Inheritance one - what’s morally correct

[Threebear]

My MIL 70 has just inherited 1.85M net. She was given another house when in her twenties which due to where it was in the world ended up having to be abandoned, though means she has never paid rent or mortgage in her life. She did only have 50k to her name previous to this big windfall. She doesn’t have access to a pension (mistakes in her life / living in the wrong places).

She has 2 children, 37M, 43M. The youngest has a 5yr old child (her only GC). Relationship positive with both.

37M owns a property but in reality only owns the mortgage (340k mortgage). He doesn’t struggle but retains 2 jobs at once in order to live a nice life and have a nice property.

43M is mentally ill, has never retained a proper job, cannot access many benefits where he lives and has a wife who comes from a very poor country with no career herself. They live on the breadline if not lower.

MIL has declared that she is going to keep the full inheritance for herself however will gift each child with 50k as a present.

Firstly I’m fully aware there is a huge difference in thinking between the generations. As a millennial I cannot morally understand the decision. I would never in a million years do this to my beautiful child. I’m so aware of the struggles we have had and can only imagine the struggles in his thirties to get on the property ladder. My hope is we can buy him a small property when he’s older so he can be mortgage free from starting point, all of this to be done with our own investments and money.

The moral question has actually nothing to do with money. If she had none no one would care, if she only got 100k and wanted to keep it, it wouldn’t be questionable as she needs it.

However and big however, she’s just been lumped with 1.85M tax free, and it just doesn’t compute that she believes the relationship with her children and GC will continue if she chooses to do this. The decision is hers and hers only but for anyone who believes she’s morally correct, why I ask would you think your children would ever be ok, forgive you or want to spend anytime ever again with you?

It’s hers to make, but it’s selfish without a doubt. Keeping 95% of that money for her to spend Willy nilly seems crazy while thinking she can retain a relationship with the people she has hurt in this equation.

Personally I think she deserves a nice home, a good investment portfolio but that can all be done within 1.5M no problem at all. If she shared just 350k between her 2 children she would change their lives, they would forever be incredibly grateful, and it would promote to showing how much she cares for them and for a very positive relationship until her death.

The question is simply anyone who agrees with her, are you aware of the rupture and consequent lonely rest of life you would live in your million dollar home as your kids will now likely abandon you?

thanks!

Apparently I'm in the minority here because I can't imagine not wanting to share more than that with my kids while I'm alive to see them benefit from it.

Sure, there's no obligation, but it would be very nice. I'm also of a mind that no individual really needs more than a million quid.

• I repeat she believes she is loved by her children. She’s completely unaware of my partners dislike of her personality and bad mothering. So this is not to spite her children I can assure you. And yes really she is unaware, totally utterly, she is in contact with us daily, appears to believe I love her dearly which I do not. She lives in the clouds.

• I am not married to DP so no he doesn’t have rights to my dividends literally, nor I his salaries, pension etc. However all salaries and dividends by our own choosing get placed in our joint account and we pay out back to personal accounts fair quantities for personal expenditure. People are really set on stating we don’t share and although I couldn’t care to argue or not, there’s the info. We share. End of story. We both have nice paid off cars courtesy of me and only me. We both own a home with a mortgage courtesy of my own windfalls and good investments of which a portion is protected under a prenup type arrangement asked for by my DM.

• as I state in first post we are not struggling, his brother is due to mental illness but also dire life choices and laziness. I state struggling again in another post erroneously/lightly. I mean in that hello bit fat mortgage vs her mortgage and rent free life forever courtesy of her own parents buying her 1 property outright in her twenties and giving the last in this will to her. Paying a mortgage is not the struggle rather the moral understanding she doesn’t have that she’s never paid one or had to thanks to help she in fact has always had (despite ending up in dire terms by end with only 50k to name, but with a very nice home in her mothers name that she lived in - so it wasn’t bad off by any means).

• My DP has 2 jobs not out of necessity but because why not to earn double. He’s very content to work these jobs as it’s given him an extra purpose. I told him not to do it, he did and it’s made him more happy so there we go I was wrong. I earn the same as his highest paying job in my businesses, the second job is his money in that it is his windfall type money that I’ve told him to keep (because I already have my money in the property).

• am I the angel of morality? God no. Not however for this imagined entitlement over NOT my money. I’m angry because her morals, selfishness and lies, and the emotional effect it has on the person I love. I repeat again it’s not about the dosh.

my post has been answered however, I see that no, the IABU cohort seems so vehemently insulted that they cannot see the pain they could cause. Children appear to be morally obligated to care for / visit / welcome to your home their own shitty parents and yet no obligation to help the kids out at the same time. contradicting much?

I could never do that to my children, but I am 99% sure that both my parents, and my partner's parents would act exactly as she is.

I'm 70. If I inherited that kind of money I'd be doing a deed of variation and giving a third to each of my kids and keeping a third. I'm already giving some of my savings to my kids, and I have absolutely no need of an extra £1m.

Everyone is right that it's her money and her decision to make, and cutting her off for doing this would be wrong. But if I was her child I would be bedfeeling very unloved, and that would be bound to affect my relationship with her in some way.

