Should I ask to be a shareholder too? DH company etc

[isthisfairtodo]

Ok I’m going to try to explain this without completely outing myself here, so bear with me.

My DH has a good income, of which 50 percent flows into an investment company be co-owns with his father. This is for apparent company benefits.

I have work full time, but make around half of what my DH makes. The amount flowing into the investment company is equivalent to my entire salary.

my DH pays for all bills/ mortgage/ cars and one child’s education and I pay for our other child’s education , as well as quite a bit of our household expenses. Food shopping etc.

in any case, I am the default parent, I leave work early / work from home when kids are sick and I take care of our household. DH works long hours and I manage my job around his hours.

question is - is it fair for me not to be part of this investment company too ? Seeing as he’s putting so much money into it ( very little wise )? If he decides to leave me one day, I won’t have many rights over the investments that have grown over the years, seeing as his father is part of the company and I’m not. So my DH shares would be diluted.

I make a lot of sacrifices too, to enable my DH to work the hours he needs to, to enable him to even earn the money to put into the investments.

wouldn’t it be fairer if I was also a shareholder ?

thanks for your help!

But your FIL isn't putting equally into the investment company with your DH but that is apparently fine, but because you can't afford to put funds into the company that you co-own with your DH, he refuses to put anything in?

You should be absolutely furious with your DH and, if you can afford it, I would employed a forensic accountant to look into all this. It all sounds pretty fishy to me.

Because it is a marital asset and she would get her fair share in a divorce. If she had shares in addition to DH it would dilute the father’s holding so that she would get a portion of his wealth in a divorce. That’s why it’s gold-digging.

Sorry - I entirely missed that his father doesnt actually contribute financially!

That is entirely different - yes I agree it appears he’s trying to dilute what you’d be entitled to. In reality, it wouldn’t be likely to work for exactly that reason - unless he could produce a genuine explanation for putting half of his (by default) family income into his dad’s name, such as a loan document from years ago where his dad lent him £100k for his first property on the basis of repayment etc.

As others have said it will also cause huge issues when his father dies, as 50% of your husband’s investment legally belongs to his dad, and your husband has no control (unless there’s a side agreement proving otherwise) over what happens to that on his death.

It’s kind of ironic - every single week we get posts on mumsnet from people trying to find dodgy ways to reduce the amount of inheritance tax / care home fees their parents / in laws have to pay.

And here is the OP’s husband happily bumping up the amount!

Ask your husband directly to clarify what the reasons are for his father to be on the company. Post his answer and we can tell you if there is likely to be any merit in it or not.

I can’t think of anything but I do know various companies are set up in various ways for various (genuine) complex reasons in terms of shareholdings.

Based on what you’ve said so far, I can’t imagine he’s got a genuine reason but if you get him to clarify what the ‘benefits’ that he needs from having his father on, we can tell you if he’s telling fairytales or whether it may be genuine…

So you, being an accountant, would be happy for your husband to put his earnings into an investment company where nobody else invested any money - every penny had come from your husband, but somebody other than you owned 50% of the company and hence 50% of his money put in and any profits????

I wouldn’t want you as my accountant.

Presumably the other shareholders in the companies YOUR husband has invested in actually paid for their shares proportionally as your DH did and so it’s a totally different scenario.

First of all it just sounded like a way to reduce tax, but given the recent information about the other company I think the OP’s DH is an absolute arse and I am highly suspicious of his motives.

Edit - cross post - I see you didn’t understand the situation correctly!

Do you not know how marriage works?

Ignore the gold digger comments! They are reasonable thoughts to be having. Maybe before going further in, think about the type of man he is. Would he leave you high and dry kinda thing? Is it something you need to spend your time considering?

I would ask your DH to sit down one evening and have a chat about family finances thoroughly. If he’s not hiding anything, then he should be happy to discuss the investment company in full detail with you. If he’s angry about that, or refuses to give you full disclosure then you have cause for concern. In which case I would quietly seek legal advice.

From the outside it looks to me that he could be squirrelling away 50% of his earnings into savings/investments that he is trying to prevent you having any rights to in the event of a future divorce. If a divorce was likely to happen, his Dad could withdraw/empty all the assets of the business into his own bank account……. leaving zero savings to be split in divorce. Then once the divorce is finalised, he puts all the money back into the company which your husband can then fully withdraw.

Baffles me that people are calling @isthisfairtodo a golddiger. I call her husband the golddigger!

In any event it is very unfair that he is able to save 50% of his earnings. Whilst you end up with no savings at the end of the month. This is not a fair split. You should both be able to put 50% of your earnings into savings….. then money left over paid into household running costs equally.

You need to know more about the investment company - what are the shares - are they equal (you can have different share categories with different earnings from same company). What is the purpose of the investments? Where is the money actually going?

By investing in this company he is depriving the family of that income - he is not allowing his wife to save or even have spending money she has control over.

Why is the wife responsible for all food and clothing for the kids? why is that not split as well?

I think 1 find out more about investment company - amazing what you can learn just from companies house, 2. Have an overall look at the household bills and expenses and even it out a bit more so that you too can put monies away, pay into a pension, have savings, get a decent haircut and outfit for events etc

No, clearly not.
I hadn’t read the subsequent posts.

Rubbish. It sounds more like expecting your husband to be a partner.

Incorrect.

If her husband put 50% of his earnings into savings/pensions, then she would likely be awarded 50% of this money on divorce.

