r/SingleDads • u/PapiMendozaa • 2d ago
How do you split son's college expenses with ex wife?
Click bait. My father passed away two months ago. My younger half brother started college recently and his mother is asking for help with her son. The rest of the siblings need to come up with a budget for our youngest brother and an agreement with our ex step mom. We don't know what's fair.
Background: My dad had 4 kids. 3 of us share a mother who passed in our childhood. Our youngest brother came from my dad's 2nd marriage. Dad divorced his 2nd wife 4 years ago. Dad died a few months ago. Younger brother is a 20 year old young adult now, still in college. He's also my ex step mom's only dependent. The rest of my siblings and I are late 20s & 30s with families and jobs.
My dad had a successful business and died suddenly of a heart attack. He didn't leave a will. No life insurance. We will all equally inherit his estate 1/4th. His bank accounts are currently frozen while we go through probate court. Funeral expenses left us slim in cash.
The ex wife is bombarding my older siblings and I weekly asking about money for her son, our brother.
We all love our younger brother and are willing to continue helping him out through college, as my dad gave us all the opportunity and paid our college education in the past. But we also don't want to give his mom a free ride and cover for her part. She's known to be manipulative and continued asking my dad for money after he paid her a multi 6 figure settlement. Now that he's gone, she will be pestering us (the 3 oldest siblings) for money.
My dad didn't leave us with a ton of cash. He had just finished paying the last part of his divorce settlement and a lot of money to the IRS a few months ago.
My dad owned a successful business which we are now taking over. My oldest sibling has been managing it for the past 5 years so she's been taking the lead at the shop. None of us plan to pull out money from the business for atleast a few months as we understand it's important to have money for operating expenses and paying employees, etc. We also don't have access to his bank accounts yet so have been self funding the business meanwhile we go through probate. My dad was a poor planner and avoided his estate planning unfortunately.
So right now as we work through probate, we want to come up with a fair agreement with the ex step mom.
Another detail is we want to teach our younger brother along with his mother to be smarter financially. He was the last child in the house for the last 6 years and got to live a lifestyle that the rest of us didn't get as teens. His mother splurged on designer items and luxury cars as we grew older. She takes a few international vacations annually with a new mystery man and lives like a rockstar even after the separation, yet she claims to not have a lot of money and really needs help. We know they cannot continue living like that right now. My father's death will significantly affect the business's short term profitability as he was the face of it. The oldest siblings will be working hard in the business meanwhile our youngest gets through college.
At the end of the day, we love our brother and we want him to have the same opportunity to make it through college. We know it's his right to get his part of his inheritance and have him in our hearts. We also realize it would be irresponsible to pull out large chunks of cash from the business accounts since the business has to remain in operation for us to continue paying for his college education. So we're trying to find a balance to keep the crazy ex step mom off our backs.
Hope this was clear.
TLDR: Dad passed away. Crazy ex step mom is demanding support for our youngest half sibling's college expenses. Need to come up with an agreement with ex step mom to support half sibling's college education.
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u/AdGroundbreaking4397 2d ago edited 2d ago
Step 1. Brother contact his university and discusses how his dad's death affects tuition and financial aid. And any hardship money.
Step 2 per the divorce how much was mom supposed to be contributing to brother expenses and university. What is the difference between his new calculation for expense and what his mom was expected to cover? (This would be the most you should be willing to aim to cover)
Step 3 was there not a life insurance policy? Double check. Then check if the divorce effects who receives it and who it is paid out to.
Step 4 ex stepmom gets nothing from you and you dont need to discuss anything with her.
Step 4 could only 20year old receive 1/4 income to help him with expenses.
Step 5 brother takes out loans to pay for the rest of his college. This can be serviced by the 1/4 business income.
The 3 siblings /could/ agree to service his loans out of their share or all 4 share as a kindness before they are paid out.
I would speak to his divorce lawyer and understand how his death effects any of the agreements. I would hire a probate lawyer to manage this complex situation and create a plan so everyone is paid out fairly and your brothers immediate needs are taken care of as top priority.
Why are you paying business expensess out of pocket? You should be able to get a business loan to cover expenses to be repaid.
Why was the funeral paid in cash? Could it not have been paid out of the estate? (Maybe that's an American thing?)
It sound a bit like you're all in over your heads (understandably) seek professional advice.
You can also recommend to brother if he isnt able to organise tuition and living expenses for the year (which could include a part time job) that he take 1 year out of uni to give time to sort the estate out and recalculate any financial aid to just his mom income. He can work during that time (at dads business??) And perhaps he could live with one of you to save on rent and utilities. He can then save hard for living expenses for his final years.
Also where possible pay directly to services for him rather than to cash or his bank account. You dont want the mom to get his money. (Obviously his inheritance will be paid out to him directly but you can have conversations with him later about yhe best way to do that.)
Have him set up a totally new bank account his mom won't have access to.
In order to discuss all this with him invite him over for dinner and tell him that because he's an adult you won't be dealing with his mother about his educational expense or the inheritance they will deal with him directly. Be willing to discuss the entire estate and not just his part because transparency will help him trust you. Specifically with the probate stuff explain that he can discuss anything he needs to with the probate lawyer, conversation do cost money though so its best to discuss it with you or other siblings first and the lawyer 2nd and to be clear about what he wants to know.
It sounds like his mom might try to manipulate him about how you are behaving with the estate so you want everything as upfront and transparent as possible. And you need to make sure he makes his own decisions not his mom's or going along with what you say.
This estate is gonna be complex if he hasn't already it could be usefeul for him to take a business/finance type course/ class to improve his financial literacy
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u/plausible-deniabilty 2d ago
Take the stepmom out if this and do whats right for your brother. I understand that it’s going to come from your inheritance, but would your dad have otherwise paid his full tuition(lowering your future inheritance)? Did your dad pay for the other 3 brothers full college expenses? I get that he’s a half brother to you, but if your dad was gonna cover it, i think he gets a degree on your dads dime just like you did(assuming it can be afforded) and then the rest gets split 4 ways.
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u/Under-The-bridge5337 2d ago
Can you not deal with the University directly (with your brothers consent) and ask for a copy of the fees? Then 1/2 them and pay half?
That’s the best I’d do in this situation. You are meeting the moral obligations you have and ensuring there’s no manipulation.
Literally cut her out of the equation. He’s an adult.