To be furious and devastated to be told by parents they are giving their business and family home to loser brother?

[brightongirldownunder]

I've just had a call from my mum to tell me this and I'm totally broken. I can cope with the business but the family home? True they need to move as its far too big for them, but to have made the decision without even asking my opinion? I'm the eldest and my brother has always been a scrounger. he's never had an honest job in his life and it cripples me that he, his wife and 2 kids will be calling that home theirs. My mum insists they have not been given it for good but knowing my brother he will find a way around this. The saddest thing is that I've always been there for parents and was hoping that we may have had the chance to rent the house from them if we move back to the UK next year as our house in Brighton far too small now we have DD. There is absolutely no way I can ever go back to family home with brother and family in it. God I'm so upset... Am I being a spoilt brat (at 36?) Please someone tell me this isn't normal for parents to do this?

thanks chequers. Am going to try and sleep now as its 4:30 am here. Hopefully will feel better in morning.

No, brightongirl - you don't have to let it go. It's absolutely shocking of your parents to even consider this. You need to have a good talk with them and make sure they know how much this has upset you. I really feel for you- especially since you've a great relationship with your parents.

How do I confront them though? I've already tried and my mum cried. Its heartbreaking to hear her and be so far away

It depends. If you think bringing it up and being confrontational is going to jeopardise your entire relationship with your parents, then you might want to at least delay it until the emotions have died down.

I can't believe your brother, though.

If my parents did that and cut my sister off, you can better believe I'd hand over her half as soon as they kicked the bucket.

I did nothing to earn any of it and it wouldn't sit well with me to see her excluded. She's my sister.

Well, I'm not surprised tbh Chequers. My brother is 41 and has only worked properly for the last two years. My parents took out loans for him which he never repaid them for. He(I'm loathed to use the word, but there is no other)stole from them too and I was concerned they'd leave their house to him, because I'm the responsible one who has always worked, owns my house, nice car...you get the picture...So, since I've been on my career break, my dad has bunged me the odd tenner for whatever and when I've said no, I can manage, mum has chirped in ' We did it for your brother, we can do it for you...' I of course, had no idea they had funded his unemployed lifestyle(for his smokes). Anyway, I was very relieved when mum told me(at last)that they had made their wills and that brother and myself were being left a quater each and the grandchildren(2 mine, 3 of brothers)the other half in equal amounts. Fair enough I guess. My parents rarely see my brother, they see me oooh! at least twice a week. I've run them around to hospital appointments, ring them every day to make sure they are ok. Brothers shit doesn't stink basically, even though it's always been him that's brought trouble home, not me. Still, my conscience is clear. I've never brought shame to their door and I try to be a good daughter...
Oh, and I've worked since 16, done everything as written above and then some...never told that anyone was proud of me...Brother gets first proper and sticks to it job and mum says...' I'm so proud of your brother' Thanks mum!
Good to get that down in print actually, very therapeutic(sp)

Oh, and I get on great with him funnily enough.

Why not suggest it be put into joint names now of your brother and you but that perhaps he gets 25% share and you 75% to reflect the fact that you wil lhave to pay mortgage or rent over the years and he will not and also have an agreement in writing whereby you allow him to live there for say a 5 year fixed term and after that you both have the right to sell? Thi s will also protect you if he and his wife divorce.

I've just been going through my father's papers and my brother and I are not very pleased that 10 - 15 years ago he gave so much money to my sister.

I would be hurt and v upset in your position. I probably would make sure my parents understood exactly how unfair I thought they were being. I would not pull any punches. That may not be wise but I would want them to know how hurtful they were being. It sounds like your brother does little to spare their feelings or care for them but he gets all their money.

Before doing anything though I would speak to your other siblings. They may know things you do not.

Brightongirldownunder,

If I were you, I would write a letter. I would say what it appears to you that they are doing i.e. giving him the family home. Say how you feel etc. Hold nothing back. And then see what their response is. It may be that he is just a tenant until such time as their deaths and then it has to be distributed between grandchildren or siblings etc. I honestly think you MUST write to them otherwise this will eat you up and you cannot live the rest of your life not knowing what the real situation is.

I speak as someone whose DH had just received an inheritence but it was not quite what we were expecting (according to the deceasead) and there was some dirty double dealings going on between the Executor and the solicitor, unfortunately none which we could prove, except the fact that they had been friends since university 30 years ago.

but how to suggest that without appearing grabby or bitter, Xenia?

see, there's the rub.

it has to be presented in such a way that the parents believe it's really what is best.

and, of course, if he is the manipulative sort he will invariably raise a ruckus about it.

i know my parents gave my sister money years ago to fund a failed business venture of theirs.

they've give us lots of gifts, not money, but no more so than she's gotten.

but oh, well, my mother will never get over my not giving in to her guilt trip and living in that utter sh*^hole of a city, but i'd rather be a pauper here than live there.

i can never remember a time when i didn't hate the place and i left 19 years ago.

i don't expect a penny.

i think for now i'd use the distance to my advantage and chew on this for a bit, brighton, until i came up with a good plan (MN will help ) and cooled down a bit.

always best to approach these types of things with a calm head.

