Inheritance dispute with husband

[icantwaitforsummer]

Both me and my husband work full time, he earns more than me and has more free cash at the end of every month. We have a mortgage and DC.

I had 2 family members die suddenly this year. Shit year, still processing it all.

One left me a small flat, just got a tenant in there and rental income will be about £300 a month after taxes fees etc. Hoping to keep it for 15 years and then give it to DC.

My mum died and left me a share of her house, (shared with siblings) so will be about 80k

I was hoping to put the £300 a month in a stocks and shares ISA and then in 10 years go part time/partially retired.

The other 80k share with my husband, he wants to buy an old flat, and we do it up as a 'project'. And use any money we make to overpay mortgage.

But he also thinks the £300 a month should pay off more of our mortgage in overpayments or go into the joint account each month and reduce his contributions.

AIBU in thinking if I keep a little bit for me is ok? And he could save more of his extra income or make mortgage overpayments but he has absolutely no interest in doing that.

Keep the money

You may need it

It's not selfish. You have to do this as he has set the tone for this. If you do not do it then it's you making all the sacrifices whilst he gets to do what he wants with his money.
And your children will still inherit any money you have if you write a will to that effect.. so it's not selfish in their regard. It could only be viewed as selfish towards him... but what else can you do if he has decided to be selfish himself? If you act in any other way you are putting yourself massively at risk.
What if he one day ups and leaves you? Your money you've put into the house would be partly his.. whilst you will never see all that extra cash he made and spent on himself or whatever he wanted.
You shouldn't contribute to his lifestyle like this if he refuses to understand the impact of you doing so or to even acknowledge how unfair it is

He has been very happy for you to have less financially for years and to also raise his children.

Your relatives made sacrifices in their lifetime to afford you the gift of financial security in the form of inheritance. No, you’ve not made a sacrifice here for that money however you have lost those you loved. He is being very unreasonable here.

A clinical way to look at this is would these inheritances be fair game in a divorce? I’m not suggesting that however as you say you husband is ‘logistics’ then dazzle him with logic.

That feels so selfish though, like I've got this big pot of money and I'm not sharing it, just the proceeds/interest. Don't think I could sleep at night!
But how else do I do it fairly?

Why aren't you listening? You don't need to do it fairly as your husband isn't being fair with his money.

If you had been pooling all finances from the beginning, I would say you should share. But he has been happy to have an extra £3600 in his pocket every year and not share with you or your joint children. Why on earth would your inheritance be his?

And yes, if this happened in my relationship, I would consider any inheritance dp received to be his money. We are not married and have separate finances.

Are you being unreasonable? I'm a bloke so normally I would side with the bloke but jees-louise you are not being unreasonable at all! Your initial plan of saving the passive income in an ISA for the future prosperity of DC is not only the best move financially but it's what your late relative would have wanted! Moreso because it's your decision, if you wanted to go nuts and spend it (obviously shouldn't) even that wouldn't be unreasonable, your inheritance your rules!

Also as for the mortgage boost, it depends if your interest rate is fixed, and if so, how long is it fixed? If its for the whole term then sure it would be good to pay more and get it out of the way sooner, but then you have to consider if husband might be tempted to get a remortgage then all your efforts will be in vein.

Your original plan is the most reasonable thing to do, I would suggest however looking into gold investment because while ISAs and Savings are reliable, they don't always beat inflation. These past few years have seen 3-4% inflation annually so unless your saving account has that much interest you'll actually be losing money.

If with the £300 your ‘income’ goes up then I do agree as you both pay with a fair percentage of both your wages you should put more into the joint account, not all but work out the wage percentages again.

Yeah, exactly this. The double standards when it comes to money are astonishing in some relationships.

I never get why people only put a percentage of their salary into the joint account particularly if they have children and one person has lower earning power as a consequence. It means one person has more money in their individual bank account than the other which is not fair. If he's been happy to have more than you in his personal bank account for all these years why should you share your inheritance ?

I assume your dh has slept well whilst he's had more spending money than you every month.
Honestly I would give him £10k and keep the rest.
I'd like to bet he wouldn't share 80k if it was his inheritance.

