{"id":333985,"date":"2025-12-24T22:33:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T22:33:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/333985\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T22:33:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T22:33:07","slug":"they-inherited-900000-from-their-dad-heres-how-two-siblings-split-it-with-a-brother-whos-bad-with-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/333985\/","title":{"rendered":"They inherited $900,000 from their dad. Here\u2019s how two siblings split it with a brother who\u2019s bad with money"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Illustration by Photo illustration by The Globe and Mail. Source images: Getty Images.<\/p>\n

The Beneficiary: \u201cKate\u201d is a 62-year-old bookkeeper in Calgary. She\u2019s single without kids and the eldest of three siblings. Despite the geographic distance between them, she and her youngest brother are co-executors on their recently deceased father\u2019s will. <\/p>\n

The Inheritance: Kate and her siblings received almost $900,000 to be divided equally, minus lingering debts. \u201cMy middle brother had already borrowed against his share in advance,\u201d she says. While the eldest and youngest siblings were generally good at managing money \u2013 which is why they were the chosen as executors to begin with \u2013 the same isn\u2019t true for their brother, a notorious spendthrift and poor financial planner. \u201cHe has some mental-health issues where sometimes he can\u2019t control himself,\u201d Kate says. <\/p>\n

The challenge, therefore, is this: How can two good-with-money siblings manage the situation at hand and provide for their brother without building resentments along the way? <\/p>\n

What she learned: Kate\u2019s mother\u2019s earlier passing made the business of inheriting look easy \u2013 because it all went to Kate\u2019s dad. \u201cI work with numbers and money, so I thought I\u2019d be good at this,\u201d says Kate. \u201cWhen dad died and I had to actually be executor, I was amazed how much I didn\u2019t know \u2013 and what it all cost.\u201d <\/p>\n

Among the mounting bills were estate invoices, fees, taxes, funeral expenses and probate costs. Altogether, Kate dumped upward of $50,000 onto her credit card thinking \u2013 mistakenly \u2013 she\u2019d be promptly reimbursed from the bank account of her father\u2019s estate. <\/p>\n

\u2018I have all the houses I need\u2019: A 47-year-old entrepreneur mulls what to do after inheriting several homes<\/a><\/p>\n

But while having two executors were great when it came to decision-making, it wasn\u2019t so great when it came to dealing with red tape at the bank. \u201cTo get the bills paid, they wanted us to both come into the branch together every month.\u201d <\/p>\n

Easy peasy if you\u2019re neighbours, perhaps, but Kate\u2019s brother lives hours away and Kate doesn\u2019t drive. Moreover, they both work 9-to-5 jobs that made meetings at the bank during business hours very difficult. \u201cEventually we had a system where I\u2019d write a cheque on the estate of the account, mail it to my brother, who\u2019d [sign it and] mail it out again.\u201d Needless to say, efficient it was not, and emptying the estate account became necessary. <\/p>\n

Though their father\u2019s plan wasn\u2019t convenient, it was detailed and specific, which helps a lot in their situation. \u201cIt\u2019s written in the will that our youngest brother shouldn\u2019t get all the money at once,\u201d says Kate, who\u2019s grateful to have their father\u2019s wishes to cite every time her brother wants an advance. For some goodwill going forward, the co-executors opted to forgive their brother\u2019s debt and share the estate three ways. \u201cWe know he needs the money more than we do,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

What she did with it: Of the money that finally landed, a whole year later, Kate first finally paid off her credit card bill. Next, she paid off the mortgage on her condo and put the rest into her RRSP for retirement. \u201cIt\u2019s really nice to be working now because I want to rather than because I have to,\u201d she says. \u201cThat\u2019s a pretty great feeling.\u201d <\/p>\n

While their father had the best-laid plans, reality unfolded slightly differently. \u201cDad wanted my brother set up with a trust, as his lawyer suggested, but in actuality it was expensive and complicated and didn\u2019t make any sense.\u201d <\/p>\n

When an inheritance comes with stipulations: \u2018They want control from the grave\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

Drafting a trust, she learned, would cost at least a few hundred dollars at absolute minimum (and can climb up to five figures in complicated cases). Once operating, the trust would have to pay management and administration fees and annual taxes \u2013 in Canada, trusts are treated as separate taxpayers who pay up to the highest marginal rate. <\/p>\n

All this to say her brother\u2019s relatively small inheritance wasn\u2019t worth the effort and money it\u2019d cost to maintain, so the family decided to take a different route. \u201cWe set up a new bank account, in GICs in my name, and I pay him out a portion every year,\u201d says Kate. If all parties stick to the plan, the payouts will last until her brother is old enough to receive OAS. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s been so far, so good on their arrangement. \u201cIf he asks for more money, which he has a few times already, I just say these are dad\u2019s wishes and that\u2019s worked,\u201d says Kate, who\u2019s not particularly confident about the set-up but can\u2019t imagine a better one just yet. If The Globe\u2019s readers have any ideas, Kate\u2019s keen to hear them. <\/p>\n

Some details may be changed to protect the privacy of the person profiled. Have you recently received an inheritance and would like to participate in Inherited? Send us an e-mail<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Illustration by Photo illustration by The Globe and Mail. Source images: Getty Images.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":333986,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[84,4176,4174,4175,11749,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-333985","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-finance","10":"tag-personal-finance","11":"tag-personalfinance","12":"tag-r-fp","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/333986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}