Grandparents leaving money to grandchildren?

I posted exactly this scenario earlier in the thread but with the opposite point of view. Ie where there is only one grandchild from one of their children, that grandchild will end up with 50% of inheritance when it’s eventually passed down, whereas through the child who has three children, those grandchildren will only end up with 16.67% of the grandparents’ money (50% split three ways).
So the grandchildren who are one of three siblings will end up with significantly less of their grandparents money than the one who is an only child!

DM left a % to each grandchild. They were not a proxy for me or Dsis. They are adults in their own right. Who they were born to is immaterial. We as dc all for a % too. We all got the same £. No arguments either! I would have given mine to dc anyway and Dsis felt hers would never get a house deposit so she didn’t have to think about that anymore. No dc has a right to a parents’ money either. Handing money over early is also a good move if you can!

I think another problem can be if there are "uneven" numbers of grandchildren. Eg if you have 1 child and your sibling has 3 children, would you expect the grandparents to leave their money divided equally between the 4 grandchildren? Or has the sibling with 1 child been "penalised"? What if one sibling has no children?

I mean, ultimately, to me if my parents leave money to my kids, they have left it to me.

@AnnascaulIt’s not a demand! Ffs. It’s a conversation. You might find when people get very old they like a sounding board.

DM got agitated that she had not left her grandchildren anything. Nothing. Me and siblings had already had a very good legacy. As I said, dsis could have bought 3 houses with it! So yes, DM asked about grandchildren and her own dc. As all her estate could have been spent on care fees (quite a bit was) I advised her that her grandchildren could use their share for a house deposit or pay off university fees if she recognised them in her will. That meant I got less. Dsis (2) got less. I have less dc than dsis. One dsis has no dependents at all. I did not grab anything but grandchildren got something years earlier than they might have done.

Please see this as advice. Families are allowed to have discussions about money and wills! Using some to skip a generation is not a bad thing and it depends on circumstances.

You can lose inheritance regardless. It’s not just a stepfamily or remarriage problem.

my mum got a significant lump sum when my dad died. Plus House paid off, car, large pension- she’s on more than dh or I.

She never remarried but there’s nothing left. she’s never worked. holidays, spending, new cars, house remodelling, never really having to think about a budget, and 40 years later there’s nothing left. She downsized to a small flat with a mortgage years ago to free up more cash.

i have learned and will ringfence a portion for the dc so they aren’t left in the same position, but also dh has a home for life and enough to live on.

making sure dc get a share as well could leave a spouse in financial difficulty. If their main asset is the house, it will have to be sold to pay dc their share.

it will also lead to a lot of legal issues when children think they should inherit. My stepdc don’t realise our house is in my name (bought before we met) and dh walked away from their mum with nothing- signed over the house, she cleared out all the joint accounts before she filed for divorce. If he dies it wouldn’t surprise me if his kids came after their share of our home- if the law was changed they’d think they were entitled regardless of the will. Solicitors will be the ones benefitting.

What? You get to write the will you want and demand that your parents also write the will you want?? 🤣

The rules don’t need to change! What rules override a will that says estate is left to dc? Write a will that reflects what you want. If parents don’t, then tell them they should.

OK you won’t (neither would I) but many would and their children may end up loosing any inheritance from their parents. That is why I think the rules need to change.

It would make sense for my mum's side of the family. We tend to have children in our twenties and early thirties and live into our 80s. That means that by the time the grandparents are in their 80s the parents are in their 50s/60s so no chance of having more children. The grandchildren are usually mid twenties up so unlikely to fritter money away but find it very useful for house deposits, costs of great grandchildren etc.

If you have sons, they could potentially father a new grandchild even when they're in their 80s or older!!

Even without adding stepchildren into the mix.

It’s often done to make sure nothing goes to stepchildren.

I think it works when grandchildren are adults. As young dc and having parents of child bearing age, you would take a different view. Parents who are elderly do know what their dc have! They know what they have been able to do financially but love is equal. Grandchildren generally need money more than their parents. If someone doesn’t have dc where are they leaving their money?

When my children were preschoolers, their great grandmother divided her small estate between the great grandchildren. They got about 50 each. I took them to the toy shop to choose something nice as a gift from her and used the remaining 20 for term fees for an activity they all did. I know their GGM would have been happy with that.

If my parents live as long as their parents I won't inherit anything, if there is anything which there is unlikely to be, till my mid-70s. My kids will be middle aged themselves.

Not sure that really adds up…
The single child would receive more from their parent, but the four siblings would have to share their parents slice of the original inheritance.
Left to them directly, they all get an equal amount.

I absolutely will not remarry if my DH dies. One of the reasons is that, as things stand now, I'd get a hefty life insurance payment and I want to protect that for my children, as my DH would want. I'll never tell anyone that money is even there (except probably my children who I will be supporting with it anyway).

I think this is unfair. It should be left to the children then if they want to give some or all of their share to their own kids that's up to them.

What if there's 4 children but one of them never had kids? What if 3 of the children had 3-4 kids each but one of them only had one kid?! Then the grandchild who is an only child ends up with less, whereas if it was only split between the original 4 children it's more fair. The grandchild with no siblings gets less than if it was just given to their parent(s) to pass on to them.

The whole thing is daft and makes no sense to me.

That’s assuming you feel the money given to your child is family money, not for them as an individual.
I can see why you might feel slighted at not receiving any yourself, but that’s a different issue to how many children are in each family.

No you probably won’t divorce but if your spouse dies then you may remarry.
It is really bad when children do not benefit from their parents hard work because 1 parent dies and then the other parent remarries and then dies before their new spouse.
I would welcome inheritance laws like they have in France, where you have to leave a certain percentage to your children.

If my Dad had left all his money to his DGC, one grandchild would have received everything and the grandchild's brother (2 years younger) would have received nothing as he wasn't born yet! I definitely wouldn't want to risk leaving everything to my grandchildren if my own children were still of childbearing age.

Skipping a generation and leaving estate to GCs can get very complicated. Especially if there is a wide variation in ages of DGCs.

Putting an estate in a trust may seem like a good idea when DGCs are all children but much less good if some DGCs are children and others are working adults by the time the will needs to be executed.

I think a small amount directly to the GC is nice but I'd rather get the inheritance myself. I am not an idiot who is going to blow it on fags and booze and spend nothing on my own children. Of course I would use some of it to help them. And spending it on a bigger house / family holidays etc would benefit everyone.

I know people whose children have quickly out-earned them and are in a better position than them!

And why wouldn't a 60 year old need an inheritance? Maybe they have no pension. Or lost their home in a divorce. Or have medical needs that the money could alleviate.

I don't think you can say what the best thing to do is without knowing the people and circumstances involved in each case.

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