Also, don't buy any promises. You put money into the house, you cannot undo that. He could stop overpaying after one month and there's nothing you could do.

You either agree to share everything ie income, inheritance, savings etc or you agree you are financially separate.
Your dh can’t expect you to pay all of your income in so that he gets to save some of his, that’s completely unreasonable.

Perhaps this inheritance will be a way to discuss your financial commitments to each other.

And it's her money.

Why percentages? How is a percentage of wages fair if it means the higher earner always has much more in their personal bank account?

It’s not selfish at all. Everyone does bills and finances differently. My DH earns far more than me, and he’s incredibly “traditional” when it comes to bills. So we agreed he pays all the bills and I pay for food, school stuff (back when DC was still in school) and the pets. This way we both have similar amounts left at the end of the month so our individual savings (although we class them as joint, we have pits in our own names) are also about equal.
Our income is viewed as joint so if his wage is bigger, he pays out more. We class “fair” as both having a similar amount left AFTER bills.
I’ve noticed more modern couples do it the way you do, so it seems to be becoming the norm now

The other 80k share with my husband, he wants to buy an old flat, and we do it up as a 'project'. And use any money we make to overpay mortgage. But he also thinks the £300 a month should pay off more of our mortgage in overpayments or go into the joint account each month and reduce his contributions.

If he wants you both to buy a flat then he needs to match whatever you're contributing. If the flat is £80k then you pay £40k out of your inheritance and he matches that from his savings that he's kept for himself.

If he wants you to pay £300 towards the mortgage every month, then he also needs to match that.

Will your DH inherit anything and have you both talked about his plans for that?

It utterly disgusts me when people try and steal from the dead. Your family members left the inheritance to YOU not him. He sounds very grabby. However beware if you divorced the inheritance wouldn’t be ring-fenced and he’d likely get a sum of it.
One reason why I will never marry again!

I honestly would put the money safely away for now and let life continue as it is. Work through your grief. You lost you mum! He is pressuring you into committing to something that fully suits him and not taking into account your prospective

I think you also need to seriously ask yourself what he would do with this money if it was his inheritance.

Lock it away for now. Till you are in a place where you can think more clearly xx

Doesn’t work like that.

I was in a similar situation with a similar level of inheritance last year but with a DH with zero interest (no pun intended) in it. He's not money-motivated at all whereas I'm an accountant and personal finance is a hobby.
I paid off his £16k student loan with his permission and then he changed the Direct Debit amount to his stocks and shares ISA to increase by the same amount the student loan had been. A chunk of the rest went to maxing out both of our stocks and shares ISAs for our future retirement and the rest went in premium bonds for house projects and self insurance for my horses (I may have also bought DD a new pony as hers needed to retire).
I was looking to optimise our finances for the future and would not have been nearly so freely handing over £30k of a £90k inheritance if he'd had his eye on it.

And can I just say that I inherited 70k and I put it all on the mortgage. BUT my DH pays all of the mortgage payments out of his wages, and all household bills, all food bills, all child related costs. Any money left over from my part time wages or his as the higher earner is OUR money and we can both access it etc. It's not even divided
I was happy to put all of my inheritance into the pot as he puts ALL of his money into the pot.
In your situation there's no way I'd be putting my inheritance into something in his name. It just wouldn't be fair or safe at all.

Because OP said they currently put in the account a percentage of their wages (split fairly based on what they earn). So they could add the £300 a month to OPs wage and recalculate.
I don’t mean split 50/50 more like 70/30 or whatever makes it fair so they have the same amount of disposable income in personal accounts

@icantwaitforsummer I think you need to have a bigger conversation about money, retirement etc.

• will your DH get an inheritance? If so what would he do with it?
• what are your respective pension pots/incomes forecast to be? What will be your expenses? How do you plan to fund your retirements?
• If you invest the money, you haven’t lost it or not shared it you have used it to generate income. There are some long term savings accounts where you can block the money away for2,3,5 years. This gives you time to think.
• Drip feeding £20k into ISAs is a good idea, again they can be long term

It does if she wants it to. Just as he can keep his wages there's nothing to stop her keeping the inheritance.