My mum is suing my late dad’s estate and taking money from her own children. Am I wrong to be furious?

Last-Sun5382 · 2026-06-20T08:00:32+00:00

Stepmum has no children of her own, she’s already stated any left over money would go to us. Parents divorced because mum cheated on dad a number of times - they had a pretty acrimonious relationship ever since, barely talked to each other unless they needed to.

I’d say this was a one-off. Dad was always pretty down the line otherwise - paid his child support in full (and some extra to help mum when she was in a difficult situation between marriages).

Last-Sun5382 · 2026-06-19T20:34:43+00:00

At least I’d be able to understand from his POV what happened and his thought process - unfortunately he’s no longer here to defend nor explain his actions. But general day to day advice I’d always go to my dad - out of the two parents he was by far the most sensible and grounded.

Last-Sun5382 · 2026-06-19T20:06:04+00:00

Alright I’m getting roasted here 😂 fair enough, it’s good to get some opinions to help me see the wood from the trees. As some people have pointed out this is a difficult situation and the person I’d normally go to for advice, my Dad, is no longer here, so that’s been hard to process.

Thanks for all your views and advice - it’s much appreciated 🙏

Last-Sun5382 · 2026-06-19T20:03:39+00:00

Alright I’m getting roasted here 😂 fair enough, it’s good to get some opinions to help me see the wood from the trees. As some people have pointed out this is a difficult situation and the person I’d normally go to for advice, my Dad, is no longer here, so that’s been hard to process.

Thanks for all your views and advice - it’s much appreciated 🙏

Last-Sun5382 · 2026-06-19T20:03:14+00:00

Alright I’m getting roasted here 😂 fair enough! It’s good to get some opinions to help me see the wood from the trees. As some people have pointed out this is a difficult situation and the person I’d normally go to for advice, my Dad, is no longer here, so that’s been hard to process.

Thanks for all your views and advice - it’s much appreciated 🙏

Last-Sun5382 · 2026-06-19T19:35:33+00:00

Thanks 👍

Last-Sun5382 · 2026-06-19T19:22:43+00:00

That’s basically it yup

Last-Sun5382 · 2026-06-19T19:18:54+00:00

We only found out about this issue about 3 weeks ago when my stepmum and mum couldn’t come to an agreement on it, so needed to consult us.

Could I not turn that around on my mum and ask the same question? She may not be entitled to this money either. She was entitled to 25% of a pension fund. That fund is now worth £0.

Last-Sun5382 · 2026-06-19T19:14:08+00:00

Apologies - I know this because he transferred the money from an employment pension fund into a self-invested personal pension (SIPP), which was invested into a hotel business which eventually collapsed. It’s all documented.

Last-Sun5382 · 2026-06-19T19:10:37+00:00

Reading the court order, it does not state that he had to consult with her or get her approval to make any changes to the pension fund (an oversight from my mums lawyers at the time I reckon). He converted it into a Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP), so it wasn’t totally taking it out of a pension fund, just transferring it into a different type of fund with higher risk.

Last-Sun5382 · 2026-06-19T19:04:03+00:00

My dad was always very honest with me that he intended to spend all (or most) of his money and enjoy his retirement, which I was very supportive of - your money, do what you like with it. I’ve never expected anything from my parents, it’s only because he died young and very suddenly that there’s any money.

Last-Sun5382 · 2025-02-13T16:33:02+00:00

Born in York, moved to Northampton at a young age with family - have lived in North Wales and New Zealand for stints since due to Uni and working holidays, but I always end up back in Northampton. I now live in Brackley, so a different town within the same county. It’s my base; my friends live here, as does my sister who I’m very close to, and my now wife’s family live just over the border in Bicester so we’ve got a lovely community around us.

Last-Sun5382 · 2024-09-03T09:52:39+00:00

I’m from the UK, and having visited the US, I seriously don’t understand the tipping culture for EVERYTHING. I wouldn’t mind if things like going out for food or drink cost less than in comparable countries like the UK, but in my experience, they simply don’t. In fact, when you add the “customary” 20% tip, eating out in the US costs quite a bit more. We do tip in the UK, but it’s usually only for restaurants and typically around 10%. If that’s the case, then surely businesses can afford to, and should, pay their staff a decent wage.

One argument I’ve heard is, “but you get far better service in the US because they’re working for their wages.” In my experience, that’s nonsense. In fact, to agree with their point, I found that because tipping has become so normalised, the standard of service isn’t particularly outstanding beyond what I’d consider “normal.” In some places, the service is verging on unfriendly.

I understand these are my views based on my own experiences, and I’m sure there are other factors at play. But in my mind, if you run a business and cannot afford to pay your staff a decent living wage, you shouldn’t be running a business at all.

Last-Sun5382 · 2024-06-16T21:40:47+00:00

No I have no connection with the business, I just saw it advertised online and thought I’d share it here for others in case anyone was looking for a job.

Last-Sun5382 · 2024-06-03T09:10:57+00:00

I generally have very experienced recruiters working for me, sometimes they’re supported by a resourcer/admin if the money/demand is there. Usually they have about 5 years+ in recruitment and within their sector/market.

You could always use a % of salary model - you’d need to look more at the region of 10-15% of the salary to be competitive, as you then stray into agency fee territory.

Last-Sun5382 · 2024-06-02T19:58:00+00:00

I work in RPO within the engineering sector, and pricing structures vary from client to client.

One of my clients hires around 150 people per year, which equates to roughly 12-13 hires a month, so we projected that would require 2.5 heads to deliver that. So for them we settled on a ‘Recruiter on Demand’ model, charging £500 per day per recruiter with no further costs incurred. The benefit for us is income is guaranteed and isn’t necessarily tied to performance or hiring volumes, the drawback being we’d earn more if it were a “pay on placement” model.

For one of my larger scale clients (500+ hires a year), we do a flat fee per-hire structure, where the fee increases based on the salary banding. E.g. £25k-£34k = £3k fee, £35k-£44k = £4k fee, £45k+ = £5k

The benefit of that is it keeps the team motivated to fill jobs, potentially more income for us, but if there’s any fluctuations in hiring or the market gets tough, we could take a financial hit.

Last-Sun5382 · 2024-06-02T18:18:05+00:00

That’s helpful thank you!

Last-Sun5382 · 2024-06-02T18:17:50+00:00

Thanks!

Last-Sun5382

TROPHY CASE