Pay Dirt: MIL wants to use house ownership to control family members after her death

[minoanmiss]

After a particularly nasty battle with COVID, my MIL has finally decided to get her will/financial plans in order. While this sounds great, it’s actually become a huge issue, mainly because she has also finally acknowledged some significant substance abuse problems within her family. Basically, my FIL is an alcoholic and three of her children have major drug problems. My MIL is concerned that if she dies first, my FIL will sell their house to have access to cash to continue funding all the addictions, including his own, and end up homeless.

Her solution: She wants to set up a trust that says her son (my husband) will inherit her part of the house and, while my FIL can live there until he dies, he cannot sell the house. She has not told my FIL any of this and obviously doesn’t plan to (she also wanted my husband to keep it all a secret from me, which he clearly didn’t).

Am I wrong to think this is an absolutely crazy idea? It just seems like she’s passing all responsibility onto my husband, while completely undercutting her own. My husband is pretty vague on all the details but wants to go along with it just to keep the peace. How can I convince him this is a horrible plan?

—I Feel Like Cassandra Over Here

Dear Cassandra,

Your mother-in-law is putting all of you in a terrible position, and doing it selfishly, because if your husband were to decide to go along with this, she won’t be around to clean up the mess. She’s also trying to control your father-in-law’s behavior ,and that of her adult children, and putting the responsibility for managing all of that on your husband. This is recipe for disaster all the way around: it gives your father-in-law no agency in the situation, and forces your husband’s siblings to negotiate with your husband for any portion of their possible inheritance, which will cause resentment, even if your mother-in-law thinks she has reason to believe they will waste the money.


You may also want to point out the flaw in your mother-in-law’s logic here: if your father-in-law and your husband’s siblings would (if no trust were in place) sell the house and blow the money, it’s not as if her appointing your husband gatekeeper is going to magically ensure that they will have stable, healthy lives when she’s gone. If she’s concerned about this problem, she needs to try to get them help, now, while she’s still alive. I think it’s fine to stipulate that if your husband gets her part of the house that your father-in-law is allowed to live there until he’s no longer able, but even then, your father-in-law should be made aware of these plans. It should not be dropped on him as a surprise.

Comments

[zana16]

This is literally the reason trusts were invented: so that you can provide for those who inherit from you when you know they are not in a position to be responsible with a windfall. FIL could still sell the house but only have access to half the cash, and would have monthly income thereafter so that his addiction doesn't render him homeless.

There are not good solutions when it comes to addiction, so everybody should be seeking the least bad option. Putting the husband in this position is a bad option, but having an administered trust pay out monthly ensures that the money goes to what the MIL wants it to go to - making sure that FIL is okay.

[movingfinger]

I think a lot of judges would look askance at a trust that bypasses a surviving spouse, and there would be a very high likelihood of the trust being overturned or simply wasted in litigation.

She need to deal with their shit now, not secondhand from beyond the grave.

[gingicat]

I hope that's true now. It wasn't true when my grandfather wrote his will.

(It was basically phrased as "Debbie gets everything but can't get rid of any of it because it's really for the grandchildren.")

[ioplokon]

I don't think some kind of trust is a bad plan here (idk the best version of it tho). Keeping it a secret is definitely bad though. You don't want everyone freaking out after you die, casting aspersions on each other & so on.

[resonant]

I'm pretty sure you can hire someone to execute a trust -- possibly the lawyer who created it in the first place.

I'd say the LW and their husband need to get their own lawyer. In a perfect world, their lawyer arranges a meeting with MIL and her lawyer, and they work together to come up with a trust that puts her money where she wants it to be and keeps LW and husband out of it.

If that's not possible, then any time anybody in that family contacts the LW/husband about money, LW/hosband hand them the lawyer's card and say, "This is who you talk to. It's out of my hands."

Possibly the lawyer also starts the restraining order paperwork now.

[cimorene]

I guess I sympathize with MIL's aims, but this is just a huge disaster waiting to happen... and it's hard to believe an adult of sound mind could make a plan like this thinking it stood a decent chance of actually working? Also a headache waiting to happen. If LW's spouse is determined to go along with it, she's not gonna have a lot of options. I mean, she could just tell the rest of the family, but that's probably not going to end well either, although at least it might avoid the headaches that would no doubt fall on her being married to this person as they tried to do anything with this plan.

On another note, though, it DOES sound like the setup of a golden age mystery novel.