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

Agreed
And if estate is £1 million plus, (assuming DM left all to him and the housing was of sufficient value to qualify for the £350 k allowance )it does need to be taken into account when solicitor/accountant do the sums.
If it isn’t, it doesn’t .
But OP hasn’t clarified the situation

I was going to ask when the will was written but it's clear that your father meant you to have 50/50 and he viewed the 89K that he gave you for the house as separate. How does your brother even know about the 89K? When he stopped speaking to you did your brother also stop speaking to your parents? it sounds like your created the specifically so the brother couldn't come after the 89K as if it was a loan.
If my brother hadn't spoken to me for 26 years then I wouldn't feel inclined to do anything other than follow the letter of the will. However you say you adore him and if you want the inheritance to be exactly the same there's nothing to prevent you giving 45 K more out of the estate to even things up.

But the 89k is a gift... And it is less than 7 years ago... It may well be under the limit but this isn't part of the estate is it.

Yuck, why are there so many people like this?

If your dad gave you £90k and then left the rest to be split 50/50 then that’s that.

Brother sounds like he was lucky to get anything after the way he treated his/your dying father.

Your dad was quite clear.
Keep the money. What do you have to gain by sharing it?

It is WILD that you are making these sort of assumptions based on one paragraph of text.

You have absolutely no idea of what the OP or her brother did for their parents or what their relationship is truly like.

The OP needed bailing out - the brother didn’t. If anyone here sounds like a greedy chancer it’s the woman who received a big chunk of 100k a few months before receiving her inheritance.

There must be something very, very wrong with you if you are so confidently making these assumptions?

Why did you not mention this in your OP? Seriously?

Don’t do anything

You honour your father's wishes. I'm normally all for siblings getting equal inheritances but your brother sounds rotten. Perhaps he caught it from his rotten wife, they do say you become the company you keep.

It sounds like your father saw your brother's appalling behaviour and decided he'd rather not split his assets equally. Again, normally I'm not for this, but in this scenario I think he's been generous. If my son and his wife had treated me as your brother and his wife have treated your father, I wouldn't have given him/them a penny.

To my mind your father gave you that money of his own free will. It was a gift from him to you. If he'd wanted to play 'even Steven' he would have given your brother a like amount at the time or would have made it a priority to change his will. He didn't.

As far as I'm concerned his 'lack of action' to do either means that he intended for you to have the money and also intended that your brother not receive an equal amount, either at that time or after his death.

So no, I wouldn't give him a bean.

And for what it's worth to those who may think I have a reason for feeling so, I don't. My parents were absolutely scrupulous in keeping things even between their children. Even to the point that when Mum gave me her mother's engagement ring, she gave my siblings equal value in cash. None of us expected or demanded that, it's just the way they wanted to handle things. OP's father did things differently.

Follow the will to the absolute letter

He sounds like a thoroughly nasty bastard who doesn’t deserve a penny. He should be fucking grateful your Dad left him anything given his behaviour

I’m so sorry about your parents, it really sucks 😔 x

Haven't RTFT, but what did your father say about the £89,000? Didn't he imply that it was a loan or you getting a share of your inheritance in advance? If so, I think you should go with your father's wishes and treat it as such even if your father didn't put anything in writing. If your father just told you he was giving you £89,000 then there's no reason to think it was anything other than a gift and you shouldn't let it affect the division of the remaining estate (but bear in mind that a gift of that size made in the seven years before death may attract Inheritance Tax).

It's always the sons and brothers when it comes to wills and inheritance.

If it was a loan, give brother half. If a gift do nothing - it’s your father’s intention that matters.

It was a gift @MellowPinkBee so don't not give your brother anymore than the will states.
The will is your father's final wish.
The entitlement is of the scale. You don't have a relationship with him anyway.

This is entirely up to you. If its a gift then there is no legal requirement to give him any if it. Probably his missus pulling the strings

What has your brother's wife got to do with anything? I suspect you feel that what you're doing is wrong, and you're bringing up irrelevant stuff to justify it.

The background is totally irrelevant.

I assume there was no mention in the will of the 89k?

What was the basis of the 89k? A true gift or a loan of 89k?

If it was a loan then give your brother half. If it wasn't a loan then don't. But holding onto a grudge about a trivial event that happened 26 years ago is beyond ridiculous.

In the circumstances you have described, I would not give your brother any of the £89,000.
I would consider it a gift to you.

You still haven't answered the key question, was it a loan or a gift? Do you have any proof of text message, email etc about the loan or gift?

As others have said if it was a loan then you owe it to the estate and yes you should given him half from your share. If it was a gift then no you don't owe him any money and since your relationship is pretty much dead he can go pound rock.

Given the will was written after the loan/gift I'm leaning towards or being a gift and excluded from the will but it all depends on the actual agreement you had with your dad and what evidence/proof exists.

Given the update OP, ai wouldn't give your brother a penny. Your father had the opportunity to note an outstanding loan in his will. He didn't so you're clear.

Posters seem to be.kxgskr.

OP states the will "splits his estate 50/50 between my brother and I" not "any money I've given out from day dot should be taken into consideration and half given to the other sibling."

You execute the will in line with your father’s wishes. 50:50 of whatever he had left, after death.