Paying sibling half of what parents gifted, plus interest

onwards&upwards

None of what you are all saying means the sister has any legal or moral obligation to give her brother substantially more than half of the gift she received from her parents. 

What kind of person resents a sibling from being helped out in their hour of need anyway?  Especially a sibling who is clearly a decent and kind person and offers to split the gift 50/50 a few years later when they have recovered?

A greedy, selfish and self involved person I'd say. 

gizmo111

I have recently given one of my adult children a substantial amount of money the reasons of which I will not go into.  My other adult child is aware of this and id not the slightest bothered ' that she may be missing out'.  Her words were - 'your money, you choose how you spend it, but I'm glad things are easier for my sibling and I know I could always ask you if I needed help or advice and you would do whatever you could'  No talk of wills, interest, inflation, unfairness just the family pulling together in difficult times.  
If the OP's partner wants to help her brother then all well and good if she can afford it - but she doesn't have to and he can't make any demands on how much she gives him.  I would be devastated if in 17 years time my offspring started arguing like this over their rights to what I have worked and saved for.........

BabyStepper

Sea_Shell said

That's great and all very well, if your sibling (or other family) are in trouble through no fault of their own.  (talking generally here, not at OP) 

If they have been rubbish with money, made some shocking life decisions etc. then it is NOT the responsibility of family "with" to step in and help those who are "without".      That would be like giving some people a blank cheque, with other peoples money!!    The hat would be back out again and again, and no lessons would be learnt.

It's too much of a sweeping statement to make, when every family is different, with different dynamics within it.

I agree with this, and don't think it's possible to offer any advice about what is 'fair' without knowing the background. Throwing money at a problem is often the last resort. It's less about 'fault' for me and more making sure the help I was giving was actually useful. They might need help with budgeting, living within their means, or something like that. Having a period out of work due to ill health is very different from needing cash to pay off a drug debt. (I'm not implying this has happened here, just saying these situations would be dealt with very differently.) I don't know what they could urgently need £8,500 for other than paying off debt or maybe buying a house. I'd want to know any money I gave would not be financing poor decisions. 

Also, why did the brother not ask the parents for help? Why go to his sister? Or did the sister suggest it? I'd want to know she was financially secure and could afford such a payout.  

There's definitely not enough info here from the OP to offer advice. 

MoneySeeker1

It doesn't matter why the brother needs the money - the thing is that there seems to be a situation here where (if things aren't put right by sister) then sister could land up having an inheritance (ie that £17,000 in advance) and brother could land up having little (if anything) because of parents money being taken by the State for care costs.

Which would leave one of them okay for a bit of the inheritance and the other one of them not getting anything much of the inheritance - just because of an accident of timing and the State taking money for care costs these days. So, even if brother wants to spend the money on "wine, women and song" then that's down to him.

I can certainly think of all sorts of things (besides debt) that may not count as "urgent" in some peoples books, but would in other peoples books (eg work needing doing on his house and, if he has to wait for money to do it, it will cost more or his preferred firm might have been forced out of business by Lockdown). Even down to things like maybe he managed without a car previously - but now has to have one right now because of Lockdown (the effect on public transport). I can certainly think of things that are necessity and have become a good bit more urgent because of Lockdown one way or another and I expect many of us can.

Pollycat

MoneySeeker1 said:

Absolutely agree.

Much the better all round for sister to keep the brother "on board" and in a decent relationship with her - because she's been fair to him. The alternative is brother remembers/falls out with her for rest of their lives and, if he sees a chance to "take revenge" in any way - takes it.

Much better to have him kindly disposed towards sister/reasonable relationship between them and no risk of him "keeping an eye" open for a chance to "take revenge".

I think this is a very scary scenario.

thepurplepixie

I've always had a policy of non discussing gifts to one child with the others and I ask them to respect that.  I think in monetary value they have had very similar although some have lived cheaply at home for longer than others, one has had much more free childcare as they live locally. 
OP I think what your wife wants to do is nice, I can also understand why her brother might see it as unfair, I mean say she invested that £17k in a property it would be worth way more than that now but generally I am glad my kids can't sit down with spreadsheets and work out what to do about gifts freely given from a place of love.

onwards&upwards

MoneySeeker1 said:

It doesn't matter why the brother needs the money - the thing is that there seems to be a situation here where (if things aren't put right by sister) then sister could land up having an inheritance (ie that £17,000 in advance) 

The £17,000 wasn't an inheritance, it was a gift. 

A gift is when somebody who is alive freely gives something (including money) to somebody else who is alive. 

An inheritance happens if a person dies with more assets than debts and has either written a will stating who it goes to or the laws of intestacy are applied.  Any transfers of money or other property while the person is still alive can not by definition be an inheritance. 

BellaLasagna2018

MoneySeeker1 said:

It doesn't matter why the brother needs the money - the thing is that there seems to be a situation here where (if things aren't put right by sister) then sister could land up having an inheritance (ie that £17,000 in advance) and brother could land up having little (if anything) because of parents money being taken by the State for care costs.

Which would leave one of them okay for a bit of the inheritance and the other one of them not getting anything much of the inheritance - just because of an accident of timing and the State taking money for care costs these days. So, even if brother wants to spend the money on "wine, women and song" then that's down to him.

I can certainly think of all sorts of things (besides debt) that may not count as "urgent" in some peoples books, but would in other peoples books (eg work needing doing on his house and, if he has to wait for money to do it, it will cost more or his preferred firm might have been forced out of business by Lockdown). Even down to things like maybe he managed without a car previously - but now has to have one right now because of Lockdown (the effect on public transport). I can certainly think of things that are necessity and have become a good bit more urgent because of Lockdown one way or another and I expect many of us can.

When the parents gave the sister the £17000, it wasn’t her inheritance, it was their money to do as they wished.  The parents created the problem trying to be fair and including that clause in their will. 

Pollycat

BellaLasagna2018 said:

When the parents gave the sister the £17000, it wasn’t her inheritance, it was their money to do as they wished.  The parents created the problem trying to be fair and including that clause in their will. 

I agree with the bit in bold.

I don't see the sister has done anything wrong and think she has been more than fair to her sibling in offering half of the money she was given by her parents and even considering the fact that he wants her to pay him interest. And that he introduced the subject of inflation.

I wonder what the parents think about this situation.

Sea_Shell

Pollycat said:

BellaLasagna2018 said:

When the parents gave the sister the £17000, it wasn’t her inheritance, it was their money to do as they wished.  The parents created the problem trying to be fair and including that clause in their will. 

I agree with the bit in bold.

I don't see the sister has done anything wrong and think she has been more than fair to her sibling in offering half of the money she was given by her parents and even considering the fact that he wants her to pay him interest. And that he introduced the subject of inflation.

I wonder what the parents think about this situation.

Luckily she has the money to be able to even consider re-gifting some!!

What if it'd all been spent!