Is this taking the piss?

[mumtumtru]

My husbands mother has been ill for a few years but after some treatment is now mentally much better and living a good life in 3rd party care. She has a few properties which my husband shares trustee ownership of with her. One of the properties has already been sorted by the managing agent who did everything and let out. The other is a bit of a dilapidated old house, but is in an excellent location that she would like us to do up as a holiday let. I have somehow ended up with making all the decisions on this, new carpets, 2 types of hard flooring, sofas, side tables, dining tables, bedroom furniture, mirrors, console tables, electrical questions - new circuit board, new leds in all rooms, safety questions like blind cords being replaced in most of the rooms for child safety, dealing with all the safety regulations and so on. ive spent my days researching furniture, sending off for paint samples, carpet samples, floor samples, on and off the phone to curtain lady etc etc etc. Basically a glorified interior designer/project manager. There is a builder whos got the guys to do the work (electrician/plumber etc) but he still expects answers on all of these questions and my husband can help with some of them isn't great when it comes to other kind of stuff. When I raised the topic with my husbands mother and said "look you know I don't want to seem like I'm overstepping the mark here (which I do, as it's not my bleeping house!), is there anything particularly you'd like in the house, fabric wise for curtains, furniture etc" i.e. trying to get her to take some ownership she just replied "You're very good at this you decide". I suggested we get an interior designer she said no as it would be too expensive...when my husband complained about all the work required she said "i didn't ask you to do any of it" but, its his responsibility as a trustee to ensure what's in the trust is maintained. He wanted to sell it but the mother wants to make it a holiday let and he's agreed, neither of us realizing how much work is really involved.

To be clear this is a house neither my husband or I will have any financial gain from. I doubt we'll inherit it and the time that we want to use it will likely be booked up now as its becoming a holiday let (and hopefully a nice one once we are done doing it up). She was a house wife her entire life, never worked, the father was very successful in his work, and made all the decisions, paid all the bills etc, she would have just pottered about at home doing nothing if it wasn't for him. She is now in a place where everything is done for her. The father sadly passed away and fortunately she has been left in a very good position financially, but despite suggestions made, zero effort to gift has been made. As a result this has meant my family have provided a lot more. I respect that's her choice, but this is now starting to raise resentment in my husband whos basically taken over managing all of her affairs for free and now im afraid to say partly me as I feel like my good nature may be being taken advantage of.

WWYD in this position?

If you are in England she won't be able to gift you anything at this stage, even if she wanted to, and is mentally competent to do so, as she is in care.

It would be seen as deprivation of assets. She might need to sell the house to pay for her future care.

That’s not quite true, depends on her assets. As long as she doesn’t run out of money to pay for her own care, she can do what she likes with the surplus. So if care is costing £100,000 per year, and she’s 90 (so likely to have less than 20 years left), and she’s got £3m in assets, then there’d be wiggle room.

But for most of us, no, there’s very strict guidelines on what would be seen as legitimate giving if we reached a stage where the money had run out.

Take that suggested number and triple it...

Gifting aside, which is her prerogative. I'm trying to work out what our incentive, (particularly mine!) is to do all this work for her, and, if we do go ahead, which looks like we are...whether we should potentially charge for it. It's ALOT of work. My husband has spent the past 3 weekends just clearing out the house, and that's before any works started to take place. Ive spent literally hours/days choosing all the furniture for each room, carpets, flooring, paint scheme, mirrors the list goes on!

Take that suggested number and triple it... Did you mean the care costs or her portfolio? I doubled the care costs from what we're paying, so if she's paying £300,000 a year, I hope she's getting value for money!

Why do you say you won't inherit the house? Surely you'll have a huge inheritance coming you're way in which case it seems a bit mean to charge her for doing the house up? Or am I missing something

i don’t understand what is meant by your DH sharing trustee ownership- are the properties half his?

I'd step back. Tell her you've been undertaking the interior designer/project manager role for free and you're stopping with immediate effect. If she wants work to continue she has to have professional paid for staff, including interior designer/project manager. End of.

She did tell DH to do all the work. She said holiday let. That means things need doing. It couldn't be rented as it was.

As you're unlikely to inherit and she's a user, I'd tell DH to find out how to resign as trustee so he can't be manipulated into having this workload dumped on him. There's literally zero benefits to being the trustee for him, so why do it? MIL could be making these decisions and doing the research and liasing with people etc, if she doesn't want to pay professionals to do it.

She's not even grateful to you and DH she's just using you as unpaid staff. It's in both your power to just stop.

Could you ask to block out a couple of weeks so you can at least enjoy the fruits of your labour before you offer general bookings?

