“I’m due to inherit £2m after inheritance tax.”

I’m set to inherit money from five relatives – my dad, my mum and stepdad, my aunt, and my uncle. I’m 57 and they’re in their 80s. I have no idea when it will happen or how much it will be, but if I were to inherit tomorrow, it would be in the region of £2 million, after inheritance tax.

My uncle has mental health issues and I’ve always looked after him – he’s leaving what he has to me (currently about £800,000). I also looked after my aunt when she had cancer – she says I saved her life – and she wants to leave me her house.

My dad’s estate will be split 50/50 between me and my brother (currently £1.5 million before inheritance tax, but his care costs are £6,000 a month – he has dementia). My mum and my stepdad’s estate will be split six ways but my brother and I will get the majority share (total is £2 million before inheritance tax). 

I always knew I would inherit money from my parents, and knowing that has given me a false sense of security. I have an interest-only mortgage and ten years ago, I still had £180,000 left to pay off. I’d banked on having some inheritance to help. I started to panic that if I didn’t have the funds before the end of the term, I’d lose the house.

So I took matters into my own hands. I’m a self-employed lawyer so I was able to work more, earn more and increase monthly payments. Looking back, I’m glad I had that scare. It made me realise how dangerous it is to rely on inheritance. It’s a trap my brother has fallen into – he’s approaching 60 and has very little of his own money and no property of his own.

When I do inherit, I want to build a house. It’s always been my dream. I just hope it doesn’t end up being too late for me to fulfil that dream. Although by hoping that, I’m almost wishing that somebody dies, which is weird, as I obviously care a lot about my family and feel very lucky that I will inherit from them.

Of course, there’s a cost to inheritance – both literally in terms of inheritance tax but also in terms of what’s expected of you to ‘earn’ it. At the moment, I’m working at half capacity because I spend so much time looking after my relatives. If I wasn’t going to inherit from them, I don’t know how I’d feel about looking after them so much.

I wish we could talk about inheritance more openly as a family. It’s as if there’s an unwritten rule that talking about it is vulgar. I’ve had some conversations with my dad about it, but my mum refuses to talk about it. If I ask her about it, she acts as though I’m a money-grabber.

Inheritance can be a poisoned chalice, it needs to be handled with care. It can bring out the worst in people. And it can make you complacent, something I wish I’d sorted out earlier. It should be seen as a gift, not a given.

Illustration credit: Emanuel Santos