‘My sister-in-law told us she expects her 15-year-old son to get it as his first home’: Sister-in-law demands inherited house be kept until her son can have it, pushing woman to force contract outlining shared ownership

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Etai Eshet • Editor
Mar 12, 2025 5:00 PM EDT

This story is a simple one: a woman's husband and his sister inherited their late father's house—and, just like every inheritance tale ever written, everything went swimmingly. They hugged, had tea, politely divided the spoils with zero drama, and reminisced lovingly while birds chirped cheerfully in the window. Except, of course, none of that happened.

This inheritance was just another installment in everyone's favorite ongoing reality TV show Family Members Behaving Badly. What could have been a warm reminder of their dearly departed became an epic power struggle of passive-aggressive emails, emotional manipulation, and creative interpretations of fairness.

Which pushes some people to mix the two best types of personalities known to man. Greedy siblings and even greedier lawyers.

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  • Inheritance, after all, is mostly about calculating who gets the slightly larger slice of goods and throwing off emotional baggage at each other like in a game of hot potato seasoned lightly with entitlement. Siblings transform overnight into ruthless real-estate tycoons, wielding guilt like a medieval mace.

    So hats off to those who can politely withhold their panic attacks and calmly craft airtight contracts. That’s not cold; that’s standing up for yourself.  

    Because when money’s involved, family love is out the shared inherited property’s window.

  • "AITA for the contract I expect SIL to sign before even considering renting FILs house with her?"

    "My husband does not really want to be tied in with his sister"
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    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • My FIL sadly passed a few months ago and left his small 2 bed house to my husband and his sister. Background:
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  • Husband and his sister are not close, no fight or animosity just she isn't someone he wants in his life. FIL lived 5mins from SIL in a house he bought as a new build approx 15years ago, it's in a small village on the edge of a city
    via toiletconfession
  • (hypothetically commutable), there are 2 large hospitals within 30mins and it's a 3minute walk to the beach. The house is in excellent condition, the bathroom is original but low mileage, the kitchen had new
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  • appliances/boiler within the last 3 years and original units but also in very good condition. It's an ideal first home/downsize property.
    via toiletconfession
  • We had it valued and were advised if we wanted the property to shift quickly (within a week) to list at offers over 180k with the expectation of getting around 185/190 or if we are
    via toiletconfession
  • willing to wait we can expect between 210-215k and expect to find a buyer within 3/4months. (We are not opposed to a quick sale so we are happy to leave that decision to SIL).
    via toiletconfession
  • The issue: SIL has now told us she wants to rent it out with the expectation of her son (15) getting it as his first home.
    via toiletconfession
  • We have 2 issues with this, my husband does not really want to be tied in with his sister and 2 it's realistically going to be 4/5years before Nephew would be in a position to own a home and no guarantee he will even want to
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  • nulla parianet qui officia de dexe look ocer 22 田 LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF JOHN SAMPL my Last Will and 1, JOHN SAMPLE, a resident of King Co LA. Family. I am married to JANE SAMPL namely, or to "Jane" shall be to her. We have two chil this Any child or children of mine born after the date of this Will shall be though they were specifically named in this Paragraph 1.A., and all p of this Will shall be so interpreted. larg that this is I have intentionally, and not as a result of any mistake or
    via Jade ThaiCatwalk's Images

