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

The problem is though he's already transferred title - legally no longer his house and so not his decision. If it was done via the will, then yes it would have been his decision as to where the property went, but that's not the case here.

They probably should be, but people don’t think about them. She clearly states in her OP that it was before he met and married his second wife. Whose daughter is in her 50s. He’s 86, so he must have been a very young man.

I have to admit I’m slightly unclear on some details. Usually the mother and children stay in the house. This would make sense of the gift. But who lives there now? It sounds like he does with his second wife. But maybe he doesn’t.

What a lovely post. Do you feel better now? 🙄

If its legally their house there probably isn't much he can do. I think at the very least it should be split between his 6 children, not just the original 5, but it can't be forced I don't think. My mum's friend signed her house and farm over to her only son, when he married he and his wife made her life a misery, she had nowhere else to go so she had a truly miserable old age.

Setting any moral questions aside, your DM definitely needs legal / tax advice before she makes any moves. Playing nice could cost her a lot of money.

That is the danger of signing your house over. He needs to live with the consequences. This should have been sorted out years ago. They've had 25 years to sort it.

He needs to speak to a solicitor. They are being greedy.

This is exactly what has happened here.

The daughter isn’t in her 50s. It says he had the daughter when he was in his late 50s. Which makes the daughter late 20s/30ish.

Thanks. You are right. After writing it I went back to have another look. She must be mid 20s. Still, the house was transferred more than 25 years ago.

We'll have to agree to disagree, but, in your version, what "charity" was he worried about getting the money?

Also, your dates are wrong. He remarried in his late 50s and has been with his second wife for 25 years - so his youngest daughter is likely younger than that age (definitely well under 50).

Greed isn’t illegal. The law upholds the absolute nature of giving unless there is evidence of coercion or lack of capacity. He can’t give away something twice.

I’m not sure what you are talking about. I never mentioned a charity.

m There’s nothing to disagree on. The law is absolute. The house is not his.

PS I corrected the dates issue. House must have been given over 25 years ago.

It's a difficult one indeed. A mess I would say as now his kids can't just "give it back" without selling it and paying taxes due. I wonder if he understands that and still would like to do it? Can't really see a way forward without consulting the tax folk and lawyers. I was just referring to the so called moral dilemma when I responded really but that aside, I do see what you mean.

This is a moral dilemma but even without all the issues that have been raised here, if I were your mum if there was any way of giving it back I would. 25 years is a very long marriage to be made homeless after.

I never said that the house was his - I agree that it isn't.

I said that he gave it to his children to avoid it being sold for care fees and/or inheritance taxes. You said that he didn't, because care home fees wouldn't have been on his radar.

I know you didn't mention charity but, as I said in the post that you disagreed with, the OP did. She said that he gave the house to avoid it going to "charity" if he got sick or died. If, according to you, it wasn't done to avoid care fees and/or inheritance taxes, what "charity" was he worried about getting it?

ETA - yes, I saw your correction after my post.

There nothing a lawyer can do retrospectively. They can’t create a deed of trust or make the gift contingent on fulfilling certain obligations retrospectively.

There is perhaps a moral (not legal) on the owners to consider his wishes, but as they might have to sell when he dies (to pay IHT due to his ongoing beneficial interest in the property) they shouldn’t even promise to let his wife remain there for 2 years. If you have to borrow money from the bank to pay IHT before recovering the costs when a property sells, they usually only give you a year interest free. After that it gets expensive.

It would be very very wrong of your mum and her sibling to not include your grandfather's sixth child, their half-sister, in the split. However I don't think they are wrong to refuse to sign it back to him and disinherit themselves. He has demonstrated himself untrustworthy and has treated many people abominably.

The house won't be your grandad's only asset. He can leave everything else to his new wife and she'll be ok

I don’t think you’ll be successful in persuading them to give it back and there won’t be any way to get it back legally as it’s so long ago, so I’d try and persuade them to agree to let his wife live there for the rest of her life. The priority has to be her welfare.

I don’t think there’s evidence that he gave it to avoid care fees. The avoidance of IHT seems more likely. Tax avoidance is legal - reducing your tax bill through careful planning is encouraged through policies like pension relief and ISAs for example. Tax evasion is illegal. But the motivation can be the same.

Either way, there had been no mention of him paying rent, so if the house exceeds the value of the IHT threshold then IHT is due, because he has retained a beneficial interest. This would be paid by his estate, so other assets that he might have and is leaving (IHT free) to his wife. Only if the rest of his estate is worth less than the tax bill does the recipient of the gift (the legal owner of the house) get called upon for the recovery of the tax owed.

It’s a total mess.

I notice you say your mum's point of view is "he left when they were kids and this new child got more of him than they did growing up"

Often in these situations it is not only about the money but also emotions

@Genevieva Not really sure how they can get around it and if the daughter can now still gift the house back to her dad so to speak but I would imagine that would look extremely dodgy. Appreciate that lawyers are pretty limited in the scope of the advice they can give. Tax folk can be consulted but also don't know what they could possibly advice here. What a nightmare this is! It teaches all a lesson to be careful with what they do with their homes and when they do it and consult all relevant specialists beforehand!

Clearly, in the end, even if the daughter was willing to "give it back" in the loosest possible sense of the phrase, it wouldn't be as easy as her dad imagines it to be and could still cause a rift in the family!

How do you go about evicting someone living in your home without a tenancy agreement or all the certificates required to evict someone?

on here the other day was a landlord who hadn't put the checks in place on a property they were renting out, therefore they couldn't evict them - ever

so I wonder how your mum and sibling are going to get vacant procession of the house?

I think you should butt out OP.

From a moral standpoint, why should your GF’s older DC forfeit their inheritance because he remarried and had another child, especially after he left them as children but brought up his younger child? Did he support his older DC, provide a home for them?

Some might say he’s got his comeuppance by trying to hide his asset by signing it away to his older DC who he left. Sounds like he was a bit sneaky and I don’t buy it that he waited 25 years to realise he needed the property back after remarrying and having another child.

Practically, it will cost your mother and her sibling money to sign the house back to your GF, or presumably, his wife, and why should they be out of pocket further with no inheritance? They don’t owe her or their half sibling anything.

Would their ‘stepmother’ have shared the inheritance with them seeing as the house was paid off before your GF met her?

Your mum and her sibling could have kicked your GF’s family out of the house 25 years ago but haven’t. The stepmother has lived there rent free for years. She must have been aware that the older DC legally owned it and she had no right to live there after her DH’s death. Her DH who was a lot older than her. She should have had a plan herself.

Two years rent free after your GF’s death is reasonable. Your mum and her sibling might like to split the sale proceeds with their half sibling as well and that would be more than fair IMO.