Am I being selfish? You decide

Please help and let me know if you think I’m being unreasonable because right now I don’t know if I’m justified or selfish for not wanting my father to leaving his house split between me and my half sisters on his death, writes blogger Charlie Cashdan.

My parents were obsessed with sorting out their wills last year, made even more complicated by the fact that though they are still married and have been for thirty years and still live together, they don’t really get on.

All their money is separate and neither knows what or how much the other has got.

They own the house jointly even though my dad feels it’s rightfully his because he worked full time up until retirement and paid most of the bills, and my mom feels she has as much claim to it because she cleaned and maintained it for thirty years whilst staying at home or working part time to raise me.

My dad has lots of savings, bonds, ISA, Premium bonds etc, lovely car and various bank accounts, while my mom has a couple of grand saved in an ISA, I think, and that’s all.

Anyway, back to wills.  On my mom’s death, she has left her possessions to me, wedding and engagement ring, few thou of savings, diary, photos etc and her half of the house passes to my dad.  Despite telling her that I really don’t care and just want her to be around forever she does insist on constantly talking about nothing but death.

My dad’s will is a far more complicated affair and though he’s never spoken to me about it, my mom tells me everything anyway bless her!

My dad has two daughters from a previous marriage who he didn’t see for twenty five years.  They were re-united about five years ago and see each other about twice a year.

My father decided last year that if he outlives my mom, on his death all his money and the house is split three ways between me and his other two daughters because he wants to be fair to everyone.

I don’t mind him splitting the money, but the house, my childhood home which I lived in for nineteen years and still visit most weeks? That’s a different matter.

My parents bought the house from new and I know every story about every part of it from how my dad laid out the garden and slipped a disk in his back to how my mom paid for the flowery wall paper up the stairs with money she inherited when the old couple she cleaned for died and left her a few hundred pound.

I remember when they had the kitchen fitted and everything went horribly wrong, I remember arguing with them when they fitted a door with a glass panel in the downstairs toilet meaning that anyone walking past could see you  and they justified this by saying that it had to match with all the other glass panelled doors in the house. Thank goodness I had left home by this point!

That house is a living monument to my mom and dad, filled with all their personality and eccentricities, the red carpet, pink sofa and green wall paper in the lounge being one of the best examples!

I can’t just hand over the keys to two people I hardly know and who have only visited the house a few times and watch as they walk through it opening draws and laughing at all these things my parents (strangely) are so proud of.

I would like the option to live in that house and perhaps raise my family there, with different décor of course, not just have to put it straight on the market because they want their share.

They are both lovely people, don’t get me wrong, but they don’t have any emotional attachment to that house which means the world to me and was my home for nineteen years.  They didn’t grow up imagining (and always being told) that all this would belong to them.

This has broken my mom’s heart because she wants her daughter to inherit her home.  She thinks that my dad might finally be changing his mind and leaving the house to me again to “make her happy” but is that unfair to my half sisters?

Am I wrong to want to inherit my entire childhood home and not just a share?