Where does this right come from?
If the dad wants to do a 0/100 split in favor of the guy working the farm, that strikes me as totally reasonable. Any split that gives the person who doesn’t need the property the property is an unlooked-for bonus for her. Any split that makes life significantly harder for the farmer seems like a bad decision.
Does your BIL working the farm, mean that he is contributing to the farm’s expenses and you are not? If he is investing in the farm by paying taxes on it or buying equipment to keep it valuable then he is entitled to recoup that value. If working the farm just means getting free land to farm that is different.
It depends on what kind of inheritance law the wife’s family follows.
Under agnatic primogeniture for example the oldest male heir gets everything, and the son of the father’s brother is higher on that list than the daughter.
On the other hand under agnatic-cognatic gavelkind you would indeed split the land equally between all heirs, regardless of gender, but the primary title would go to the oldest heir.
In my experience while Gavelkind succession may be most appealing to our sense of fairness it almost always leads to a bloody succession war that helps no one. Primogeniture works better in that sense, especially if the inheritor takes steps to contain their siblings as soon as they take power.
Unfortunately there’s no factual answer for reasonable and equitable. 0% going to your wife could be reasonable and equitable as could 100%.
An informed opinion would be dependent on so many factors, that I think it’s hard for message board folks provide meaningful answers on that.
I guess I’d recommend you challenge your basic assumptions and find out if family input was provided and if the family (your wife, her brother, her parents) feel this is reasonable and equitable. It’s their opinion that counts. Good that you have a family meeting coming up.
I’m sorry to hear your FIL is doing so poorly. My condolences.
I think it’s some of both. He is definitely contributing to the farm’s expenses and I am not but my in-laws are helping him with his expenses. I believe that he’s also getting some free land to farm but I don’t know that for certain. It’s never been any of my business so I haven’t asked.
I think the 35% is fair. Your wife is effectively a silent partner.
Even if it results in nobody in the family being able to keep the farm, when someone would be able to otherwise?
I don’t know whether your situation is actually a case of this. For all I know the person actually doing the farming won the lottery, or spent 20 years at a high-salary job and saved most of it. But it strikes me as a pretty major issue to find out about.
Huh?
I presume they’re dealing with the inheritance laws of whatever US state this is in – I’ve lost track, if the OP said where they are. (Since the medical bills issue wasn’t declared irrelevant they probably are in the USA.)
I don’t know of any US state requiring either any form of primogeniture or an equal split among heirs. Or am I being whooshed?
Yes, you are – I thought the bit about how the inheritor should take steps to contain their siblings to prevent a bloody succession crisis made that clear
You forgot the part of using your influence with the puppet anti-Pope to get all potential inheritors excommunicated.
Or, before you die, you can force all but one of your children to join a monastery!
Like folk have said - there is no one “correct” answer. I tend to think 50/50, w/ the one who wants to farm it being able to buy the other out at some favorable rate. Or keep it in trust, such that dtr is basically a minority owner - maybe give son 49% or so so that he can make the operational decisions.
The issue of it not being run profitably is significant. Why is that? If it can’t be run profitably as a farm, perhaps it SHOULD be sold. Where are dad/son drawing resources from to support their ongoing losses?
If I had ANY single asset that made up the bulk of my estate, I’d have a hard time coming up with some solution that overly favored one of my kids over another.
I’m not sure what sort of ongoing relationship the OP and his wife expect, whether they get 35 or 40%. Are you going to be responsible for 35-40% of investment/operating costs, and liable for 35-40% of losses? Are you going to receive imputed rent? Are you going to try to “quiet title” to get at the value of the money, either by selling or borrowing against it?
The complications of the partial ownership tied up in a nonprofitable asset are what would concern me. Assuming everyone is relatively comfortable, the 5% difference between 35-40% wouldn’t really concern me.
No, my BIL has definitely not hit the lottery. He’s been farming his whole life. The problem (one of them anyway) is that he’s currently farming too much as he’s taking care of his farm and my in-law’s. This has been going on since my FIL’s health started failing about 2 years ago. My in-laws have also helped him financially the entire time. I’m glad that they did because he loves to farm.
The in-laws are both on Medicare with supplemental policies. We’re in Oklahoma.
I think you need to distinguish between the value of the farm as an asset, and the farm as an operating business. Plenty of people who operate farms don’t own the farm at all. They lease it and run it, just like a shopkeeper will lease a property in which to operate his business. The person operating the farm is fully entitled to 100% of the operating income from the farm, but that doesn’t imply any ownership of the property as an asset.
The value of the farm as an asset will obviously be dependent on whether it can be run profitably, and is ultimately determined by the market (or by an appraiser) - what someone would pay to buy the land. That’s what it’s worth as part of the estate, and it should be split 50/50 between heirs who are equally entitled to inherit. I think the person who has been operating the business is irrelevant.
Of course, your wife may choose to gift part of her entitlement; or she may choose to maintain ownership of 50% and lease it to her brother for a nominal amount. But that’s down to her choice to be generous, I don’t think he’s entitled to that.
It’s important to distinguish operating expenses from capital expenditure. If someone leases a farm, they earn the operating income and will pay the operating expenses of running the business - things like labor costs, routine fertilizer, feed etc. But this needs to be distinguished from capital expenditure that would increase the value of the farm as an asset - things like building a barn, irrigation infrastructure, long-lasting soil improvement. I think BIL would have a reasonable expectation to compensated for the latter, not the former.
Of course, if the owner of the property is alive and competent to write a will, he can do whatever he wants, including giving it to the local owl sanctuary. I don’t think anyone questions that. I though this was more about ethical fairness and/or legal entitlement absent an explicit will.
Bolding mine.
That was certainly my intent.
(As an aside, this new interface is throwing me for a loop. I’ve been replying when I think I should have been quoting, as I did in this post.)
ETA: And now I see that the system automatically removes quoted posts. 
Only if you quote the entirety of the last post before yours. The system determines theres no need for a quote in that scenario since the post is already right there. You can get around this by removing the trailing period from the end of the sentence you are quoting.
Thanks. I trust that that won’t run afoul of the “no modifying in the quote box” rule.
AFAIK that rule prohibits adding or modifying the post itself but trimming what you quote was always fine
That sounds right.