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!

It’s just incomprehensible isn’t it? I’m usually pretty good at being able to see things from different people’s points of view but it’s not possible to explain away in any acceptable way the sheer callousness involved in this kind of behaviour with someone being happy to watch family members live in financial stress, severely impacting their quality of life, when you could transform this for them with no material impact on your own lifestyle or financial security.

What’s very interesting is that those who write posts defending this kind of behaviour hardly ever seem to discuss the issue calmly and explain their reasoning in any way that refutes the point being made - i.e. that such behaviour demonstates undeniably how little someone actually really cares about their family’s welfare - and instead almost always respond very defensively and aggressively, using personal insults, or trying to twist the situation around effectively stating what amounts to “someone should be able to behave utterly selfishly and decide not to take actions to improve adult children’s financial security and quality of life when they can easily afford to do so, and yet this shouldn’t impact the relationship or how the child feels about the parent”. That seems completely unrealistic because in reality of course how you treat your family impacts your relationships with them, whatever the issue at hand is (general behaviour, practical or emotional or financial support, etc). It seems many expect everything to be a one way street when a loving family is usually keen to help each other with whatever others need at the time to the greatest extent that they can and this is naturally then the family culture and reciprocated, rather than this odd transactional way of looking at things, with comments like “nobody owes anybody anything” or “paying” people for things, as if family relationships are a business contract and people are keeping tallies of mutual support!

And that’s aside from the fact that anybody remotely sensible with the kind of wealth mentioned in the OP, aged 70, would be passing on large amounts of it asap just from a simple estate planning perspective, unless the old adage about hating their children more than the taxman applies!

It all seems very sad and I just can’t fathom how any amount of wealth is making people with this mentality happy when they are aware that simultaneously their children are struggling, overworked and financially stressed. For anybody with normal levels of empathy this would make them feel miserable, surely, if they actually love their children!

Totally agree - name-calling, personal attacks and vitriol. I've helped my children as much as I can (not loads) and if I had a windfall, I'd share it with them. I just can't imagine being so selfish as to watch them suffer while enjoying having way more than I needed for myself. What kind of parent actually thinks like this?

And OP herself says that it is a combination of MH and poor life choices - so who knows whether that son has more options that he is currently taking to better his position.

That generation can be very odd when it comes to money.

What is odd is the expectation that people should spend their money on you before themselves. Her own mother lived past 100. It must be very scary to be looking ahead at that much more life and wondering how you are going to fund it.

Its a balancing act for a lot of people. Just because the balance is not where you would like it, does not mean the person is wrong.

A balancing act? This woman is proposing to give 5.4% of the money to her two children. That’s less than 25% of the money she’d have made on it (inflation adjusted) in the last year if it was invested in a basic global index tracker.

Actually, I often see the very opposite on MN - the attitude that children are not obliged to look after their elderly parents, but that elderly parents are obliged to hand over money, provide childcare...

But they’re not suffering. They’re well off. Apart from the brother. I wonder how the OP would like it if the MIL gave the brother 500k because he was in greater need. And it’s the OP who started with the moral judgments and personal attacks on the virtually unanimous responses who didn’t agree with her.

People are actually advocating for keeping the other son in poverty, it's bizarre. I also find people on here only talk in extremes..."I wouldn't hand someone with mental health issues 350,000" as if there's no other alternative and making a difference in other ways.

Well she handed him £50k... Plus she's still alive. I think cutting someone out of a will is one thing, simply not handing over tons of cash in life is another.

I might have felt differently about this a short while ago but I know a woman who gave her mentally ill son a LOT of money over many years... he never lived truly independently. She paid off debts, credit cards, paid for professional courses he never completed or used and professional equipment he never used or sold, and private therapy and health care that hasn't made a jot of difference. It probably worsened his condition overall, it didn't generate any gratitude or humility in him (his illness probably makes it impossible) and absolutely cleaned her out. I'm sure that if she had over a million he'd have burnt through it; he just doesn't seem to have any concept of money as a finite resource. He's still got spiralling debts and now she's entering residential care and he still thinks she can magic up the cash for his latest idea. She has two other older sons who have resigned themselves to having no inheritance because it's all gone on enabling their younger brother with nothing to show for it.

She's a wonderful woman who doesn't deserve it and honestly in her position I might well have done the same thing because I couldn't let my child sink either. So I'm not being judgemental. But I'm certain that if she had had a million he would have ripped through all that too. It's made me rethink whether it's always a good idea to bail out your adult children endlessly even if they are mentally ill.

Exactly.

What about buying them a property that is kept in trust so they can't sell or secure finance on it for example, so they will at least always have a secure roof over their head?

No, you’re not understanding this properly so let me spell it out - if we were advocating for him being in poverty we would say the MIL should not be giving him any life-changing amounts of money.

But what most of us are saying is that the money isn’t family money. It is MIL’s money and nobody else’s, therefore has fuck all to do with anyone else.

Indeed.

The OP and her DH seem to have a very transactional view of their mother/MiL. That she is "immoral" in not doling out money to them, and that they will not talk to her unless she does.

