Inheritance

[Breeabelle]

I am looking for an outside opinion on my siblings thoughts on their inheritance.

I live in the same country as my aging mum. I have two kids and am a single mother but have met someone 4 years ago and we are looking to buy a house. There is one house that we have looked at has a one bedroom flat attached to it. My mum would like to sell her very nice house and put some money towards this house for us, and that would be my share of the inheritance. I have 3 siblings that all live abroad and only come home for a week or two every year. My mums current house is in good condition but she needs lots of help maintaining it and things are starting to go wrong, like a new boiler is needed, there's a leak in the attic, etc, nothing major, but things than stress her out at her age. I think her moving in next to me in a completely separate but attached dwelling is a fantastic idea as she is quite nervous about being by herself but equally is totally independent.

However one sibling has kicked off about it saying it is so unfair that I possibly will be getting slightly more inheritance than the rest of them- 10,000 roughly. I have said that I will be the one taking care of mum as she ages and that I could of course buy a different house which would cost me much less but I am thinking of the future with Mum. And that they need to talk to mum about it as it isn't my money. And we mightn't even get the house. It has caused so much stress and now nobody is talking to each other. My mum is all for the new house.

Do you think it's worth the stress of siblings not talking to each other ?

'They' are in fact us lot, taxpayers. If everyone redistributed their assets so the government had to fund their housing and care this country would soon be bankrupt.
Going back to the question, though... It's a good idea in principle, and stuff what the absent siblings think. But do speak to a solicitor first about what happens if she needs to go into a home.

That is exactly the arrangement in the UK. If someone needs care to be funded and owns a property the LA will put a charge on that property to recoup the cost of care. This is possibly what the OP means by “possess”.

Exactly @Ohpleeeease have posted above how it’s referred to in Scotland and info re the ‘Charging Order’.

Deprivation of assets is quite difficult to prove. The LA would need to be satisfied that the property was sold deliberately to minimise the person’s assets for the purpose of assessing their contribution towards the cost of care. If the OP’s DM doesn’t currently need care and hasn’t been assessed as needing it in the near future she would probably not be caught by this.

However there are huge risks in combining households. It can’t easily be undone if the arrangement doesn’t work out. It’s potentially a long term commitment to a particular home, whether or not it continues to meet your needs. Is the DM’s part on the ground floor, does it have an easy access entrance, single storey accommodation, adaptable bathroom etc?

I would suggest going to the Elderly Parents board OP and asking advice from people who’ve actually done this and how to make it work, before you start thinking about whose noses might be put out by the arrangement.

@DeftWasp I’m assuming you have more to go on than that single comment, given how strongly you’re repeating the “she is not in the UK” point. The underlying principle seems sound to me, though I’d probably phrase it slightly differently.

@Breeabelle Regardless of which country you’re in, make sure you get solid legal advice. I did something similar with a family member who, unexpectedly, needed nursing-home care just two years later. You really don't know what is round the corner.

I've seen 5yrs and 7yrs quoted a about being exempt from potential nursing home fees, I'm sure my solicitor told me this was for inheritance tax and the deprivation of assets actually has no retrospective time limit - double check this.

Well, OP, that’s not quite true, is it? If your sibs wanted DM to have a happy life, they would not want her to have the stress of ongoing repairs, or they would want to look after her themselves.

If they are not prepared to either help her with the renovations to her home, “up sticks” and come back to your country to look after her or pay for carers if and when she needs it, then they have no say.

You could, although given their attitude, I wouldn’t, offer to preserve a % of the value of your new property that could be paid to your siblings on your death, but ensure that any care you give is accounted for and deducted from that % formally, while your DM needs your care.

That might put it into perspective for them - tbh if my DM was handing out early inheritance sums and one sibling was prepared to do the heavy lifting for a slightly bigger benefit, I would be very, very grateful for both…

There is no limit on deprivation, instead certain criteria have to be met, key of which is, to be guilty of deprivation of assets in terms of care fees, the person must have "reasonably been able to foresee the need for care".

This, in reality means a medical diagnosis or decline in health having occurred - so a healthy 65 year old gifting his child £100K for a house could not reasonably foresee the need for care, the same 65 year old with a diagnosis of Parkinson's, for example, could foresee that need.

As age advances more people have some underlying condition, and therefore the number who could foresee a need for care increases.

