AIBU - inheritance sad story

[whattodo1113]

I’m going to break this down as easily as possible.

my grandad who is now 86 had 5 children. (The eldest is my mum)
he split up with my grandma when the children were young.
all the children are now obviously grown up in their 60s.
all of them have wife’s / husbands and their own children. They ALL live good lives and have done well for themselves are by NO means hard up.

my grandad has worked hard all his life and paid his house off etc and was alone for a long long time with not much quality of life. He then met someone and married her and had a daughter later on in life when he was late 50s. This child is grown up now too. He is still with his wife now and has been for 25 years ish. Sorry my numbers aren’t the best and it’s not really relevant.

the whole family welcomed wife and the new child and I must say she’s always been lovely she’s a lovely woman. The daughter they had I loved and still do very much. My grandad has always been a good grandad to us. I have fond memories with him and I love him loads.

so here’s the crunch….
before he met his wife he put his house in the 2 eldest children’s names (my mum included) his train of thought was if anything happened to him or he got ill etc they’d have that house and all those things and he didn’t want it to end up in a charity or whatever I don’t know.

3 years ago as he’s getting very old now he asked them to sign the house back to him as his wife has lived there with him 25 years now and it’s her HOME and their daughter lives there too. She works part time. He’s obviously planning not being here anymore
they have refused him the house and have said when he dies she can stay for 2 years to get on her feet and find somewhere then they will sell it and split the money between the 5 children.

there argument is he left when they were kids and this new child got more of him than they did growing up.
I personally think this is very revengeful of my mum and greedy and not morally right? My grandad is very depressed and cries and I just hate that this is how the end of his life looks. He said his wife has been there the most for him and loved and looked after him and she’s gonna be left in a mess when he goes and she’s doesn’t deserve it. Which I agree.

I’ve told my mum it’s his house. He paid for it. He worked for it. Give it him back. Am I being soft ?? What do you think?? I just personally feel disapointed in them.
may I add nobody visited him often or cared to see him much but they want his house and money?

they’ve all said wife will have his pension that’s enough. Which is about 500 a month I think.

I just can’t stop thinking about him and I’m the only one in the family who has said how he’s being treated is discusting. They think he’s cruel taking the house back but at the end of the day he bought the house and his life situations have changed now and all the kids are so well off with their own businesses etc they don’t NEED it. Xxx

She’s obviously tried pressuring her mother already and has been told to go pound sand.

Continuing to try is only going to cause more conflict with her mother and the rest of the family that supports her mother and aunt.

So he did something to actively avoid inheritance tax and has now changed his mind? I don't have much sympathy.

This is what practically every poster has already said 😂

That's what I was thinking.

Interesting you say the older 2 will split the cost between the 5 children.
Should it not be split by 6 or are the excluding their half sister?

When he met his second wife, he should have said, 'I don't own any property, my children own this house'. Because that was legally factual.

What a mess.

Basically he shouldn't have done anything and just made a will. He's tried to long term avoid the house being used to pay for his care, and it's not worked out.

Your mum and her sister could argue that they have made financial decisions based on the value of the house, but the moral argument to give it back is strong.

As people have pointed out, there are all sorts of costs and taxes to be paid now so that needs to be added to the costs of transferring it back.

Obviously this should have been sorted a lot sooner, The second wife should have kicked up a fuss about this a long time ago, to protect her daughter if nothing else.

If your grandfather was able to give the house away before he even met his new wife I would say the house was most likely an asset of the first marriage. That is something that he and his first wife had saved for, worked for and paid off.

Signing the house over to his eldest children could have been something he did precisely to protect an asset from his first marriage for the children of his first marriage - possibly under pressure from his first wife your Gran. If so she was a savvy woman as what she predicted has exactly come to pass - your grandad wants to give the house, paid for during his first marriage, away to his second wife and second family children.

Unfortunately for him he legally safeguarded the house for his first family so he and his second wife should have worked and saved to ensure the second marriage had assets to provide a home for themselves and an inheritance for the child of the second family.

If they give it back to him now, new wife will inherit and ultimately her children. Your mum and her siblings will get nothing. Plus the tax issues.

He's has 25 years to sort this out, if this (very odd) arrangement wasnt his true intention.

Double post

I don’t know why so many people are raising CGT- it’s very likely the mother and other sibling are well aware of this and don’t have any concerns. Wouldn’t most people be willing to hand over a small % of the value in exchange for a FREE THING?! They’ve got a house for nothing 😂

Owners don’t need a court order to evict. They can literally go in, change the locks and remove personal effects in this situation as there is no tenancy agreement, no rent paid to form a contract. Police can be called if there is a breach of the peace when they are told to leave.

OP said house was paid off before GF remarried so nothing could be claimed to have been paid that would give the wife an interest in the house.

Wife and her daughter are ‘excluded occupiers’, they should be given ‘reasonable’ notice which is at the owners discretion and in this case can be the two years the owners have very reasonably agreed to give after the GF’s death.

Probably the 2 kids he could trust not to kick him out and he was right. He probably knows the other 3 would happily see him homeless.
Late 1980's people were very aware of iht & care costs, I remember my dad talking to me about it, I was early 20's with my first mortgage, solicitor advised me against it. Dad also wanted it in my name so mum couldn't take half if they divorced. Imagine that shit storm!

Would the children of a good father behave in this way? Most likely not.

There is also a default to drama- the mother and daughter may very well just leave themselves with no conflict. There is no need to be talking about eviction and gas safety and rent etc

Coooeeee OP

Because the CGT tax would be due on the transfer at the value of the asset at that time, regardless of whether they receive any money for it.

So, if they give the house back to GF they lose the asset they currently own and have to pay up to 24% CGT on any increase in value since it was originally transferred to them.

I should imagine the GF only transferred the house to 2 out of his 5 DC because they were the oldest, and maybe the only adults, and he trusted they’d share with their younger siblings.

Alternatively It may have been more costly in legal fees to get all 5 names on the deed if they were all adults.

Hopefully that will be the case. I was responding to the PP who seemed to think the wife had legal rights in the same way as a tenant.

She doesn’t unless she can prove she’s been paying rent, which could be seen to form a contract, to either of the owners in the absence of a tenancy agreement.

Bollocks to that - the wife could live for years after his death and the dc would still have to pay to maintain etc

S/he should have made provision for the time after he passes / and for daughter - They've had 25 years rent free

Looks like the OP is either the 6th child or the current wife.

Otherwise how would a grandchild know that her grandfather had been to a solicitor to try to change his will / seek legal advice on how to take back a property gift from the OPs mother? 👀

If this is real, the only people to benefit from the coming shit storm will be the lawyers who sort out this unholy mess.

I'd guess Grandad didn't tell his new wife that he'd just signed his house over to his kids when he first met her.

For all we know, wife was perfectly fine thinking that she would inherit and then pass it to her child.

Or maybe she did know and they have been squirreling money away for the last 25-30 years, for her and the daughter, and will not be destitute.

So many children of first marriages get absolutely shafted and the second family are perfectly fine with that.

We just don't know.

So an even bigger shit show. My dad broached this with me back in the 1980's I was advised not to by solicitor thank goodness.

Yes, my Dad has talked about "people" who transfer property to avoid IHT and concluded that the only way to do it is to pay rent for the privilege of living in what they still see as their own home.

So, the GF's estate will have to pay the IHT and the two older children own the property.