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • live there after college/university. Another factor is our mortgage has about 100k remaining over 15years so obviously being mortgage free with 2 young kids is very appealing.
    via toiletconfession
  • So I spoke to the agent and got some numbers for rental and with the property being fully managed we would get £900-1000pcm after management fees/insurances etc.
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  • So the contract I put forward looks like this:
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  • 1.The property must be fully managed by an independent accredited management company. 2.The rent will go into a holding account which needs both parties agreement before funds can be withdrawn. 3.For 4
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  • months the rent will be allowed to accrue (to leave a buffer for repairs etc) then every month thereafter 40% of the rent will be transferred to SIL and the same to husband so the account
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  • Cheezburger Image 10477843968
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  • continues to grow slowly overtime, buildings/contents insurance not provided by the management company would also be paid from this account. 4.Any money left once the property is sold/passed to
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  • nephew will be divided in 2 between SIL and husband. 5.We will hold the property for a maximum of 5 years at which point nephew will have first refusal before the property is put on the market. 6.If nephew
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  • chooses to take the property we will agree to sell our half to him for 90k or 40% of the current property value whichever is higher. (This is due to our concern that after 5 years of renters the property will be less desirable due to needing work).
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  • SIL did not react kindly. From her perspective we are being greedy she expects we will basically give nephew the property and countered at 20-25k but out, from mine we are doing her a favour in even considering
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  • keeping the property that renting will be a massive inconvenience and it's ridiculous for SIL to think 5 years of £400pm +£20k is a fair settlement. She asked how we expected him to be able to get a
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  • mortgage at that age and I suggested she could put some of her half of the rent into an account for him to use as a deposit- did not go down well.
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  • This is not out of character for SIL this is why we want her to sign something legally now before even considering keeping the property. It's better we know for sure now that she is expecting us
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  • to give the property to nephew for free (which we expected). I am refusing to take her calls rn and insisting she contacts me via email so there can be no stories getting twisted.
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  • Additional semi relevant info: my husband is executor of the will. He gets half the house SIL gets half the house and everything else, car 3yo hybrid, savings, pension bank account. She has
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  • not been granted access to the bank accounts as yet as she initially did not feel ready to deal with the house so it's been several months and the accounts have remained 'in trust' to husband who continues to pay
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  • the bills, gardening service etc from this account. The house is fully paid off and FIL had no debt. Also a new high speed connection to the city is due to
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  • be finished in the next few years (making the time to city 40mins instead of 1hr20) so property value in the area is probably going to increase overall.
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  • SIL is currently sulking and I do feel a bit of an AH (to nephew not SIL as he practically grew up with his grandad) but since renting negatively impacts our family we want to guarantee as
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  • much as possible that we don't get screwed in the long term! We also don't really want the deal to be too inviting as obviously we would much rather sell now.
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  • Are we being unreasonable? I worry a little that my husband's ambivalence to his sister and my dislike for her is clouding my judgement and that the terms I think are 'fair and reasonable' no sane person would agree to.
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  • £400pm (without even considering tax) doesn't cover half our mortgage payment so there really is no upside for us other than helping nephew onto the property ladder and honestly that doesn't feel like our responsibility!
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  • Anyone who made it through this overly long essay thank you and opinions appreciated even if it is to say I'm being a here!
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  • Edit Because it's coming up a lot, SIL cannot buy us out. She cannot get a 2nd mortgage as a single parent who works part time. I think she probably looked into this and her not being able to afford it is likely the reason for this plan. We have no interest in the house for ourselves.
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  • The will stated that the house expenses should continue to be paid by FIL account, once the sale has gone through then SIL gets what's left, there was around 10k in the account/savings, the pension also wasn't a lot.
    via toiletconfession
  • My husband doesn't drive so he probably would have just given his sister the car anyway if she wanted it. FIL paid for the car outright so that put a large dent in the savings.
    via toiletconfession
  • Husband was expecting pretty much everything would go to SIL so he was pleasantly surprised to get half the house. As a result he isn't especially bothered about getting the best sale price, he's decided 90k is the number he'd
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  • be happy with so anything extra is a bonus. As it's coming out of SIL inheritance he is happy to let her decide what the house sells for providing his half is at least 90k.
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  • Our son's did get stuff in the will, mostly toys FIL had made. Nephew got a lot of things like camping equipment but money wasn't left to any of the grandchildren. A large sum of money (FIL wife's money) was left
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  • for the care of his elderly in-laws (late 80s, wife was about 10years younger than him and di d several years before him) and anything left is to be donated to charity. But this didn't seem relevant to add. Maybe SIL
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  • thought she'd be getting a lot more money than she is and was planning to use that to buy us out (it's around 80k) She will likely try to make herself
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  • out to be a victim. While we don't really care what the extended family thinks we would like to be able to show nephew that we didn't screw him over when he's older.
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  • Agreeable-Book-7018 NTA. Just sell and be done with it. And don't split it unequally as it seems she's getting alot more than half the house. Force a sale and take half.
    via Agreeable-Book-7018
  • professornb I guess I don't know why you even offered to accept 40% of something less than it is worth now for the future. It should be half of the future assessed value (that high speed commute option may well increase the value of the property dramatically). Other than that, you are still being very generous.
    via professornb
  • I would second the others here - force a sale and let SIL save up for her kid's future.
    via professornb

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family drama inheritance aita AITAH brother mother tradition siblings family feud favoritism wedding aunt sister fiancé grandmother Father
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