Inheritance: Trying to avoid future problems

jozbo

Hi there,
My family is after a bit of advice but in advance of seeing the CAB about it I was wondering if we could get an idea from here first.

Our mum died just over a year ago, fairly young. My siblings and I are in our late teens/early twenties. Our father has been in a relationship with a new woman now for 6 months or so.

The family house he shared with our mum is now too big and expensive for him and he lives there alone but spends most of his time at his girlfriends'.

What he wants to do is sell the family home and buy half of his girlfriends' house. She is in a similar position to him and unable to afford her house but they both want to live there.

Her house is worth about 30% more than his, but his is still worth a significant sum.

If he was to buy half her house, when he died would she automatically keep all that money? Or would we have any claim to it? We expect they will marry.

What can we do to protect our inheritance (from both our mother and father) automatically being passed to our dad's girlfriend? Is there some sort of agreement or does he need to specify this in his will?

At the moment our father is very resistant to speak about the subject. We anticipate if we don't deal with this in advance it could lead to some nasty disputes in the future.

Thanks in advance.

kalaika

If your Dad dies after he marries again but with no will written, his assets will be divided according to the intestacy rules. In short if valued under £250,000 it will all go to her. If valued at over this, the first £250,000 will go to her anyway. See here for more details.

If your Dad writes a will, he can give his estate to whoever he likes, in whatever proportion he likes.

Plans_all_plans

He needs to make a will if he intends to leave you anything. If they marry I believe she will be entitled to everything he has unless he stipulates otherwise in a will. If they don't marry then his assets will go to his next of kin (except any money he pays into her house, depending on who's on the deeds etc)

I feel though that unless your father brings this up with you that you should keep quiet. If he is ignorant of inheritance facts then by all means mention it to him once, but if he poo-poos you then it would be worth remembering that it is his money to do with as he sees fit and no-one should expect an inheritance.

There is a very good programme on currently called "Can't take it with you" on BBC2, think it's at 9pm on a Friday night (maybe see if you find previous episodes on iplayer) Maybe suggest your dad watch it, but I can;t help thinking that you'll come across badly if you keep on about it (although I do understand why it's playing on your mind)

jozbo

kalaika wrote: »

If your Dad dies after he marries again but with no will written, his assets will be divided according to the intestacy rules. In short if valued under £250,000 it will all go to her. If valued at over this, the first £250,000 will go to her anyway. See here for more details.

If your Dad writes a will, he can give his estate to whoever he lives, in whatever proportion he likes.

Her property will be valued over £1million.

I suppose the reason it's playing on our minds is that this is a relatively new relationship, and our mum worked hard all her life and I think if that could all go to somebody else this easily we'd find it quite a shock!

RAS

kalaika wrote: »

If your Dad dies after he marries again but with no will written, his assets will be divided according to the intestacy rules. In short if valued under £250,000 it will all go to her. If valued at over this, the first £250,000 will go to her anyway. See here for more details.

If your Dad writes a will, he can give his estate to whoever he lives, in whatever proportion he likes.

Not exactly. If he and GF become joint tenants on what is now "her" house, they both own the whole house, jointly and severally. If he dies first, she get the whole house, because it is already hers and is excluded from the estate. She can then give it to anyone she likes. The situation would be the same if she dies first, he could give the house to his children if he wanted, despite it once being half hers.

If your dad wants to protect your interests (and there are arguments about whether he should), then he might want to buy the house as tenants in common, with his share specified as 50%, if he has paid half the current value.

Then he can leave his half to who ever he likes.

WhiteHorse

Your father should certainly make a will.

This topic may be too much for the CAB (I would be very wary of their level of expertise in this matter), and you may find that a talk with a good solicitor would be much better.

On a more cynical note, if your father is already 'resistant' to this subject, then is it possible that she is already exerting too much influence?

Plans_all_plans

RAS is right, however if he intends to marry this woman then he is unlikely to want her to have to move out in order to sell his 'half' upon his death. He can stipulate in a will that his 'portion' is to be held in trust until she dies and then upon selling, his half can be given to his children.

ETA: WhiteHorse, I think it is more likely that he just doesn't want to think about death so soon after his wife has died.

jozbo

[QUOTE=WhiteHorse;40668956/
On a more cynical note, if your father is already 'resistant' to this subject, then is it possible that she is already exerting too much influence?[/QUOTE]

This may well be the case... I can't help feeling a little sorry for us in this situation!

gingin_2

WhiteHorse wrote: »

On a more cynical note, if your father is already 'resistant' to this subject, then is it possible that she is already exerting too much influence?

Father could be resistant to it for many reasons.

Maybe he feels he has had a tough time and has now found hapiness and does not want to discuss money at this time.

Maybe he has other wishes as to where he wants his money to go.

Maybe he feels it has not been approached sensitively enough by his children.



Sorry, jozbo. I don't want to sound harsh, it must be really hard losing your mum young but so many family disagreements start over money/ wills/ fairness and then they escalate into so much more. I really think you need to give your Dad time and not get worked up over the money.

Nicki

As unpalatable as this might sound, your mother left her estate to your father to do with what he wills. Had she wanted you and your siblings to inherit any part of her money, she would have written this into her will, either by leaving you a direct amount or by giving your father a life interest in some of the estate with the remainder to come to you on his death.

If you father is still quite young, it is entirely up to him what he does with this money, and it is quite distasteful that you and your siblings are hovering around his estate when he is not even mildly unwell, much less cold yet. I imagine your father could live for another 40 odd years, and if he wants to leave all of his money to a new wife, to spend it on himself, or to leave it to the cats home, that's entirely down to him.

I'm not surprised he was resistant to discussing this with you. I'd be livid if my OH died young, and any member of my family started discussing how I planned to leave my own money when I go, less than a year after his death. To say it is insensitive is an understatement too huge to quantify.

If you are all in your teens and early twenties, I would suggest that you all knuckle down to developing your own careers and making your own way in life. Then when your father does die, if you are lucky enough to inherit it will be a nice bonus for you, but you won't have spent your whole lives waiting for it.

SailorSam

If your Dad wants to leave you his half of the new house or any part of it, what him and his new partner needs to do is write Wills which allow the surviving partner a life trust in the new house, so when either of them dies the other can carry on living there, but when they did die(lets say the girlfriend) your Dads share will be shared out as per his wishes. And if the girlfriend died first your Dad could carry on living there but when he died half would be shared however the girlfriend wanted to her relatives.