Speak to your other brother and sister. ASAP. They might not know what is happening.

well, my 3 siblings all got a part from my mum's inheritance (in fact they took it before she died, she had Alzheimer and brother was legal guardian, who also took the house that is now on sale for £1000000). I was left with NOTHING. THey did send my the bill for the ingeritance tax, which I refused to pay and "they have let me off".
No point in fighting it, my brother is too bright (lawyer amongst some of his uni degrees)

MY sister who got less than my brother is quite bittetr about it and I think it has spoilt her life (suicidal). So if you can't win plaese don't "lose".

well, you can't exactly pay the inheritance tax if you didn't inherit anything.

My mum nearly did something that would have favoured one sibling financially.

It upset me. I talked to her - and she honestly hadn't realised how it seemed from my point of view! She was just trying to help my brother.

When I told her I would be hurt if she went ahead, plus it could affect my relationship with my brother, she decided not to do it.

My brother wasn't going to suffer as a result of it not happening, so it wasn't a crisis situation.

I would let your parents know exactly how you feel, because you are going to feel it anyway and they deserve to know how their actions could affect family relationships before they go ahead.

I would be gutted too.

fondant has a good point though. Rather than let it eat you up, you would be better to tell them straight that if they do go ahead with this decision, it will hurt you and your siblings very much and affect your relationship with said Brother but also them.

Tell them to look at this from your point of view and how would they feel in the same situation?

It would be better to have the house put into all 4 of your names so that Brother cannot suddenly sell it and so that you all have a say in what happens to the house when your parents do eventually die.

that's true, fondant.

a good point i hadn't considered.

BGDU sorry that you are having to go through this. It seems so common - I have two sisters, and my mother always favoured the middle one because she apparently 'couldn't cope'. The reason she couldn't cope is that my mother was always bailing her out (even paying her credit card bills when my sister was in her forties) so she never got the chance to stand on her own two feet. If I sound bitter it's because my mother died at the beginning of this year and we (my other sister & I) have just found out that my feckless sister was plundering my mum's bank account to fund her spendthrift lifestyle (despite being in full time employment and married to someone who was also working; they have no children). She is also very manipulative.
Your mum crying when she told you what was to happen makes me think that she knows it is the wrong think to do. When you are over in the UK would it be possible to get everyone together to talk about the best way forward? Or even just your brother, you and your parents? Ask them to explain their reasoning. I don't think that would be too much to ask of them.

Makes me glad I only have one dc.

How to present my suggestion? It's the parents' suggestion - they've said they don't intend him to have the house forever. You present it like this - that they need to inheritance tax plan. That means making the long term plan now to secure the future and that means transfer of the house they are moving out from into joint names of the children now with the percentages now agreed, and presen it as this gives your brother the right to live rent free for the 5 year period. If they aren't very cluded up parents then she could even offer to get it sortedfor them, pay the legal fees and all the family has to do is sign on the dotted line or get a lawyer who will tell them it's the best plan. Ensure they make wills at the same time, present it as you doing them a huge favour in sorting out their affairs.

Qu, perfectly lawful. If a child is being supported by ap arent at death then yes they can apply for money from the estate even if left out of the will but not otherwise in English law.

I was going through my father's cheque stubs because of other issues he had in his latter years with dementia and I think we knew he'd always been a bit more generous to my sister but I was just atonsished by the sums - £10,000, then £12, 000 the next month, £10,000 and then you'd get to a Christmas and a very generous £100 or something for me which was indeed generous and then my brother the same and my sister £5000.

As someone said above it's the fact that person has may be not worked very hard so they get rewarded for having had a relative life of leisure which is the unfairness of it. Particularly my father sometimes asked my brotehr if he needed money and he said no but added as long as you treat us all equally and indeed my father alway said he did (and obviously didn't). He died on 23rd may. But I'm not sitting here crying over it. It was his money but I would always try to treat my children more equally. My sister thinks he might have been partly rewarding her or compensating her for being my parents' confidante as a teenager and later in areas no child should have to be a confidante which my father might have thought meant my sister never married and I did.

bgdu - say what you want to say now otherwise it will be too late. This is for your kids so make sure they will get their share of the family estate.

Well-reasoned, Xenia.

Hope you are reading, brightongirl.

Bringing legal help into the equation may also serve to mitigate your brother's more manipulative tendancies.

He won't like it, but so what?

We don't even bother with ILs. Nor does DH's sister.

He lives in their home just now and whenever he's between jobs he's on their meal ticket.

House sale and then split 3 ways would net about £50,000 each for us after fees.

We could then possibly afford to buy a place of our own.

But there's a greater chance of our winning the lotto tomorrow.

MIL has for some reason never ceased to feel sorry for BIL and mollycoddle him.

I'm a little confused, I don't understand why they are giving it to him and his family if he already has a large house already. Can he not keep up the repayments? Is he buying them a smaller house in turn? Sorry, maybe I'm not paying attention.

My Mum gave my brother a large sum of money before she died. My sister and I decided that it wasn't worth falling out with him about (it was my mum's decision afterall) but my other sister hasn't spoken to any of us since (there's a whole therapy session I'm sure as to why she thinks it is remotely our fault!).

I would certainly sit down and talk to them about it before anything is finalised. If they are signing the house over to him, you really need to understand their reasons why and state your concerns. If you don't it will eat away at you and you will regret not saying anything while you had the chance.