It’s an inheritance one!

OP in the nicest possible way, you are looking at this as though your sister could help your kids get on in life via an inheritance at a time when they need it, eg in their twenties.
If your kids are primary aged I assume your sis isn't that old?
She may be looking at another 40/50 years by which time your kids will have kids of their own.
Sorry about your recent diagnosis and,I hope everything turns out OK on that front.
Maybe look into a good life insurance policy

If your parents know about your diagnosis can you not ask them to make provision for your share to go to your children ? Hopefully it won’t come to that but if I was your parent I would change my will to that effect?

@BacktoBreathe I would also ask your sibling who he/she has nominated as executor of his/her will. It would be very unreasonable to expect a family member to carry out all the work this entails on behalf of the beneficiaries.

@Haydenn yes that’s my observation too. We have four children but we have also left named legacies to all our nieces and nephews in our wills.

Good grief, read the OP’s post properly this time 🙄

I am child free and I recently made my first will. I plan to spend my money on my retirement but if I should die early it will go to my sibling for his children. They know this as I asked if I should leave it to the sibling or to the currently very young DNs. It's entirely my decision - sibling was not expecting it. And hopefully I will have spent it on my long life anyway.

A very astute observation.

What I find interesting here is the split between those who say they are childless and are leaving money to charities or friends versus all of those who say “IF they were childless” then they would leave the money to nieces and nephews.

It seems to me scanning through the full thread a few childless aunts are planning on leaving estates to Niblings, with the majority saying not. Most of those saying money should stay in the family are those with children and are saying what they think the position should be if they were in that position, (so very much a vested interest)

Why have you chosen not to make a claim against your uncle for your money? It would hardly be a complicated case to prove: in the absence of a will you'd literally just need birth and death certificates.

We are in the position where dh has cancer so when his mother was told (fil died 10 years before and left everything to mil) she changed her will to cut dh and children out and left it all to his child free brother as I and the children would inherit dh’s death in service life insurance.

Except dh didn’t die, he survived and at the start of lockdown along with dc we lost jobs, businesses and had to sell our home.

Mil died last year

Bil told dh that he would tell dh when the will was to be read and when probate was granted. He waited until dh couldn’t contest the will and then announced that he was surprised as mil had left everything to him.

He didn’t realise you could get wills on line and we could see his lie when we pointed out who signed the will and what date it was made (just before mils dementia diagnosis)

He now has has a very high 6 figure amount in cash and 3 houses and can’t give any away as he won’t know how much he is going to need.

He doesn’t even claim his pension

He says he is going to leave dc enough to buy a house
They would like a house now not when they are 50+
I had to point out to them to ignore what he says as he is someone who wants to look like they are very kind and generous but it is all lies

My own father who I wasn’t in contact with hadn’t made a will

I found out he had died much later on. His brother said he was next of kin and took everything

His brother is extremely wealthy and leaving everything to charities

I think you could look at this like your sibling is assuming - as most of us do-that they ll live on in to their 80s by much time your children will be set up on their own, or the option of the will be altered to help them should that be 'neccesary' later in life. And who is to say she won't offer them financial help in the same way your aunt did for her, that wasn't an inheritance after your aunts death was it?

Someone doesn't have a sense of humour.

It was clearly a joke and a hypothetical situation as my DB isn't so grabby to imagine that my nephew is entitled to be in my will and if he does feature in my will-it is by choice to honour the relationship, not by obligation.

But some people on MN are overflowing with grabbiness and underflowing with humour, it seems. Also-no one does the random capitalisation anymore-that ended what? 20 years ago?

Your children have two parents. That's two families they can inherit from. Maybe when they're grown up and actually have an independent relationship with her, she might put them in her will, but at this moment in time they don't need her money.

It is a bit extreme to describe leaving it to charity as a waste???

This. It’s up to your sibling what they do with their money. I have two uncles with no children and I have no idea if I feature in their wills and quite frankly I don’t expect anything from them.

