We are screwed aren't we- inheritance?

[Worldwide21]

I live with my DH in a house with my inlaws- they own the house. My DH has lived there all his life and I have lived with there since we got married. The house is worth about £700000 currently and we were told that all of it, bar £100000 which would go to DH's sister, would go to us. The current will states this.

As a result we have invested a lot of our own money into this house, including a £50000 loft conversion 10 years ago as well as the majoirty of the bills, sacrificing the chance to move out.

My MIL has a volatile mind and may try and change the will after my FIL passes away- he is very frail. Do we have any protections in law if this happens given our investments in the house and the expectation that the bulk of it would go to DH.
Also would I or my children potentially be completely disinherited if my DH suddenly passed away first? My MIL and FIL are unwilling to change the will by putting the house in a trust now and we understand that care home fees may swallow up some of the house if it were needed.

Sorry for the long post.

I don't know if SIL knows but I presume so as surely MIL would've told her when the will was made. However we have never discussed this at all.

The IL would not be able to afford the house currently without our financial contributions
Yet it's mortgage free? How does that work?

This is a legal board not AIBU. Clearly there was a discussion and arrangement within the family and plans were made on that basis and now OP is asking if she has any protections should that be changed. Whether it is fair or not isn't the question and I'm sure there are more factors at play than she put into her post.

Yes.

Posters not being particularly helpful.

I'm sorry but this is incredibly crass - if your FIL goes into a home it is presumably to enable him to live as comfortably as possible and get the care he needs, the fact that you can only see this in terms of 'we could lose everything' is horrible. It appears as if you only view your PIL through the prism of what you can gain from them.

If you are pissed off caring for them at the moment, then stop. Just tell them you can no longer provide care as it is too much, and they should pay for the care they need.

We are in a similar situation except we did pay a rent (not official , no rental agreement and reduced from market rent but still significant) and like you put a lot of money and time into the house , also encouraged by family member to stay because of their care and other aspects , after a few years I just felt the situation was very precarious so I said the property would need to transferred to us if we were to stay in that living situation rather than seeking other options.

Clearly there was a discussion and arrangement within the family

Apart from it hasn't. OP clwarly says they haven't discussed the will with SIL. So not all the family have come to an arrangement .

*clearly

Who exactly would you sue? Because up until the actual day your MIL dies, the house belongs to her. You can’t sue a dead person.

Presumably the argument would be that the OP/her DH have an equitable interest in the property and that MIL was not the sole equitable owner and so could not dispose of the full value of the property in her will.

You can bring a claim against the estate.

Yes absolutely.

OP definitely see a lawyer. Much better to have this all clear now rather than trying to raise arguments about equitable interests when dealing with the will.

Could you arrange a beneficial interest in the property while MIL is alive? Would she agree to that? Is she still compos mentis.

The cheapest solution will be to agree on the estate planning whilst everyone is still alive and able to have a conversation. Things only get expensive following a death when everyone expects the will to say something different, and then they fight about it. With lawyers.

I suspect you don't want to discuss the plan with SIL, though, because you know your proposed split is inherently unfair, and she'd be perfectly reasonable to get upset about it.

From an IHT point of view, it makes no sense for either parent to sign over their house when they're still living in it due to the GWRB rules. Unless, of course, they charge you market rent, and you pay it (but it doesn't sound like you'd want to do that).

Deprivation of capital is not my area, but I suspect you might have an issue with trying to hide housing capital to wriggle out of care home fees. At best, you'd be in a situation where FIL or MIL could end up with the worst possible care due to a lack of funding - you may be OK with that because they're not your parents, but your DH really shouldn't be.

You sound a mixture of resentful and entitled, and I think perhaps the living situation of living with your DH's parents hasn't really worked for you, and hindsight is a truly wonderful thing. Ultimately though, you went along with this scenario where you accepted someone else's parents as your own, with all of the faff of living with aging parents that that scenario entailed. There's no compensation morally or legally due for tolerating the annoying behaviour of family.

If your DH dies before your FIL and MIL, I expect you will be out on your ear. Your DH, therefore, should have adequate life insurance, so you and your DC aren't financially screwed following his death.

Your living your life based on inheritance, there is no inheritance yet .. both parents are still alive, they have every right to change their will or spend their money how they wish. You can’t expect to live off your inheritance from your husband’s parents and money from your father’s savings. Your both adults capable of making your own money. I know you’re wanting advice on how to keep your in laws properly but it’s not yours. You have to be able to fairly buy your husband’s sisters share if the house is passed down.

So you've saved nothing of significance yourselves all this time, because you relied on inheriting your in laws house and your Dad was doing the saving for you?
It beggars belief, to be absolutely honest.

Why should you get a bigger share than your sister in law? Actually it's your husband who gets the share not you, it sounds like your thinking about what you want not what is fair or equal regardless of you SILs wealth.

Investing in the property was your choice as was staying there. You could have moved out unless your were literally being physically stopped. All the work you have done has been under the impression you will get the property.

