Was Mils will fair?

[PurpleInGaloshes]

Looking for some impartial opinions on a family situation.
My mother-in-law recently passed away. She had four sons, and none of them were estranged from her. If anything, the youngest son was generally considered to be her favourite.
My father-in-law passed away many years ago, and they had bought the family home together years before he died.
Two of the sons are married and have their own homes. The other two are unmarried, have no children or partners, and still lived with their mum. They didn’t contribute towards the mortgage or upkeep of the house, but they did pay household bills and buy food.
In her will, she left the entire house to the oldest son only. The other three sons received no share of the house.
From what she told the family before she passed away, she believed the oldest son would “do the right thing” and give a 50% share of the house to the other son who still lived there. However, since inheriting the house, the oldest son has said it’s his house, he can do what he wants with it, and he has no obligation to share it.
I completely understand that it was her house and she had every legal right to leave it to whoever she wanted. I’m not asking about the legal side—I’m genuinely interested in what others think as my expectation, as bare minimum was that she would’ve have left it equally to the 2 sons that lived with her.
Do you think she should have left the house to all four sons equally? Or, if her intention was for the two sons living there to benefit, should she have written that into the will instead of relying on one son to share voluntarily?

That's not in the will

@formigasapologies - when I said seen I mixed that up with he had been at a meeting with his siblings where this had been announced but as far I can I make out - he’s not seen an official copy (neither have I). The dils have been left out of the process - not sure if thats because we may ask questions. But from some of things written here - I should ask for a proper copy and look into it. I think we’ve all just been blindsided into taking what eldest bil has said is true ( and perhaps it’s not!)
it may also have been written under duress - who knows.

With very great respect, the dils have no place in the process unless they are beneficiaries. It would be the same if your mil had daughters, their husbands would have no place in the process unless they were beneficiaries. That's why I said its up to your husband to decide what to do and for you to support him.

She was either stupid or naive if she expected a son to do the right thing. Too many family falls outs happen over less money

If your MIL wanted her 2 single adult children to inherit her home, after her death, she should have stipulated that in her Will.

Instead she chose to leave her home to the eldest child, whilst saying he 'would do the right thing' towards his sibling. I can only assume that your MIL had an old-fashioned view that the eldest child in the family should only inherit, who would then distribute monies fairly amongst his sibling/s.

It's backfired, because legally your BIL has no obligation to split any proceeds of the house (if he decides to sell) with any of his siblings. Of course, morally it's a different matter; unfortunately morals don't supercede the law. I think it could be difficult to prove and very expensive, if you were to contest the Will.

Personally, I think your MIL's estate should have been split 4 equal ways between all her children. Some children being married/having their own home, in my opinion, is immaterial... they're all her children.

Your BIL is likely to lose his relationship with his siblings over money. Is it worth it, I wonder?!

The boys who lived with her have a great chance of contesting the will. Your MIL made such an error, we see it all the time (am solicitor).

I do hope there is an executor and they have applied for probate.
Probate doesn’t just happen OP. Usually the executor(s) have to apply for it.
Executors are legally responsible for winding up the deceased persons estate. There are requirements that various Government Depts are notified and advised from notifying the death to dealing with the HMRC and DWP. And any of the banks or building societies your MIL used. Her pension.
People cannot ‘sort it out around the table’.
You may well need to get legal advice if there is no Will and nobody has notified the authorities of her death and no executor or Probate applied for.

If the will was produced by a solicitor - is it worth referring back to them - they might have a client file that shows the rationale and thinking at the time and what legal advice was given? If DMIL was counselled about her decision making.
(albeit 15 years ago)

Speak to the solicitor. I think at the very least seeing a copy of the will and asking if there was a letter of wishes or any guidance as to her rationale is worth doing not least because if it turns out that someone is trying to pull a fast one then that will become more apparent

People can find the process of making a will upsetting and intimidating, especially if they are not used to dealing with legal documents. They get themselves into a bit of a state sometimes and create a narrative that traps them into a set of decisions they didn’t really have to make.
In this case I can well imagine a narrative that goes - if I split the house equally it will have to be sold and sons 1 and 2 will have no where to live. If I split it between 1 and 2 what if one gets married and wants their share of it? Therefore I should leave it to one son and they will exercise the good judgment I know they have to look after their brother.

Was this a will kit? A free will writing service? These can be great but they can also make people feel pressured into keeping things very simple as complex wills are not offered under the free service. Again, people can think they have to leave one item to one person otherwise they will incur charges.

She’s set everyone up for a complete shitshow

Sadly people can be very ill-informed when it comes to wills. Particularly since your MIL made her will 15 years ago. At that point she would have no idea whether her oldest sons might get married, or know how many grandchildren she might have in future. She probably thought it was best/easiest to leave the estate to the oldest son in the hope (or promise) that he would do what seemed fairest at the time.

But that is not how these things work. As you are finding out.