If you're close enough to them that you will be named executor, have a chat about the charities anyway, because some of them are a ballache, and they shouldn't leave that to you.

Some charities - mostly the big famous ones - will send appraisers in to value the estate, then harass until they receive every penny. I've seen it happen, even being on the side of the charity. We helped an elderly woman, she left 50% of her estate to the charity, and her family called us, very distressed, because the charity (bosses) were arguing that the heirlooms the family were keeping cut monetarily into their 50%. Family had to use their own money to make up the bequest. It can get nasty.

@clairelouwho I think if my DB confronted me with something like this and told me he expected his DS to receive my money when I pass, I'd purposefully allocate it to charity instead 😂
Oh haahahaaaa 😂😂😂😂😂 you'd make a decision to cut your nephew out because of your disdain for your sibling. Hoooohaaaaaa. You are hiLARious 😂😂😂😂🙄

If your sibling had DC, this thread wouldn't exist because you wouldn't feel that your children were entitled to receive anything from them.

As your sibling doesn't have kids-you feel that your kids are entitled to benefit from their death, to put it bluntly.

Your sibling has made their choice. They may change their mind, they may not. It's their money and their right to choose who or where they want to leave it to.

I don't have kids and I don't plan on any-but I can tell you right now if my DB who has 1 child felt that his child was then entitled to receive anything from me in the event of my death-he'd be sorely mistaken. I choose where or who I want my money to go to-not some misplaced entitlement.

I understand being fearful for your DC's future and I sincerely hope everything is well with you-but you can't expect your sibling to be the one to set your kids up. That's up to you, not them. If they chose to-great, wonderful, but if they don't-that is their choice and it doesn't make them a bad person.

I also feel the "family-orientated" stuff is a red herring, somewhat, to cover for feelings of entitlement. Someone can be perfectly family-orientated and still desire to use their wealth to help a charity that they support when they pass.

I think if my DB confronted me with something like this and told me he expected his DS to receive my money when I pass, I'd purposefully allocate it to charity instead 😂

Yep it is. The sibling is one of their parents children and already in the will. The OPs kids are just nieces/nephews and so anything coming to them from anyone but their parents is not to be expected. Anything else is entitled.
And if someone cut me out of a will because they didn't approve of where I was bequeathing my (not inconsiderable) estate then I would obviously accept their decision, but like hell would I bother with them again.

It's up to your sister to do whatever she likes with her money, and likewise your parents can split their money as they wish. I don't think inheritance should ever be relied upon, no one knows what is around the corner or whether that money will still be there in the future, and there are lots of twists and turns in life. My children have sometimes been left minimal amounts of money in wills, but nothing life changing or along the lines of what other people have received. I am not at all wealthy and could never help my children get on the housing ladder, but my eldest chose to seek a high paying career and now has a salary I could only dream of and is perfectly capable of looking after himself. We mustn't assume our children can't achieve what they want.
Wishing you good health for the future.

Yes I find it unusual too.

I have only one sibling who has no children and is substantially better off than me. I know rationally she can and should leave her estate however way she likes but I would feel a bit sad too if she completely ignored my children and left it ALL to charity. I would never say it to her or let it affect our relationship, but some acknowledgement which recognised the relationship, the next generation, etc would be lovely.

Fair points above.

I still think there’s a high likelihood that even without the expectation, the younger relatives will feel a sense of responsibility to the people they love

I can’t understand this at all. Helping dogs over the financial security of people you love? (Unless you don’t love your nieces/nephews I suppose).

Luckily for you, you don't have to understand it. And no I don't love them, I barely know them. I'm sure my brothers and sister would say we're close, but that's just their justification for trying to get their hands on my money.

I wouldn’t make any such presumptions. In fact, most childfree people are acutely aware they will have to make plans for their old age and what assistance they may need, given that they don’t have children to rely on.

(In any event, relying on DC to provide care in old age is a fool’s errand, as can be seen by the myriad of threads on here in which people fall over themselves to justify why they can’t help and also the threads in which people are advised to go NC with parents for fairy spurious reasons)