I have to say @Threebear , bravo!! You really are the best kind of rage baiter as the level of contradiction within your posts is hysterical.

You say your DP hasn't had anything from his mother from the age of 17, but you have already said, due to poor decisions, she had nothing to give.

You say he works two jobs to 'live a comfortable life' yet she's prepared to see him 'struggle' by ONLY giving him £50k. All the while you're sat there with an 'I'm alright, Jack' attitude having paid off YOUR half of the house and having been so kind in gifting him your old car - you absolute treasure!!

I hope she heads off into the world to enjoy her money. Yes, I said it, HER money.
And I would be careful on passing on these sentiments to your child - you may well reap what you sow

The only mistake she made was giving her sons anything at all.

You could have her bumped off with that £50k, then you can get your mitts on the rest of HER dough all that bit sooner.

A 37 yo man wants mummy to pay off his mortgage for him? Get a grip and wait till she dies like normal people.

Wow. I hope she leaves it to charity when she passes you sound vile.

It’s not at all well hidden!

Very easy to spend other people’s money isn’t it.
I don’t know how much a nice home for you MIL would be but if she put all the remaining 1.75 million into investments she would end up with about 50k a year after tax in the UK. So if she spent some of her money on a house she would have much less. She also needs a safety buffer. When you get old you are very aware that you don’t have any possibility of earning more money. Just be patient. One day she will die. If you stop speaking to her then she probably won’t leave you any money in her will.

I don’t.

dh’s children don’t speak to him because they were allowing the abuse of an elderly relative because the abuser was giving them gifts using the relatives money, and had promised them a significant lump sum once an asset was sold.

dh reported them to social services and the financial coercive control was discovered and removed. They may well now inherit more once the relative dies, but the abuser had told them there’d be nothing left because of a fictitious issue.

also 50% automatically going to children could leave a spouse, even if it’s their own mother, homeless if they need to sell the house. If I died, and half the house value went to the kids dh would have to sell up to give them that money. Which is a shitty thing to do.

I have left my house to my kids, but I am able to include a clause that they can’t sell it until dh dies. Dh will die intestate, because he doesn’t want to cut his kids out but also doesn’t want to leave them money directly, so anything he leaves will be divided by intestacy rules, not his direct wishes.

people should be able to leave their money where they want to. Not forced to give it to children who would ignore elder abuse for their own gain.

Catching up. Partner, not husband. So you haven’t sought to ensure his security through marriage to you. Interesting.

You actually have no right to express any opinion on this.

Feisty! I guess you are hoping I’ll drop to your troll level by calling me a bad mother. Thanks but no thanks, my amazing child is happy, healthy and loved, thanks for asking! ☺️

what?! I really cannot see your point of view at all. The money belongs to her. She can do what she likes with it. I say that as a child who's parent made me a large cash gift when I divorced. It made a huge difference to my life then and going forwards. She left everything else to my children. They will have easier lives as a result. Win win as far as I'm concerned.

Try some gratitude. It is far less emotionally debilitating than bitterness.

I’ve s as feeling her kids won’t be cutting her off - they are far too grabby for that!

Don’t call me a troll! I’m not. I mean that your poor attitudes and behaviour will have a damaging effect on your child, because you have no moral compass, it seems.

His mother has suggested all his life she absolute adores her children and would share anything if she ever had anything. Even suggested 50/50 if one day she inherits (some years before the death of her mother) between her and kids.

But this is the same as all those people who say that if they had more they'd share it, or that if they'd win money they'd share it. Then when it happens they change their tune: it's not enough to share, or they need the money for a once-in-a-lifetime-holiday, or whatever else.

Talk is cheap. No matter what you're talking about.

(edited for typo)

That’s the funny part. To answer your first paragraph which is a fair point to raise. We did, oh we did. She continuously complained and was upset about it and we supported her throughout, on her side at all times. Her mother did not need to live in a 4M value property until 102 when she died. It was unfair on her daughter my MIL and her brother. They struggled having to live with a mother they didn’t like. And as happens oh too often, she’s become her mother. Not exactly the same I’ll give you that but it looks like it’s going in that direction.

she hated her mother so no grief, she was ecstatic when she died after about 30 minutes of upset. As I hope is clear, as much as I might have my morals set differently, she’s not exactly an angel herself and then goes and repeats the same story again within months.

You're not really one for the long game, are you, OP?

If you want her money and feel entitled to it (and you very clearly do; if it were only about the principle, you'd be absolutely fine because your principles are intact, and you wouldn't feel a need to whip up an online hate fest asking everyone to agree and elaborate on how awful she is) then rather than abandon and punish her because she's not giving you money (principles, you say?), you'd do better to stay in contact and foster a good relationship with her so she's more likely to remember you, in life and in her will.

I don't especially love the concept but it seems like the much smarter course of action. If all you care about is principles, well yours are intact so why are you here complaining?

My parents live in a house I could never afford and they don't need to live in. I don't begrudge them because it's their house, their money and absolutely nothing to do with me.

If you weren't so fixated on the money you'd see your own morals are a little questionable.