In practical terms, 6 moths prior to diagnosis of a condition that could reasonably lead to care is regarded generally as the limit on proving deprivation of assets, but that could set the timeframe as little as 6 moths or as much as 20+ years, it differs case by case.

7 years is the gifting rule for inheritance tax, 5 years is the time the HMRC can review accounts.

This is the most sensible advice so far ^^.

The plans do not sound like deprivation of assets (but confirm with a solicitor) and what you’re suggesting is something many families do all the time.

With respect to your siblings, it does not sound as though their views ought to be taken into consideration under the circumstances. I’ve never understood how adult children feel the right to dictate to their parents about what they can or cannot do with the money that their parents have earned in a lifetime. Madness.

Though I have an elderly relative where those exact circumstances occurred. One adult child suggested they share a house with the elderly parent living in a granny flat after the elderly parent’s spouse died. Another sibling flat out ‘refused’ to allow this to happen. So it didn’t happen. Fast forward 10 years later and the elderly parent doesn’t need care, but still lives alone and would’ve preferred to have been living with the one child and their family all this time plus getting a bit more help now.

Shame that this was never allowed to happen.

Exactly this. Especially considering you are prepared to look after your mum as she ages. This lot are just thinking about what they can get.
Ask them do they have any plans to look after your mum if you don't do it.

You are doing the right thing op. In all scenarios your mum benefits here which is what you want- you are a good person and your siblings true colors are showing.

I think your siblings are being horrible and grabby. They're not the ones going to be left doing the caring.

My dsis does at least 80% of my parents care, she lives 2 minutes away, no children, very flexi work hours. My brothers and I would take them here or there if she wasn't available. I couldn't care less if my parents left her 10/20/30 grand more than the rest of us. I would see it as a thank you for everything shes done.
My parents would spend about €50 each for Xmas birthday presents for me and 2 brothers. She would spend about €150 on my sister, it doesn't bother me in the slightest cause she's doing all the hard work with the parents and my dad is a right grumpy so she puts up with a lot.

What you are hoping to do sounds like the best optiin for your mum but you do need to take legal advice and consider the mortgage. A friend and their parents divided a big house and had roughly half each but my friend had great difficulty remortgaging later on because her parents were attached to her house. She ended up paying more for her mortgage for years due to this. They ended up gifting her their share of the house, with some money going to her sibling, but it caused a lot of hassle and her sibling feels hard done by.

How old is your Mum?

This arrangement sounds great for your Mum, but what would happen if you split with your DP?

What if you needed to move for work? Or need to upsize or downsize?

Your Mum could live for what? 25 years? 30?

Your siblings are bring horrible, greedy and grabby. They should be relieved that there is a plan in place for your Mum.

Would she give them a share of proceeds of the house when it sold?

No one is guaranteed an inheritance - she may need care in the future that easily eats away at her money. She has capacity so crack on.

I’m assuming you are in the UK.

Therefore the local authority may well come to you and your siblings for the assets she has given away if your mum needs care. If so, it will be irrelevant that you got £10k more than your siblings. Care home costs can be over £50k per year. There is no time-limit on a council going after assets that people have purposefully deprived themselves of - exactly what your mum is planning on doing
.
That said, I definitely think you and your mum should buy the house/flat as it will improve her quality of life enormously and might mean she doesn’t need a care home - in which case your siblings get to keep their inheritance.

Lastly, £10k is not a lot of money so to keep the peace I would say the “extra” £10k is only a loan and that you will either pay it back to your mum or your siblings.

I think the most important principle is protecting your Mum. Buying a house together might be in her best interests. Giving away all her assets to her children at this stage without having sufficient funds to pay for her own care/protect herself if the relationship-housing situation breaks down is very unlikely to be even if she says it is what she wants.

They have no inheritance until she is dead, until that point it is her money to do exactly what she wants with.

We don’t actually know where the OP is living because she’s not said, we do know she lives in the same country as her DM but a different country to her siblings though.

Get legal advice.

In particular - what happens if you divorce.

Or, God forbid - if you die before her.

You need to do more research into how social care is funded before you buy this house. She cannot simply give away her money - that could be viewed as deprivation of assests and lead to difficulties for all of you. Normally, a person's home would be sold to fund their care so you need to be sure that your shared home wouldn't be at risk should she need residential care.