I got Mum to change her will so I'll get more than my sisters without them knowing - because they barely lift a finger to help her By Anonymous Published: 21:43 EDT, 25 July 2024 | Updated: 21:43 EDT, 25 July 2024 e-mail View comments Next month, my mum and I are going to lunch at her favourite Italian restaurant, where we’ll raise a glass to toast a new development in our family. Not a birthday, or a new job, but the changing of her will at the nearby solicitor’s office. Until now, Mum, 83, had always stated that her money should be split evenly between her three children.
Today, persuaded by me, she has agreed to change her will so that I will be the main beneficiary. My inheritance will come at the expense of my two sisters, who will have their share reduced. Persuaded by me, Mum has agreed to change her will so that I will be the main beneficiary Far from feeling guilty about my actions, I couldn’t be happier and have zero sympathy for my sisters.
I know what you might be thinking, but I’m not some unscrupulous schemer with a heart of stone who is taking advantage of an old lady, while stabbing my siblings in the back. I’m actually a loving but exhausted daughter who, for the past five years, has had to put my own life on hold as I care for the growing needs of an ageing parent with myriad health issues. Meanwhile my sisters have all but washed their hands of her.
Forget chipping in with everything from hospital visits to helping her at home; they can go months without seeing her. So I think it’s more than fair that Mum’s will reflects our respective contributions — or lack of. Currently not a day passes when I don’t devote some time to helping her.
If I’m not taking her to medical appointments, I’m making them or chasing them. I might be hanging on the phone for two hours so I can check where she is on the waiting list for the hip replacement she so badly needs. I think it’s more than fair that Mum’s will reflects our respective contributions — or lack of Perhaps I’ll be emailing the social care team at her local authority chasing the stair lift they were meant to install in May and didn’t.
When, a few weeks ago, the endless rain finally stopped to bring us a few days of welcome sunshine, my social media was full of friends and family enjoying drinks in the garden, picnics and trips to the seaside. As for me, I barely stepped outside. I was either in a car or waiting in stuffy hospital outpatient’s departments as I ferried my mother to a series of appointments.
There was an X-ray on an arthritic knee, an MRI scan on a shoulder, a session with a physio and a check-up at her GP. In between I’d be unpacking supermarket shopping, watering plants, changing beds and cleaning her bathroom. It was at this point my frustration came to a head, and I told Mum that she needed to change her will in my favour.
Mum is a widow who lives alone. Previously highly self-sufficient, she now feels wretched and miserable that she can no longer do many things for herself. Thing started to go downhill when, five years ago, she slipped on some ice while going out to post a letter.
She broke her arm and hip and badly injured her back and shoulder. As the post box was only a couple of minutes from the house she didn’t take her mobile phone. Unable to get up, she lay on the freezing pavement for 40 minutes before a passer-by saw her and called an ambulance.
She’s never fully recovered, either physically or emotionally, and lost much of her confidence. Mum is a widow who lives alone. Previously highly self-sufficient, she can no longer do many things for herself Unable to do anything for herself I moved in with her for several weeks after the accident, because I wanted to but also because I was the only one who offered.
My older sister Fiona, mother to three grown-up children who’ve long since left home, has been useless despite only working part-time and living closer to Mum than I do. When her children were younger she was happy to dump them on Mum for a week at a time. Now her adult children rarely see their grandmother, and my sister doesn’t bother either.
The older and frailer Mum gets, the more Fiona keeps her distance. The only time she helped out was when I phoned her in tears pleading with her to go to Mum’s house and see if she was OK after her fall alarm had gone off and she wasn’t answering calls from the care company. I was working away and it would have taken me hours to get there.
Fiona went, reluctantly. Mum was, thankfully, ok. She’d accidentally pressed her alarm button while sitting in the garden and hadn’t heard the phone ringing in the house.
Instead of being relieved, Fiona was furious that it had all been ‘a waste of my time’. It was as if she would have preferred it if Mum had injured herself to make her trip worthwhile. That was in February — and she hasn’t visited Mum since.
Read More Jaw-droppingly bitter family feud behind the sale of £1.75m home both father and son claim they own Once incredibly close to each other, Fiona’s attitude has soured our relationship to the extent we now barely speak. I’m prepared to give Amy, my younger sister, a bit more licence.
Her children are still young and she lives three hours away from Mum. She does call her several times a week, tries to visit at least once a month and has expressed her gratitude for all I do. But it doesn’t make carrying the burden alone any easier.
Unlike Fiona and Amy I don’t have children which, I suspect, is why they believe it’s easier for me to be responsible for Mum, even though both of them are financially supported by working husbands, a luxury I don’t have as a divorcee. Currently in a permanent state of heightened anxiety, I have no interest in dating or finding a new partner, which is just as well as all my spare time is taken up with caring duties. I could call on outside help, but the idea makes me nervous.
I realise there are some amazingly kind people around but elderly people who live alone are vulnerable. A previous cleaner stole money from Mum’s purse. Mum caught her but was too afraid to confront her and let her leave with the cash.
That cleaner had been recommended by a local charity for the elderly. Not long ago, a decorator attempted to charge her an extortionate amount for painting a bookshelf, demanding the money up front. Every time I help Mum out she asks: ‘Are you sure? This won’t interfere with your work, will it?’ I always say: ‘No of course not,’ because I don’t want her to be scared to ask for help.
But the truth is that being a self-employed marketing executive, it is losing me money, as I’m no longer available for short-term projects. Earlier this year I was offered a fast turnaround job that would have paid me £2,000. But I was due to take Mum for a medical appointment she’d been waiting a year for and had to turn it down.
I explained to Mum, a little tearfully, that while fair at the time, her will now needed to be corrected She finds public transport too much of a struggle and the last time she tried to get a taxi the driver was grumpy and impatient with how long it was taking her to get in the car. My situation is not unique. There are millions like me — the child who has become a parent’s default carer, their siblings only too happy to let them shoulder the burden.
I have two friends who are now estranged from siblings because they simply cannot forgive them for failing to lend a hand. In the end, my conversation with Mum about her will was much easier than I anticipated. Her estate isn’t worth a fortune (she owns a three-bedroom house currently worth £280,000) but for a couple of years I’d felt a growing resentment that my sisters would get the same amount as I would despite my hefty financial loss.
Over a cup of tea, I asked Mum if she still has the same will she made all those years ago. She did. I explained, a little tearfully, that, while fair at the time, it now needed to be corrected.
She nodded and said she had been thinking the same, asking what I thought would be a more reasonable split. I said that I should get half, not a third, and she instantly agreed. That night I phoned Amy and she gave the plan her full support, even offering to let me have her quarter too — which I declined.
I have no intention of telling Fiona and I don’t think Mum fancies the confrontation either. The bottom line is if she had behaved better, we wouldn’t be making that trip to the solicitor. *Names have been changed.
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