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

This is Brutal!

You have a good heart, thank goodness for people like you.

yes I agree with you, they should morally sign it back for him to do as he pleases.

I think a lesson for all, careful with your assets, you never know.

I wish your family all the best.

That’s so sad and I agree with you completely

I think they should let DSGM (stepgrandma) live there her entire life. He did this to protect them but his wife has been a constant and sounds like a nice lady and she doesnt deserve this treatment.

I dont have advice beyond him getting legal advice but good luck

I dont think that has been stated. It would be interesting to know approx age of wife re why only 2 years granted to her to stay in the house. Also whether there is sufficient money to provide for the wife aside from the house. It does seem really unfortunate on the wife.

This is none of your business and you should stay out of it. Your grandad made a decision. It may not have been the best decision for his circumstances but it was made and there are obviously consequences that he can’t do anything about. That’s why you think carefully and take legal advice before making such irrevocable changes.

I don’t understand. Did your grandfather leave his first wife, family and the familly home 40- 50 years ago, when the marriage broke down. If he didn’t, where did his first wife and children live?

Your grandad needs to get proper legal advice on this as him giving his house away could be considered legally as deprivation of assets, the Public Guardian could involve the courts and your mum have to give it back. The other thing to consider is that your mum would have to pay capital gains tax on the sale of her dad's house as it would be considered her second home. I think capital gains tax is 40%, could be wrong so check. If your mum shared the proceeds, the recipients may be liable for tax on what they get. It's a legal mess and you need legal advice to sort it out.

You’re powerless to do anything other than support your Grandad. You’ve shown tremendous strength of character even trying to broach the situation. Disgraceful they won’t allow him to live his last stage of life with peace of mind. They could sign it back. Give Wife life tenancy and split 6 ways. Greed is a horrible thing and their reasons are spurious. Keep supporting your Grandad as sounds like you’re the only one with his best interests at heart.

The only advice I can give is get grandad to see a solicitor, take any paperwork with him regarding the house, go with him so you know exactly what they say so he doesn't get confused. I can't sign my house over to my family without paying capital gains, but as I say, solicitor is best, can also tell him if his wife and child can be forced out after 2 years. Don't leave things to chance get it sorted for him.

Crunch the numbers a bit.

OP says her grandad is 86. Kids from his first family are in their 60s, and as there's 4 of them the oldest is likely mid to late 60s. Then he had his younger daughter in his late 50s, making her 27ish now. Female biology being what it is, DW likely to have been no older than early 40s when she had DC5. That would make her late 60s tops now.

She could be much younger too, but that would make it even more likely she outlives the owners and even less reasonable to expect to live there forever.

@whattodo1113

Good question...

Is there something your parent knows that you don't?

Get a solicitors advice .. so sad and sorry your feeling this,way with your grandad x

Yes this. I'm no legal expert but as far as I am aware if he is of sound mind the oldest children (or any of his children) don't get a say and if he draws up a will or has no will it will go to his next of kin which is his living wife. They can contest it but I don't think they would get very far as his wife is legally both spouse and next of kin.

That only applies to things you actually own. You can't will someone else's house.

Can you clarify - has grandad signed the deeds to the house over to the eldest daughter's? And they won't sign it back?
Absolute dreadful behaviour tbh, I'm not surprised everyone is upset.

@whattodo1113 YANBU OP and your mum and her sibling are being greedy and amoral. Your grand-dad's pension will not be enough for his wife. She will be homeless after two years with no means of saving up a deposit to buy a home of her own in that time and reduced to renting a home until she dies. With only a small income and ever-increasing rents in the UK she will live out her days in poverty. Presumably she isn't that young herself? If she's also somewhat elderly, why can't your mum and her sibling allow her, after your grand-dad's death, to remain in the property until she dies and then sell it? To do anything else would be devoid of any care or compassion in the extreme and one could only hope that no other family members would ever treat your mum or her sibling this way. They need to take a long, hard look at themselves and find their sense of decency.

Yes, exactly this. OP told us "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 ..." In other words, after he left OP's grand-mother, but before he met his second wife, he transferred ownership of his property to his two eldest children (one of them being OP's mum) to ensure they got it (I presume he didn't think he would remarry and thought they would then have the house free of IHT).
So, all the people posting about his Will are writing nonsense. He no longer owns the house he and his wife live in (his two eldest children do) and it seems that this has been the case for around 30 years.

You clearly missed the part in OP's first post where she told us "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 ...". The house is no longer owned by him - and hasn't been for about 30 years (OP's mum and one of her siblings have owned it all this time).

If I was your mum, I’d be really pissed off. Her father basically gave her a gift / early inheritance. Then afterwards met a woman, had another kid and just expects her to hand it back over to them? Hell no!

The father and his new partner had TWENTY FIVE YEARS, to sort this out and make alternative arrangements to ensure she had security once he passed, but they did not.

But true.

I might start by checking the ownership of the house on the Land Registry

https://www.gov.uk/get-information-about-property-and-land/search-the-register

In what regard would him signing his house over to two of his children be regarded as "deprivation of assets"?
Why would the OPG be involved in a decision he took around 30 years ago when he was presumably of sound mind? (OP's given us no indication he isn't now.)
The current rates of CGT are 18% and 24% (depending on whether the gain is within the basic income tax band or above it). Where do you get 40% from?

This post nails it.

It's entirely possible his new wife has no idea he doesn't own the house they've lived in for the last 25 years and that he's trying to resolve this problem with his two eldest children without her knowledge (leaving her the shock of finding out the truth when he eventually dies).
My dad remarried after my mum died and lived in our family home with his new wife for 25-odd years before dying two years ago. His Will left the house to me and my siblings, but one of them (with my agreement) managed to persuade him, two weeks before his death, to change his Will entirely in favour of his wife. We couldn't have lived with ourselves seeing her with little to nothing after 25 years of marriage.
I guess there are just some selfish, grabby fuckers like OP's mum out there, and then there's the rest of us with integrity and a sense of what's right. Even if OP's mum and her sibling don't think they should sign the house back to OP's grand-dad, the least they could do to give him peace of mind, is to agree to allow his wife to remain in the house for as long as she wants to, or until/if she remarries.