Inheritance - has something shifted?

I suspect something has culturally shifted. Divorce is relatively easy now, average life expectancy has changed, age of having children has increased.

If a couple will stay together no matter what and all children will be from the same partnership then inheritance is easy. It goes to your children, and your grandchildren benefit. (in theory)

When divorce is common and blended families are possible even later in life you want to make sure your money goes to your own children and grandchildren, not step-grandchildren you may have very little to do with as they arrive later in life etc. So stipulations are made.

My folks have been discussing their wills and how they will ensure their assets benefit their children and grandchildren in the event of any splits later down the line for myself and my siblings, given the age of myself and my parents it is not inconceivable that myself and my husband will still be of child baring age when my folks get to the danger zone.

This.

I'm going to go out on a limb that will probably have a lot of people howling with outrage, accusing me of generalizing and painting everyone with the same nasty brush blah blah. My observation is that people in their late 70s/80s were making the bulk of their wealth in Thatcher's heyday. Their formative money-making years were a time of boom, money-minded self-interest, privatization at the public's expense, greed and excess. That was shameless and vaunted wealth accumulation and expenditure. I earned it, you don't deserve it. My own parents fall into this category.

If these people have wealth to leave, they think along very me-me-me '80s terms. If they don't, they are more magnanimous and take a more family-minded view. (Yes, generalization disclaimers apply).

I think parents of young adults today are watching their children struggle to get on the housing ladder and things will be different for them. The next generation of wills will be very different. And these young adult children will also do things differently when it's their turn.

I don't think it's personal to you; I think it's the way that generation think.

My ExH and I had separated but not divorced when my IL died. I have the honour of being named in their will as to not receive anything as their son will provide for our kids. Prior to their death ILs and I got on really well but ultimately blood is always thicker than water. I didn’t expect to receive anything but neither did I expect to be named as being excluded. Makes me laugh now but I was very hurt at the time.

I think the shift is more and more people divorcing/separating, often after long marriages as well as shorter ones.

Although we get on very well with our DILs & SIL, it's never occurred to name them separately in our wills.

We both have our own savings and current accounts and a joint account for household expenses. We have pre-paid our funerals.

Should one of us predecease the other (which is probable) everything goes to the surviving spouse, but both wills leave a small legacy to each of our GC (£5k each). Then, when that spouse dies, the remaining money & property is divided equally between our 3 children, with another £5k each for the GC.

Of course, it's likely that the surviving spouse will need to pay for care so there may not be much money left by the time that person pops their clogs(!)

Maybe just me - but I would immediately start wondering if my dh or another is having an affair, and they know about it. Given the lengths they have gone to, this has not been done on a whim, this has taken a huge amount of time, thought and expensive legal advice.

Is your marriage rock solid?
Are you sufficiently close to them to explain the impact?
Do they disagree with the sanctuary?

Your dh if you have a good relationship should move to correct this after they have gone perhaps? Have you spoken about it?

You can put in sage guards, at least you now know in advance.

But that’s what she means - the in laws variously inherited with the inheritance coming to mil, fil or both and it went into the pot. Using a trust means any inheritance to the ops dh will NOT go into a family pot. It will stay into the trust which will make distributions to dh. If dh dies, the op is not a beneficiary, the trust is not dhs assets, and she doesn’t see a penny of it.

I would absolutely not do that to my children’s partners if they’d given birth to and brought up their children and cooked my Christmases and been at my birthdays for 20 years. They would deserve recognition.

I'm very close to my two DILs but by leaving my estate to my son's I expect them to benefit. If there were GC I would probably revise my will to include them.

Why do you think that son in laws or daughters in law get a chunk of the inheritance?

I think it's you who's muddled up.

This is not a shift at all. You've assumed wrongly about how people write wills.

Does the will stop your DH leaving any of the inheritance to you after his death even if he dies after his parents?

Do stop doing anything where you anticipate gratitude - I am sorry but it doesn't seem to be forthcoming nowadays. Do anything where you feel kindness is needed just because you are a good human being.

As for inheritance, people leave their money to whoever they want in England, there are no rules here. My late husband played golf with a man locally, and I used to see him and his girlfriend when I walked my dog. He was a widower, and 20 years go, met his girlfriend, a widow, on holiday, and she came up here to live with him. He had two adopted sons by his late wife. He died Christmas 2023 and I continued to be friendly with his girlfriend. She always said he hadn't left her any money - and she didn't have any money. I always paid for everything.

One day I was asked about my late husband's will which had gone to probate and I decided to look at her late partner's will. He'd left her the whole of his estate, £125K. Nothing to his two adopted sons. I felt I'd been hoodwinked as I always took her fruit/biscuits etc as a treat - she was playing me.

I would expect mine to leave it to DH and DSs, but not to tie it up in complex trusts to deliberately keep it away from me!!

And if I had done all the communications and hosting etc it would stop immediately.

Not necessarily, if the inherited funds or assets are not mixed/kept totally separate from joint marital accounts nor used for joint expenses.

It's possible they may not be included in a settlement of divorce.

Trusts are very complicated and our FA advised not worth doing unless there is at least over £1M in the pot (easy these days with high house prices.)

You're making quite an odd point.
My H inherited from his parents (on the 2nd death) and the money went into our joint account. They didn't leave me anything and I'd not for a minute assume they would- our finances are joint.

Just because you've had a crap marriage for some time doesn't mean you're owed a payout

This is what I was thinking.

My sister and I were named in my parents wills. DH and his brother were named in his parents wills.

I just assumed if the money was passing down the family, then only family members would be named. I am not sure why - unless you thought your own child was a shit partner - you would name spouses?

Their son will always be their son!

You sound like you did all these things hoping to get something in return when they die.

I thought so about the change in title but suspect a misdirect or drip feed and any post-nup will involve the substance of divorce protection iwth other provision. If the OP doesn't nip it in the bud, she'll possibly need to spend significant fees on specialist advice. They might just try and get her to sign but the last time I looked, the courts of England and Wales needs the signatory to have independent legal advice.

Using a trust is usually more about tax efficiency, the children and GCs all dying before the GPs is a pretty remote likelihood, just legalise. Sharing between children and that child's share going to their children if they die first is pretty standard. Or these days skipping the children and splitting between GCs to avoid two lots of death duties in rapid succession.

I think the issue is that a family trust - while not unusual isn't the norm. If someone had a son and daughter-in-law, they would usually just write a will leaving everything to the son, not a convoluted trust to make sure the DIL never got her mitts on it. Or at least not without either a fortune to leave, or a bad relationship with the DIL.

Stop doing the heavy lifting immediately. Leave everything up to your DH. Not your problem any more.

My DF died 18 months after I divorced.
However, because my ex still lived in our marital home and hadn't bought me out, he was entitled to claim on my inheritance. That the value of our equity was equal to what my DF had left me. I signed my share of the marital equity over to my ex.

I wouldn't expect to inherit from in-laws and I'm sure DH wouldn't expect anything from my parents. A small sentimental keepsake perhaps, but a chunk of their estate? Definitely not.

I mean, if he inherits while you are still married and you then divorce, you might be entitled to some anyway? Unless that scenario is covered too...
But yes, I do wonder if the fact you think your husband is crap is feeding this. Why have you been doing the work for him?

Maybe they think you and your dh are going to split up and they don’t want their money in the asset pool?