But instead he is sneakily putting it into an investment company with his Father named as a shareholder. So on divorce she would only be entitled to 25% of the money instead of 50% …….. Or potentially 0% of the money if her H and FIL are savvy and siphon the money to FIL before divorce. Then after divorce FIL gives the money back to H.

Her H is the golddiger. He is happy for his wife to have taken a hit to her career, he is happy for her to have taken the bigger burden of raising their children, running the household, taking all the days off to look after children when they are off sick etc. Yet in return is seeking to deprive her of the financial advantage that this has afforded the family/him.

It could be tax efficient for you to be a shareholder, as you probably have a lower tax rate so could receive dividends and pay less than he does. On that basis I think you should be. Lots of couples give the 'wife' (usually) a share of the small business.

Here’s the deal dh. I can barely save, because I look after our family. You are supported by me to save the equivalent of my salary, have the nerve to moan about money, and also none of it is in joint names. It doesn’t feel joint. We don’t feel joint. I think at this point there are 2 outcomes- you can either change the investment plan to have substantial portion in my or our name, or you can be home at 5 every day prepared to do the family hard yards while i disappear and try ro earn an income. You get to be me and see if you think I’ve supported you in your job. You will take every sick day, do every school form, medical appt, birthday party, daily dinner, etc. I’m going out now leaving you to do dinner bath homework bed and clean up. If the kitchen isn’t clean then I am going to turn around and go back out for the night to stay somewhere else, you’ll have to work out a plan for the morning. I am tired of gently suggesting or waiting for you to treat me like I matter and I no longer support a man who doesn’t do ‘ours’.

Sounds like you are nervous in the marriage and are expecting it to end. As others have said, it would be a marital asset so you would get your fair share anyway.

This. You don’t work for the company so you shouldn’t be a share holder, but you’re entitled to have his assets in a divorce.

Sounds as though you need to sit with DH and have a discussion about him taking on his share of the household costs and paying for the school fees as the current arrangement disadvantages you.

I had my children to show for the marriage when my husband had an affair and left me with four children. I loved them dearly, but money was what was needed to pay the bills.

Another point is possible IHT on FIL share if he passes - DH would then be paying it on his own money!

This makes it sound even more as though the company with his dad is to ring fence some of his earnings so that you don’t have a claim to them in the event you split up.

The people saying ‘he’s paying more than his fair share of the bills’ or whatever are missing the point. You are married with kids together. It isn’t just about paying the bills now, it is also about saving together for the future. Whereas it seems he is only happy to have joint assets if you contribute 50% of the money - even though he does not do 50% of home life by any stretch of the imagination.

I am an accountant. Admittedly this kind of thing isn’t my specialism, but I can see very few reasons for what he is doing except to keep assets out of both your names in case you split up. And depending on how this investment company with his dad is set up, you might not even get 50% of your husbands bit if he split up.

If anything there are significant disadvantages to his set up with his dad - not least that he has given away a chunk of his money, and if his dad dies first (which he is statistically likely to) there would be inheritance tax to pay.

I would approach this as wanting to do a general finances audit and financial planning session, including planning and taking actions for (eg writing wills, getting life insurance if appropriate etc)

• what happens if one of you dies
• what happens if you both die
• what happens if FIL dies
• what are your priorities for savings and how will you plan it - support kids at uni? Help them with deposits? Your retirement plans?

use appropriate advisors where needed, eg independent financial advisor, solicitor, etc

Don’t be fobbed off by him being offended. Just explain you want to understand the rationale

Well no, if she is named she’d be entitled to a third of the shares. If she gets divorced half of her husbands pay for the eternity of the marriage is protected by shares, which his dad co—owns. So every month he is giving by his dad a quarter of his salary. (Unless dad is combining an equal amount) So he’s building up a nest egg, which at the moment is marriage money, but if they were divorced she’s only entitled to half of his half shares, the other half is owned by his dad so she’d be losing out big time. I’d be wondering if he’s doing that on purpose.

it’s not gold digging to expect marital assets to be shared.

On re-reading I see that the FIL doesn’t invest in the company, so I stand corrected.

No, it doesn’f. To me it sounds he’s spending/investing half his income somewhere else and OP has no control over it.

I agree that the most likely rationale for doing things like this is to have some way of shielding the money in the event of a divorce. What other motivation could there be for doing it.

Though without having a lot of knowledge about the business/how it is set up it is impossible to know whether this is possible and what the true purpose is.

I'd absolutely be getting some advice OP and having a series of conversations with HB.

If the money is paid directly to investments, investment company that makes him and his father investors then it's not co mingled family money and you wouldn't be entitled.

If it gets paid in to a joint bank account and then paid to investments, then it is marital, but not if it's paid to an individual account.
It's complicated. And if he's paying this to avoid divorce, or instead of a pension it's even more important to get clarity/fairness should the worst happen for you and your children.

I don't think your BU. But, is it something that generally concerns you, are you having problems or are you planning an exit strategy as each state means a different approach I think.

You'll only be entitled to your hubbies proportion of the portfolio so let that go, and if it's just assets then there will be a rebalancing unless deemed not in the marital pot. But even in that case court can order non marital to be invaded if needs are being met fairly. It's messy though and clarity and knowledge isn't wrong and doesn't make you a gold digger it makes you pragmatic.

Get some advice would still be my advice with someone who can go through the legalities with your actual case. Any research you can get more than just the salary amount he's spending will be helpful too.

Good luck. X