Before we were married my dh had a house and I had a house - we lived together all the time, just between two locations. His will, written years before, left his property to his siblings. When we were discussing money, finance, future plans, wills, he said he had no need to change his will, as he 'trusted his siblings to do the right thing' and to pass the property to me and our dc. It took a couple of years for me to get it into his stupid thick naive head that all his siblings would have to go on was that he didn't choose to leave his property to me. IF he had wanted the property to go to his siblings, I'd have accepted that. But he didn't. His will want not in line with what he actually wanted to happen.

Thankfully nothing untoward happened, and then we got married which changed things anyway.

On dh's part, it was a combination of inertia, misplaced idealism, and a fear of having to confront the potential scenarios of death (one of us dies before the other, we both die together in a mystery event, we all die (us and dc) when a meteorite hits the house. He would have rather kicked the whole topic into the long grass for ever.

In other parts of my life I have dealt too often with families where what a deceased person wanted didn't match what was written in their will. Plea to all reading this - face up to the possibilities and get something sorted. Then keep it under regular review.

@Custardapples is right I think: "In this case I can well imagine a narrative that goes - if I split the house equally it will have to be sold and sons 1 and 2 will have no where to live. If I split it between 1 and 2 what if one gets married and wants their share of it? Therefore I should leave it to one son and they will exercise the good judgment I know they have to look after their brother."

I think there's often a lot of "aargh don't want to think about this".

Stupid decision by the MIL. She should have stipulated what she wanted in her will rather than plan for goodwill of the recipient.

This!
I wouldn't dream of favouring one child over the other. All monies to be split equally. We make life choices, and one child should not be favoured above others. Where's the incentive to get off your arse and participate in life, if you know you're going to be 'looked after' when your parent dies?

I would be upset if I was not the son who inherited the house.

I defend anyone having the option to leave their estate how they choose though.

I think the oldest brother is at fault too , he knew about the will said nothing to anyone and possibly assured his mother he would divide it . Let’s hope the money brings him nothing but misery .

Aside from the tradition to leave the estate to the eldest son I think your MIL might have been happy to do things this way as she expected it to preserve the house as a home for her son's.

In this context I think "do the right thing" and making sure the other brother that lived in the house is "looked after" could mean allowing him to continue to live there under similar terms that she allowed (e.g. rent free and splitting the bills) rather than giving him a share of the house or money - as you point out she could easily have done that herself if she wanted to.

Is the other brother that lives in the house attempting to buy all of the house or half? I would suggest he considers buying somewhere else, leaving his money invested or getting a rental property so his finances don't become needlessly interwoven with his brother. His brother that owns the house should allow him to live rent free, splitting bills as previously - in line with his mother's wishes to "look after" him.

Yes the older brother inherited the house but in my opinion behaving in line with his mother's wishes would mean he continues to provide a home for himself and his brother rather than cashing out. He should be custodian of this family home.

My parents were going to do this as my two brothers technically still lived at home as in they would sometimes move out to rental in different cities workwise . But my father told me that his solicitor said that it was the most divisive thing they could do . Split it four ways, my brothers, me , sister . As everyone was fully able to work to get a loan or mortgage to buy the others out of they wanted to remain in the house . In the end it was sold outside of family and proceeds split four ways .

I don’t think it’s fair but some people have very set and outdated views in what to do re will and inheritance.

When FIL died, MIL and her two dcs decided to do a deed of variation so that the two children would inherit instead of her. Mainly for tax reasons.
She decided that dh would inherit the farm and his sister a small cottage (that was her gran before that). Except that the farm was valued 2~3x more than the cottage…
Told dh it was wrong. That it would to resentment etc… nope it went ahead.

Few years down the line, MIL had to see the farm as it was too expensive.
Cue for scrambling to ‘make it even’ etc….
Im not sure she has modified her will to reflect that. Relationship with SIL has gone sour with both MIL and dh. All unsurprising and preventable.

But she had this old fashioned idea that the farm had to go the son. Never mind her son isn’t a farmer and will never farm….

Both unfair and stupid. Was a solicitor involved? I’m certain a competent solicitor would have advised against this. (Recently revised our wills and it involved a lot of discussion about fairness and practicality)

Obviously she can do whatever she wants but if what she actually wanted was for the house to be split fairly (between at least the two sons living there, though personally I think it’s wrong to not include the others who didn’t live there) then she was really foolish to not have it written into the will and to just trust that the inheriting son would “do the right thing”.

Tbh - mil would be horrified at her son selling the house - she was very much of the thinking that it should stay in the family. Younger brother is buying it at full market value - he will then be the only owner of it and eldest will be moving out.

This is how I thought it should be - I know I can’t tell anyone what they can or can’t do - but she’s left a mess for everyone. As a dil - I don’t expect to be involved - but I do have an opinion on how things should be and as it stands - I’m often now having to deal with the bad feelings from this.

Awful. I wish we were like the French when it comes to inheritance