Look, yes, it might be the kind & generous thing for a 70 yo woman to share a windfall with her two sons. But she doesn't have to. But @Threebear 's attitude is that her MiL is immoral if she doesn't do this.

Maybe the MiL wants to spend it? Maybe she's worried about her old age & provision for it.

What I detest is the OP's attitude to this - that her MiL is immoral not to hand over huge wodges of cash to her sons.

Not anybody worthy of the title, that’s for sure.

In amongst the swearing, I think what you're saying is that you'd do the same and let your vulnerable adult child live in poverty while you have the means to help because technically, it's your money and not 'family' money.

Well you've certainly made your position on what we owe vulnerable family members very clear. I'm surprised you're quite so keen to advertise it.

That’s precisely the attitude that many of us are criticising. Legally, yes, as the OP pointed out herself of course the woman can keep all of this wealth for herself. The point is that for many of us such utter selfishness and disregard for her family’s welfare is a completely alien and very unpleasant, callous mindset to which we cannot relate at all. We wouldn’t want to do that and would be miserable to see our family members struggle and worry while we were sitting on a pile of gold.

As I pointed out earlier, the prevalence of this type of attitude towards family wealth amongst the current generation of elderly people in the UK is a huge anomaly (and I’ll repeat the caveat that obviously there are selfish people in every cohort, and that clearly it’s not all of this cohort who exhibit this behaviour, but it is a far larger percentage of this cohort who hold these views - i.e. that watching family struggle financially when you could easily provide transformative financial help while still remaining very financially secure yourself is acceptable or normal behaviour - than is/ has been the norm in any other generation before or following).

These attitudes simply are not the norm in the UK culturally speaking and never have been over the centuries, and nor are they the norm in the vast majority of other countries around the world either historically or currently.

These attitudes are completely at odds with how family wealth is usually viewed and managed and it is very strange particularly when one notes that the specific generation amongst whom this behaviour is so common happens to be the wealthiest in history and to have lived through the most prosperous period in recorded history, when generally, historically periods of very favourable economic conditions tended to make people less inclined to such selfishness and miserly behaviour. It is incredibly sad to read about people treating their families this way but a very interesting phenomenon from a sociological point of view and I wonder what historians/ sociologists will make of it when they look back on this aspect of our current society.

What’s morally correct is for your mother in law to do exactly as she wants with HER inheritance. She’s 70. She could easily live another 25 years and why shouldn’t she enjoy her life?

This is exactly what we have done with a vulnerable family member. Set up trusts to protect their inherited wealth and to protect it from any future partners having a claim on it.

I do think it's natural for a parent with such a big windfall to want to help and share with adult children, however, the attitude of the adult children could have a dampening effect on that willingness very fast.

Would you question MIL morals if she inherited nowt and didn't have 2 pennies to rub together.
Would you care for and support should she need it if she didn't have money.

Did you bother with her before she inherited?
Visits and invites etc. Did you include her in your life?

If the answer is no. Then that's why you are not getting as much as you wanted.

My MIL lived in a six bedroom home until she was forced into a home by her health. It was not at all unfair that she stayed in a home she didn't 'need' because it was her home, the family home, she had an emotional attachment to it, it was her familiar and safe place. It's not just a house, it's their home. The equity in it that could be released if downsizing is irrelevant. It would be immoral to move her so anyone else could have the money.

Pardon me for using the F-word.

What I would or wouldn’t do isn’t relevant. We’re discussing someone else’s money and as such is nothing to do with anyone else. It’s also worth pointing out none of us know what the relationship between the brother and OP’s MIL is like. You or the person who posted after you (or anyone else including OP) don’t need to relate to any of it.

In amongst the swearing

😂

There is ONE swear word in that post. Unclench dear.

I think if you and your partner intend to cut your MIL off then morally you should decline her 50k.

Pardon accepted. And of course what you would or wouldn’t do is relevant when you’re making such a passionate argument that nobody should have an opinion on what this mother chooses to do for her vulnerable adult child.

Nobody is claiming it’s anyone else’s money. We’re discussing the morality of a choice, not its ownership. “It’s her money” answers the legal question; it doesn’t magically answer the moral one.

And yes, none of us know the full history of their relationship although OP said she was a terrible mother. I genuinely don't know of any parent of adult children who don't buy their children birthday cards/gifts so I will continue to think this woman is despicable.

OP I've rarely read such an unpleasant, calculating set of posts. You're raging because you've decided you're entitled to whatever you want of your MIL's money - and you intend to punish her for generously giving you £50 000. She's an elderly woman who has by your account never had any financial security, and you're seething that she's not giving you more.. I'd imagine that if she were to read your posts she'd be reeling at the revelation of your spite and greed.

Yes one swear word...is that your contribution to this thread? Em well done.

I find it very odd that some people think it would be morally fine for the MIL to spend everything. There seems to be some resistance to the idea that what people do with their money does in fact involve ethical choices and is not purely economic. In my view, every time we spend money (or don't spend it), we are making a small ethical choice.