unexpected’ child, and then twist the story so it looks as though it’s nothing to do with you.

Your Dad’s intention was not for her to have 50% of nothing.

This is so awful. Your poor poor sister. Your children get a private education and house deposits and she gets nothing. I bet if your father knew it would play out like this he'd be heartbroken.