I agree with this. I think as a minimum I would want to block out some weeks to use it every year. It sounds like as everything has been done for her, she doesn't really value anyones time. * *Is your husband prepared to tell her that is can't continue?

Ask the trust to appoint a project manager and interior designer and take a step back.

I doubt we'll inherit it

Why’s that?

Another one here not understanding why if it's his mother's properties he wouldn't end up with at least a share when she passes. 🤷🏼‍♀️

Just stop. It's taking all your family time. Your DH has a responsibility as trustee, but that doesn't mean he has to do everything. It means she has a choice between selling the property as it is, or paying for a project manager and interior designer. Take the option of you doing it for free off the table.

Agree with this! Oh

Re-reading, I wonder if DH and MIL are the trustees on the holiday house ownership for either not-of-age grandchildren or a sibling of DH’s who doesn’t have capacity to do it for themselves.

Anyway, if the trustees have decided that the best value for the beneficiaries is to be had by doing it up as a holiday let, part of that decision is the cost of doing it up. If that cost means it wouldn’t be worth doing, then it should be sold and the money held in the trust. She can’t decide on free Labour when she’s not labouring!

Sorry for being unclear, she's a very wealthy lady, she never needs to worry about cost of her care.

The house is owned in trust between her and my husband who is the eldest in the family, there are 2 other siblings so no guarentee.

He shares it with his mother as part of a trust, the other beneficiaries also would benefit. He has 2 other siblings so theres no guarentee. One isnt remotely interested in the house, the other certainly would be.

In that case she doesn't have to worry about deprivation of assets, she can give gifts as she likes.

Agreed, I think part of the issue is since the father died despite several hints from the children and even 3 meetings with financial advisors with my husband attending with her... she's still not made any gifts. The husband handled all the money, and even now she asks my husband if things are too expensive. She doesn't carry a wallet on her, she used to but since she's been ill that's not happened, now she's better still the same, she expects my husband to pay for her. Or me...last weekend I paid over 100 quid for them both for lunch. When my husband is now handling all of her affairs for free - managing 5 trusts, 1 of which contains 2 properties, the tax involved in all of that, the rental admin for one of the property, the refurbishment and rental admin for this holiday let. All her care fees etc. Her post comes to our house. He spends his free time on the phone to solicitors, accountants etc sorting stuff out for her, driving several hours in the car to this house to empty it, meet with builders, holiday let people etc. Resentment is certainly building up. I cant help thinking why am I doing up this womans house for free, taking her out for lunch etc etc. Its very difficult though as my husband obv wants to help her and we've always had a good relationship.

I suggested to my husband that perhaps we record how many hours we've been working on it and then charge her a fee to do it up.

I think it would be much cleaner for someone else to do the work - if one of the trustees is charging the trust, it could get messy if challenged by the siblings etc.

Plus I suspect you want the time back more than the fee!

Goodness. This sounds incredibly full of potential pitfalls.

Clearly she's in that slightly grey area where she has mental capacity for these decisions but frankly has ne er bern/isn't now able to take on affairs at this level. That's very difficult.

I think you have to go back to her with the siblings and have a family meeting about her affairs in general. I wouldn't expect everything to be sorted in one meeting. I'd actually expect a lot of difficulties and conflicts to arise.

In particular you need to make it clear how much work this involves. The house clearly got too much to manage for her father, if it's become dilapidated. She's not willing or capable of doing the renovation and management of it herself. Therefore she needs to pay someone. That could be you and your dh if you are willing to do it on that basis, or other siblings, or professionals. Tbh even if she decides to sell or use professionals, that's still quite a bit of work.

She might prefer to 'pay' a family member by altering her will, or by paying up front. I'd want to see the bill changed and everyone agree that's the right thing before going on with this.

This may sound too hard nosed but you've already found what it's like essentially running a small business for someone who's got no idea what that takes.

Why can't DH just say I haven't got time for that to her.

I totally get that it feels like she's taking the piss, I'd feel the same. Do you think she's thinking (because of how very wealthy you say she is) that because you're most likely going to end up with a third of the said wealth when the times comes that you should just do it without question or do you think she'd cut you out of potential inheritance if you say no you're not doing all this work for her. You would think she'd want to see you enjoy some of the wealth while she's still around and not want to see you run ragged like this. It's a shame but unless someone speaks up she just won't get it.

I think she simply doesn’t understand the value of people’s time vs the cost of paying for things.

Minor example - my mum wanted to order specifics of various items, which would effectively have been 20 separate orders, I told her no, I would get her a box of 20 the same. My mum was a SAHM and never went back to work and doesn’t really value her own time either in terms of priorities so doesn’t really “see” time as a cost.