DH has just revealed that he has nothing to show from 30k inheritance

[Booboomylove]

My DH and I have been together for 5.5 years and married for just over 6 months. We both own our homes and he moved in with me after a year together. His house is currently rented out. I like to think that I’m quite good with money eg getting the best mortgage rate etc, however he has ‘owned’ his home since 2006 and only ever had an interest only mortgage, on a variable rate which has sky rocketed over the last few years. The house is now rented out which at least covers the mortgage and we are going to cut losses and sell.
Last night we were talking about inheritance as a blended family and he said he thought it would go 3 ways between his adult DS, my teenage DD and his DS’s son (age 8). I said no that’s not right, your grandson will get his inheritance via your son, I didn’t get anything directly from my grandparents, did you? DH said yes 15 years ago I got 30k from my Nan!
We have been together 5+ years and I didn’t know this, also we have always discussed how skint we’ve been in the past and it’s like a shared experience that we are respectful of.

Anyway, he is refusing to tell me what happened to the 30k, he says it’s none of my business whereas I think it is something I ought to know about him as his wife eg is he an absolute idiot with money? He’s gone to bed in a mood.

Were you planning to leave half your estate to your DD and half to his DS, @Booboomylove

Me too

Absolutely this. Get over yourself. It has nothing to do with you.

YANBU.

His lack of transparency and having an ‘interest only’ mortgage indicates he’s crap with money and has an ‘easy come, easy go’ attitude to finances.

VERY BAD!

You’re not his girlfriend, you're his wife and financial matters should be discussed and agreed and I think given his attitude, he needs to let you manage all family money.

Hopefully, you can both agree an amount of spending money that he can fritter away on shite without it impacting the family budget.

Don’t let him use sulking as a way to shut this down.

I inherited £10k from my grandfather and have ‘nothing to show for it’ either. About half went on paying off student loans, £2k on treating myself, and the remaining £3k or so got swallowed up when I bought my first home. I find it odd that he doesn’t want to tell you where it went but maybe that’s just because he didn’t do anything specific with it, it just dwindled down over the years with general life expenses?

Make a will for the future. Being mad about something that happened before you met him is a waste of energy.

So he has two people (children) that he wants to leave his money to and she has one we established that approximately 17 hours ago
Do keep up

Gosh, the entitlement to think you have any right to know what he did with an inheritance from a decade before he knew you. I wouldn't tell you on principle, whether I'd invested it sensibly or frittered it away on coke.

But if your attitudes to money now are incompatible then that's a reason to split up.

I think YANBU re the distribution, you both have 1 child each, it should be split 50/50. His DS can then decide if he wants to pass some on to the DGC
but YABU re the old inheritance. What he did with it really isn’t any of your business

£30,000 is only £3000 a year over 10 years. That kind of money can easily be spent on repairs, car, bills, weekends away, concerts, sports matches, coffee, beer, dinner etc. You enjoy saving, he doesn't.

No, it depends on what assets they brought to the relationship 5-10 years ago and how they have set up mortgages and whether DH has been added to the title deeds etc.

DH can leave his personal assets [the other house] how he wishes - whether to his DW or to his DS and DGS; OP should sort her finances out and do a will that leaves all her assets to her child, ie the house she lives in now with DH. If he is selling the other house rather than holding on to it this complicates matters considerably: in these circumstances, so long as he is breaking even on rent/mortgage, I would counsel him to keep it so that he also has an asset - once proceeds from that sale become intermingled with OP’s monies, she has less strength to arguing that her house is hers alone and should go to her DC. It effectively becomes the main marital home if he sells his property, but DH is also vulnerable as the house may not be in his name. It is only a joint marital asset in the event of a divorce - if she leaves it to her child, I think he cannot easily argue that he is entitled to a share if expressly excluded in a will, though a court may rule differently [I may be completely wrong, so they absolutely need to discuss all this with a solicitor].

