Family feud and inheritance

[MellowPinkBee]

I adore my brother. Approximately 33 years ago he married an incredibly insecure woman who came from an incredibly disfunctional family. Appalling manners, absolutely no idea how to behave and offended not only our family members but also our parents friends. We were continuously making excuses for her even though she was always such an embarrassment. Family gatherings were always tense to say the least but my parents and I always took the higher ground when she had her continuous digs to make herself feel better about herself. She was insanely jealous of my brothers relationship with our mother and she hurt my mother on so many occasions but my mother said nothing. About 26 years ago we had a family Christmas and she deliberately excluded my son who was about 3 at the time from a Christmas Eve occasion leaving cookies & milk for Santa. After new year, I let my brother know exactly how I felt about her and I was speaking for my parents too, particularly my mother. As a result my brother has not spoken a word to me until in 2023 my father died and my mother followed in 2024. My father’s Will split his estate 50/50 between my brother and I. I divorced my ex husband in 2022 and had to buy my ex out of his equity in the house. due to my age, late 50’s I was limited in the amount I could borrow so my father gave me the shortfall, £89,000. Now my brother is suggesting that I go against the Will and give him half of what my father gave me as that was my father’s intention. Please let me know what you think I should do

I’m hoping my brother will take into account the large sum he’s been given, when it’s time for DM’s estate to be resolved. I doubt she’ll get round to rewriting her will about it, but it’s definitely a loan.

Oh is that the rule? My ignorance showing through then - sorry!

You'll need to pay Inheritance Tax on it .. personally I would give him half of the 89k because that is fair...

Why? The estate may be under the parents joint allowance?

Im not really sure the rights and wrongs of what happened in the past, so your brother stopped contact with you, what about your parents ?

Morally, I think you should give him half.

Your dad helped you out when you needed it but that has impacted on your brother's share of inheritance.

I get that inheritance is never a given, but in this scenario, you benefitted from a huge amount of money that, if you hadn't, your brother would be getting half of that sum

What would your honest view be if you were brother in this position?

I feel it hinges on whether it was a gift or not and if you feel your parents would hope you’d allow some compensation for this. I’d want to do what I felt my parents would wish for me to do.

You say your dad died a year before your mum. Was she not mentioned in his will at all? What did her will say? Is the estate liable for IHT?

Good point, where is the DM’s will in this?

Depends on the discussion you had with him about the money. Whether he had expectations that it was repaid at some point.

I dunno. If your father was of sound mind and he gave it to you then it was just that .a gift. He could have changed the will if he wanted to even it out for your brother. I’m close to my siblings so I’d probably right this but you haven’t spoken to yours for years.. so i think I’d probably just follow the will

Not necessarily

ha ha - agreed!

Only if it's an amount liable to IHT

Was the £89,000 a loan or a gift?

Sorry you lost me at cookies and milk for Santa.

It’s weird the DM didn’t inherit from her DH.

If it was your father’s intention then he could have changed his will to reflect the amount you received. He didn’t and therefore no legal grounds for your db to force you to split the money.
Morally you might want to, but that’s your decision.
The fact that you did not get on with db’s wife is not relevant imo.

So many shameless, grabby people on here.

The wills were created with a 50/50 split between the siblings. I think it’s clear from that that the intention was to split the money 50/50.

The OP’s father died a few months after giving this money. I would have thought that if this was a separate gift just for the OP, the father would have explicitly mentioned this.

The OP is clearly not in rude financial health which suggests she may have reason to want to keep as much as she can rather than do the “right thing”.

£89k is a significant sum which was only given because the OP needed it. It wasn’t given in an envelope with a wink and a “don’t tell anyone”.

Everything in my view points towards the intention being a 50/50 split between the siblings. The OP seems to think she gets an extra 90k because she thought her brother’s wife was rude in the year 2000.

Cuddos for your brother standing up for his wife. Coming from a dysfunctional family does not make anyone bad person. If you did not like your SIL, you could cut her out of your life yourselves. Milk and cookies and a 3 years old drama and now inheritance. Hoch potch story. Does not deserve the airing it gets on here.

My dad gave me a large sum for a deposit in my 30s, but not DB as he is in social housing. We don't speak as he has a nightmare 'mate'. DB doesn't know about the sum. Morally I know I should probably give him some more if I were to inherit anything. Two things - I am going to make the decision that I can live with if/when the time comes. Second, it was a long time ago and my financial position is okay now which makes it an easier choice to give him half.

I agree with this.

Lots of people saying "he had a year to change his will". Actually a year isn't that long - unless he had a slow decline where he knew he was dying but still active enough to do admin then I don't think you can say that he didn't think he'd change it at some point - or expecting that Op would be in a better place and pay it back.
He may have been giving Op a bit of space before discussing it as I'd imagine she was not in the best frame of mind over the time of giving/lending it.

Unless the will was written between giving/lending it to her and him dying, or he had a conversation saying directly that this was a gift and he did not expect it to be taken into account in the will (and I'm sure that wasn't the case because Op would have mentioned that) then I think it's clear that it should be shared between them.

@MellowPinkBee Can I ask when the Will was written and when you were given the money?

I'm thinking that if the money was gifted before the Will was written, then he intended you to get the 50% on top of the money for the house otherwise he would have covered this off in his Will.

If the Will was written before he gave you the money, then legally you are entitled to the 50percent, but morally???

I also think the fact that the OP is questioning what she should do is enough to suggest that deep down she knows she should share it.

It sounds as though the parents may have been tenants in common and each owned a separate 50% of the house.

In that case, it is quite usual for each parent to leave their share of the home to children with the surviving spouse having a life interest to remain living in the home until they die (or go into care etc).

Or it may simply be that the parents were divorced and the fact that the mother died shortly after is irrelevant to the situation with the father. The OP talks just her father's will and not the mother.