If l were your SIL l would definitely be contesting.

You sound greedy and grabby.

To add, your in-laws are alive which makes it even worse. Did you really think they would not want to give fairly to both their children.

It is not illegal, but a local authority can invalidate it. However, they cannot invalidate it when someone who owns a proportion of a property as tenants in common dies and puts their portion of the house into a life interest trust, which is what is being talked about here. Indeed, by owning the house as tenants in common, they have already guaranteed that, if one of them goes into a care home, the other spouse's share of the property cannot be taken for care home fees.

@Worldwide21 I agree with Ana86 that there may be a constructive trust here, in which case you and your husband have a claim to owning part of the property. You need to consult a solicitor. If your FIL to die leaves a life interest in his half of the property to your MIL with it then passing to you and your husband when she dies, your MIL cannot change that. You would therefore be guaranteed to inherit 50% of the property less any gift to your SIL - more if there is a constructive trust.

Everyone laying in to them for kicks to be feel superior should ask themselves if they would turn down £400 pcm rent with family (on the assumption you like your family) with help in exchange for a home for life.

I like my in laws - if they said we could live in a multigenerational home but they understood it was a bit style cramping and they’d try to acknowledge our ££ would be sunk into improving their hole rather than in to our own home improvements, plenty of you might take them up on it.

Especially if thinking of your own children! You could invest for your kids, you could save in care costs, you could all share bills, food, your children wouldn’t do twice a year long car trips to see elderly strangers called Grandma and grandad.

It’s not all greedy and grabby. It just relies on familial good will and that can make you nervous. I would feel more nervous about my ILs not my DPs. It’s natural.

People love to stick a spiteful boot in from the other side of their keyboards. All you who never did anything fiscally irresponsible ever.

Your list of what you have been paying monthly,is normal,we all pay that .
you have lived rent free for years
sister in law could say ,you have had your inheritance early in the form of rent free .
living .
every penny my parents had went on care home fees ,one had a stroke the other dementia,..but I wasn’t sat with my hand out ,so no skin of my nose ….you probably won’t see any of the money anyway ,as it will all pay for their care ,and rightly so ,as it is their home

@Worldwide21 Please ignore the posters treating this as AIBU and get proper legal advice. You have paid for improvements to the home and have invested other money in the house on the understanding that you will inherit most of it. That may have created a constructive trust that gives you a legitimate claim for at least part of the value of the house.

As far as the law is concerned, your position is much the same as someone who moves into their partner's house without marrying them and then spends significant sums of their own money improving the property. I doubt people would be going on about how you've been living rent free if that was your situation.

You can't just contest a will because you don't like the outcome for you. You can only contest it if you had a reasonable expectation of being financially maintained by the deceased (e.g. despite being an adult, you were financially supported by the deceased in their lifetime immediately prior to their death), or if the will was made when the deceased lacked mental capacity or under duress.

So, the SIL in this scenario probably seeing fit into any of those categories.

OP may have an estoppel argument - like the son on the farm case cited above. However in that case (IIRC) the son had literally worked the farm all his life for no pay, which is quite different to paying for a loft conversion, bills and food.

You need independent legal advice from a contentious probate lawyer OP.

They wouldn't be able to afford it because although there is no mortgage, presumably they are pensioners, and it is a reasonably big house with relatively big bills (council tax, electricity, gas etc, never mind maintenance) attached. So they would own a house they can't afford to run. If my DH dies, life insurance will pay off the mortgage but i doubt I'll be able to live out my life in the house for the same reason - not enough money coming in to cover running the house without his income.

OP, I've read through all your posts but I can't see what country you are in. Could you confirm? Most posters seems to be assuming England. Are they right?

You have all made this situation very convoluted and I can see why your MIL is getting aggitated. I wouldn't mind having a wager that your SIL has found out about the Will and has pointed out to her mother how one sided it is from her point of view.

I can assure you, from our experience, that once your FIL has passed, your SIL will be in your MIL's ear to make changes to her Will for a more equal division of assets as she sees it. Ours certainly did and it became irrelevant in MIL's eyes that SIL had been the sole recipient of their assets far earlier on... which was the crux of why the estate was supposed to have been left in an unequal proportion in the original Wills.

SIL could also have the Trust opened and disbanded if its found it was deliberately set up to avoid distribution of assets to SIL.

I agree with another poster in that you very urgently need to sit down with everyone involved and attempt to try to have a sensible conversation as to how you and your DH move forward. Forget about ''who is doing what for who'' because that should never come into it, but the actual to and fro's of your money, household expenses and the like. Keep it factual.

Be prepared that this may become very heated and there needs to be some sort of agreement to pause the meeting and reconvene. But you deserve a solution and everyone deserves full disclosure.

I don't understand your argument for why sil wouldn't get half. I'd go nuclear on my brother if he tried to disinherit me. Of course mil will want to give half to her daughter. She's her child. Would you give less to one of your own children?