Unbalanced Inheritance Division

[Stilson]

I'll keep it brief, my parents both died some time ago, and I can't get over this.

The estate was split with 20% going to me and 80% to my sister. She gets £160k I get £40k.

Both about the same age, both been a part of the family equally, she is wealthier than me by a large margin.

I want to cut all ties as she refuses to balance out the amounts, even a 60:40 split.

We're it the other way round I would be uncomfortable with the settlements and would rectify it, she won't.

AIBU?

Not sure if this has been covered. Did she care for your parents more, when they were aging and unwell. This happened to my MIL and sister and they never got over the rift. I am sorry OP I can understand why you are so hurt.

That may well be true, but OP says there is no reason she knows of. If her parents favoured her sibling she'd have an inkling before it got this far.

It sounds very odd if there were no problems in the family relationship. Have you asked the solicitor if any reasons were given? How long ago was the will made? You can challenge a will, but I'm not sure that an unfair split would be enough, but you could ask. Often if a person wants to exclude a close relative from inheriting they write a note in the will to explain why, to stop them having much room for appeal. If you challenge the will your sister may consider a fairer split rather than it going to court.

Unless your parents were fantastic actors and masters of subterfuge you'd know if they favoured your sibling over you long before the will came out!!!

Having sat and listened, for what felt like days, to my parents tortuous discussions about their will I'm sure there will have originally been some reason why they came up with that split. But it may well be so convoluted that no one could understand it except them. Number of visits over many many years, random amounts gifted for DIY, money paid out for weddings are some examples. However it would be easy for your sister to even things up and she hasn't. If you don't want to speak to her anymore I think that's perfectly understandable.

That is so awful, as a parent I cannot comprehend people who behave like that, and have a favourite child.
Anyone would be absolutely crushed.

Wanting to cut your sister is understandable. She doesn't have to do anything of course, but if she doesn't care about you, why would you stick with her.

If you spend the next decades resenting her and being obvious you are furious or upset, it's never going to be a happy relationship anyway.

Unless there are very severe medical needs and the siblings would end up paying anyway because someone cannot be independent for medical reason, it's never acceptable to have favourites with your children. It's sad.

Is it possible your sister lent them money, and loads of it, and they are repaying their debts that way?

They should be honest about it, but that would be an explanation.

My partner was in a similar situation and there were no signs at all, it was completely out of the blue.

similar happened in my family as someone was cut out for marrying the wrong class of person (!), we did a variation and made it equal.

its so tough as it’s a last act and it feels like a division/distribution of love.

But OP hasn't said her sister is/was a favourite child. Instead she's said there is no reason she can think of why her parents would do an unequal split in their will.

I can understand your position. Yanbu if you want to cut ties. Do you not get on apart from this
It was a very devisive thing to do. Do you know why they did it.
Did they tell you.
I was left out of father's will 1 sis got £5000 1 dB got £50000 1old flame got £5000😂 the youngest daughter got the rest. Which was a lot. He had enough to leave my kids something instead of me but he chose not to.
Hey ho. You can't do much about it but it is hurtful.
You have to move on. So if you generally get on with dsis stay friends if this is on top of everything let her get on with her life and you get on with yours.💐

Is there a discrepancy between your life set ups e.g. your sister is MW job and your well off? That could be a reason that your parents decided she needed more financial support.

I know my mum has a discrepancy set out in her will because my brother has had significant financial assistance and lived with her rent free for 8 years whilst I have been financially independent since 18. She decided to balance it out in her will but crucially I told her she had to explain this way in advance so I wouldnt be the one dealing with the fall out which she has done.

My Dad re did his Will when he was very ill and completely bollocksed it up. Missed Mum out altogether and left everything to Dsis and i. His brother (executor) tried to read it but Dad wouldn’t let him.

as soon as we read it when he died we immediately told him to ignore it all and transfer everything straight to Mum, because we’re not greedy bastards

That is a good suggestion.

Is (was) your sister the golden child and you were the scapegoat, always coming second?

but the will is literally saying sister is the favourite child!

Unless, possibly, there's a debt to pay back which is the only thing I can think of.

Did you actually see the will ?

To me the probability that there was some funny business going one is far higher than the probability that an uneven split was given with no one having the slightest idea of why.

As other people have said, maybe there was some arrangement between your sister and parents, for example she gave them money to enable them to stay in their house if they didn't have enough. But unless she is willing to explain why (not quite sure why she wouldn't) you wouldn't know.

Have you asked your sister why the split is the way it is ?

i put UABU but only because you can’t make her. I think this is unfair, but you can’t force your sister to change it

The will is not saying she's the favourite, it's saying she inherits more but the reason why is unknown.

It’s a horrible feeling when this happens. I went through it my sister got everything. It was devastating. I had to have a lot of therapy to get over it.

We were NC and then 6 years afterwards her dh contacted me as they wanted me to agree to testing as she was in kidney failure and they expected me to step up and be tested !!!!

If there is really no reason for the difference (no loans, extra support to OP previously that's being evened out now etc) and the sisters had a good relationship up to now it seems odd that the sister isn't willing to even things up.
However, in my experience the reality of actually having a large sum of money that you are legally (if not morally) entitled to can make people behave very selfishly.
For sexist, weird and historic reasons my siblings, cousins and I always knew that our rather odd grandmother planned to leave everything to the male grandchildren only. Each male grandchild had at least one sister and for as long as we'd been aware of this the boys had all agreed that it was not on and they'd all split their share with their sister/s. There were even discussions after they died about how this should be done (eg. split the total between all GC or split between the boys then they share with sister/s). It turned out that gran, who had lived a fairly dull and frugal life) had more money than expected so the boys were each due a sizeable sum. Suddenly everything changed. One cousin still shared with his sister but the others all found 'reasons' why they needed it more and gave their sisters a token amount (that we were all supposed to be very grateful for). Personally, it was a stepping stone in me seeing my brothers for what they were and not really wanting a relationship with them.

It's really not your sisters fault - unless you think it is and haven't mentioned.

It's also not as easy as her "correcting" your parents decision. There would be inheritance tax consequences for her own estate if she were to gift you the extra share you think she should receive (if she were to die in the next 7 years).

If this happened in my family I would be annoyed at my parents for putting me in an awkward position, but if I was forced to hand money over in order to maintain a relationship, I would also feel that the relationship was over anyway. So there's no win here for me.

of course it means she's the favourite, what else do you think it means?

Not only she's the favourite, but they are making a massive statement about it, which is even weirder.

I know they are gone, and I am sorry for the OP, but that's awful behaviour. And I speak as a parent.

Your dad didn't want the split to be equal and I don't blame your sister for accepting his choice. There must be more bad feeling between you for you to cut her off like this.

Yout anger is misplaced. Don't be angry with your sister be angry eith your parents. They created this situation.

It's not about anyone being 'forced' to hand money over, it's more that if someone behaves in a way that is unfair and selfish, it opens your eyes to the fact that they value money more than principle. You naturally struggle to respect and spend time with a person like that. Unfortunately people can always tell themselves a story about why they need more money than others even if to an outside observer it seems ridiculous.

ETA. You can do a deed of variation so there are no tax implications.