If they want their respective children to get only their share of their parent’s assets, OP/DH should not be looking at their assets as a joint pot and splitting it 50/50 as it is unlikely that this is what they brought to the relationship (and, I assume, both their individual properties are still in their individual names per their title deeds). They both need independent legal advice and to write wills that leave those assets to their respective children(or grandchildren), if this is what they each feel is fair.

Yanbu. To me it’s a red flag (although too late for red flags now you’re married) that someone can’t explain how they blew through £30k, which is worth around 44-47k in today’s money.
Even more worrying is why he’s been on an interest-only mortgage for the last 20 years with no attempt to repay the capital. And on a variable rate! What the hell has he been doing with his money for 20 years?

So I’d definitely be concerned that he has no financial sense, and now you’re financially tied to him. Is he on the deeds to your house? Is he essentially living in your house for free while you pay the mortgage?

You may have “nothing to show for it” (although in a way you have, in that you have a home and a lack of the debt it paid off) but you can easily explain what happened to the money - you just did. Op’s husband can’t explain what happened to his money.

Just because a mortgage is interest only doesn’t mean that it would be affordable on a repayment basis.

Ideally he would have been saving what he could to pay off chunks every time he remortgaged, but it depends on the size of the mortgage as to how affordable it would be to switch.

Is his mortgage company aware that the house is let out, I wonder?

He refused to explain it - not quite the same as not being able to explain it.

Yes ok, that's not sensible but explainable in that way - but what has happened to the very large amount of equity his house will have earned since 2006 ? On interest only it will have increased by 65 to 70% in value.
The elephant in the room here isn't really frittering the inheritance - because if he hadn't also frittered away a likley much larger amount of house equity - the op wouldn't be posting on here worrying about the 30k.

I think you are unreasonable for expecting him to account for money he received years before he met you, but you are not unreasonable to have concerns about his financial continence. He presumably has lived on a much higher income than you over the last decade or so - an interest only mortgage and a good inheritance sum - and has little to show for it. You married him so now I think you need to have a much closer grip on your JOINT finances to make sure you don’t end up subsidising his next 2 decades. The house is presumably in your name? He should use the money from his house sale to buy in half the equity and then be added to the deeds and mortga. If he will not do this and wants to keep the money to fritter away I would be very worried. I’d honestly reconsider the marriage and suggest undoing it (you have not been married long and it should be a simple reset to starting point) then you can live happily together as an unmarried couple where your finances are not tied and he can do whatever he wants and leave money to whoever he wants so long as he pays his fair share.

Exactly this. This man has no assets. He's paying an interest only mortgage on a property he has no equity in, yet assumes he gets 2 thirds of OPs assets to give to his adult child and grandchild.

OP, if you have equity in your home I would divorce him now. With such a short marriage he won't be entitled to your property. The nerve of him thinking he's entitled to most of your estate!

YABU for marrying someone who you seem to be financially incompatible with. YANBU for thinking it’s not right that inheritance is split with existing kids and grandkids. What if his son has 4 more kids and your daughter has none? She ends up with hardly anything. Inheritance is usually split by immediate offspring. He can do a small gift to His grandson if he wants. Inheritance at a young age is not always beneficial… perhaps as the disappearing £30k has shown.

What he did and done and spent before he met you, has nothing to do with you.

I agree with all this.

I agree, he is terrible with money but the OP already knows that. I'm just surprised that OP thinks he would be able to account for the £30,000 when it could easily be frittered away even by people who weren't that bad with money.

Yabu in questioning the inheritance specifically. Too long ago.
Yanbu in questioning his ability to prioritise and budget. This affects you now

I know the Mumsnet way is to overpay on mortgages and think about pension pots and savings etc, but in the real world people enjoy life and a bit of extra cash in the moment.

He doesn't have to justify to you whether he pissed it away, bought Pokemon cards he then lost or gave some of it to friends. It's none of your business.

He will have changed in that 10 years as well, maybe learned from having that money and spending it.

Just concentrate on your financial situation now and forget about this inheritance.

You’re not really upset about the £30,000 you’re more upset because you’re not sure if you can trust him financially and you don’t respect his lack of intelligence around his house/mortgage. You’re disappointed in him.