Stock markets, inheritance, i don't understand

[Vlinty]

My mother died in 2024 and father this March. Years before they had made me power of attorney (because my husband works in finance he is a lawyer, so could help me. I am clueless and they knew this.)

After mum died, my DH took over, because my dad had dementia.

He changed a lot of their funds over to higher risk , their financial advisor told me they had always wanted low risk.

We sold the house and dh got me to invest with another fund manager. Take the money out of ns&I as well.

So some money with new advisor, some with old advisor but all higher risk than my parents had it

Now this morning he has told me that everything is down 25%.... obviously because the markets have plummeted following trump's tariffs.

I am so distraught, I have 2 siblings who will want their share of the money. I'm really angry with dh and he now won't talk to mr because I'm panicking and he won't help me - just says I won't listen. When it is him who will not answer a straight question.

Please help me calm down.

The issue is high risk investing was not appropriate in this scenario.

Sorry, I think you have to take some responsibility for this. You didn’t have to hand everything over to DH, financial advisors exist for this very reason! Maintain control of your finances in future. As others have said, best cause of action is to hold on to everything for now and wait for market to rise. Also, a good time to buy if you have anything left to invest.

But then OP will be increasing the value after probate.
There’s a tax issue there
You can't hang on to assets in a deceased persons name in order to make money.

It is part of the reason.

We are in a similar position. We have about £400k waiting to be distributed. Asked the fund manager to cash it in three weeks ago. They failed to do so (said we needed to provide another copy of the executors signature for some reason). It’s now down massively.

We will probably try to transfer the stock so that it can just wait out. But that could take years.

I don't think the father would have minded that much. He was 6 feet under.

Were your siblings aware of what your dh was doing? Especially with the money from the house sale?
Are you also the executor of the will?

As you had POA, I'm shocked that you allowed him to make all these changes.
I don't know much about pensions but but I do remember receiving details on pension plans that in the years before pension drawdown, the pension funds would be transfered to a low risk investments.
So why on earth did your dh think these changes were ok, to do for 2 elderly people,, one whom had dementia.
He as a solicitor should never have done this.

I'm confused. You haven't lost any money until you sell. Pretty sure ownership can be transferred, you don't need to liquidate. Doesn't sound like any cause to stress.

Your DH is an idiot.

You both may find this history of market crashes helpful.

https://www.morningstar.com/economy/what-weve-learned-150-years-stock-market-crashes

As you can see staying invested for the long term helps but the long term is a much longer than some people on this thread think it is.

Just don’t look a similar picture for the Japanese stock market 😪and pray we have not entered a period of high inflation and war.

I think as a couple you should take the hit for this (but preferably wait until the market recovers). Let's say the total pot was worth 180k when DH became involved (so 60k for each sibling) and it is now worth 150k. You should give the 2 siblings their 60k and have 30k for yourselves.

1. agree your DH has massively overstepped. It is not his right to play around with other people’s money and experiment with the stock market. It’s a misuse of trust and of fiduciary duty. You’re also at fault for allowing him to do this. He clearly has a higher tolerance for risk, which is very easy when it’s not his money to play with.

2. don’t panic. A lot of stocks and shares were down Thursday/Friday. They fluctuate a lot. The news makes it very alarming. It may well be that not all of the stocks are down, just some. Eg., the pound is actually stronger since the tariffs were announced, and UK funds are doing fine, it’s just that US ones are a bit down.

3. Don’t sell when you’re down, wait it out.

4. what does he actually mean by 25% down? Is that 25% down on the initial cash contributions, or just that they’re 25% down on where they were on Tuesday? Massive difference between the two.

5. your husband is a dick for playing with your parents investments. The low risk low cost trackers have been fine this past week.

The investments lost 25% that means on an investment if £180k that means the investments stand at £135k

£60k each doesn’t take account of the losses the low risk funds suffered

Low risk doesn’t mean no risk.

OP, everything has tanked.

My pension is in v low risk funds as I am retirement age: plummeted.

It may be that the value if the funds rose a lot over the last few months, so is dropping from a higher level than had they been in low risk funds.

The important figure is how much has been lost against the starting amount. Or the amount a year ago.

No, OP said that “everything is down 25%”.

Can mean two things:

1. they had invested £100,000 but it’s now worth £75,000 which is shit.

or

2. they had invested £100,000 10 years ago and on Monday it was worth £200,000 and then by Friday it was £150,000.

What I don't understand OP, is why you allowed your DH to take over, given the fact that your parents already had a financial advisor? Why didn't you just take the financial advisor's advice, as your parents would have done. You say that your parents knew you didn't know much about money, but if they wanted your DH to act on their behalf, they would have named him as P.O.A. or they could even have named you jointly, so they obviously DIDN'T want HIM involved! You have failed your parents, and your siblings, and quite frankly, in their shoes I would be furious with you both. Your siblings could in fact have you investigated, because you didn't act in the best interests of your parents, which is what a P.O.A. states that you MUST do. If, once Probate has been granted, the funds aren't back to where they were when your DF died, then as a sibling, if I needed the money, I'd expect you and your DH to reimburse me the amount that you have lost out of your share of the Will.

Well they don’t need the money themselves as they are dead so why not take some risk on it. We don’t even know that it’s been a bad investment. So it lost value yesterday, that doesn’t mean it’s a loss overall.

its now up to the executor to administrate the estate and apply for probate. It’s not within the executor’s role to take any risks with the estate assets.

Yes it's trackers. He is now saying it was all low/medium risk. Instead of 25% wiped off my parents shares (which was what he said at breakfast), it is 10%!?
He claims he said 20%down and this is off our own investments not my parents'.
I just dk what to believe, he twists and lies like any lawyer (sorry to lawyers).

Ask him for the paperwork and you can see for yourself.

Why did you bother to post such a long reply when you obviously haven't even read the OP?

Well no, not really. If you wanted to do that you would need to assess what the value today would have been if left in the lower risk finds and NS&I. Then calculated the difference as the lower risk would gave grown at a much slower rate than the high risk. It may be that the difference even with the large drop is not as much as that depending on how much the value increased before the fall.

Do you think he is up to something fishy OP? Do you trust him?

I had power of attorney for my mother. When I needed to use the POA in about 2014 I need to realise some of her investments made about 4 years earlier so that she could buy a flat.
Turned out the bank adviser who made the investments interviewed my DM aged about 83 locked her into about 5 years of high risk investments because when asked she said that she wanted to live a little.
I made a formal complaint and won. The high risk investments had gone up handsomely so no compensation for that but the exit fee was waived. Your fathers estate should take legal action against your DH unless you can reach an out of court settlement.

The DH isn’t the executor. It’s the executor (or previously the person with power of attorney) at fault however this isn’t a situation anyone would have anticipated and unfortunately moving stock for most people isn’t something that is instant.

Have you looked at exactly what the investments were OP?
Everything has plummeted this weekend.
To be fair you would need to get a qualified IFA to do some comparisons of different investments over the period of time since DH took over.
As pp said, the original sum invested may have still increased.
DH and I invested a small inheritance years ago. The pot has lost 20% in the last few days, (as it did when Liz Truss tanked the economy), but even taking inflation into account, it is still a lot more than the original sum. We just keep an eye on it until we start thinking about using it.
Get the figures and the facts.