An inheritance one

From an IHT point of view, it’s sensible to leave a chunk to Grand Children as it will be diluted if it goes through a parent first.

I have no idea but assume my mother’s parents left whatever to their 8 kids. Same for my father though due to his brother dying in the war he was the sole survivor but again no idea f he inherited anything. My own parents split their estate equally between me and my siblings. My kids were young at the time. They probably assumed (correctly) that we would, in turn, leave what we had to our children. Was Tom close to his grandparents? Is he an adult? I guess if he felt he had a good relationship with them they might have given him something but again it may never have even occurred to them.

Tom’s being greedy. The grandparents are entitled to leave their estate to anyone they choose, or even the local cats’ home.

I’ll never be in Tom’s position as both my and DP’s mothers live in social housing. (Not together though!) We live in an expensive part of the SE and we are the only people we know where neither partner has a parent or grandparent who owns their own home. It doesn’t matter, we both have jobs and we’re happy to support ourselves.

The will could be a very old will and not up to date. If the parents are executors of the will they could have done a deed of variation in effect rewriting the will in favour of grandchildren as well as themselves. They did not choose to do this. If I was in this position I would certainly do this to help my kids out and avoid a larger inheritance bill going forward.

I inherited a modest amount from my parents, I did treat my adult children to some money, while keeping the rest to assist with my retirement

Only one of my grandparents was alive when I was born..she died when I was 4 and left me £100. Same for my three first cousins. I don't have siblings. I don't remember what it went on but my mum thinks she gave it to me when I went travelling. It would be around £1000 in today's money I think.

I didn't get anything in my dad's will when he died when I was a kid. It all went to my mum. But she says she's leaving everything to me.

I would never expect anything from grandparents but mainly because I didn't know them.

Yes I do agree but I think it depends on the situation. My Aunt and cousin are very wealthy and have more than enough money, plus my cousin never actually had any relationship with her grandma ( They moved away when my cousin was young). I on the other never had much at all and I have 3 children to think of too. Again this isn't the whole story, my Mother and my Aunt are very toxic people - I am already estranged from my mother due to years of abuse. My Aunt did come back in when my grandma was on her deathbed but stormed out when she found out how little money she would be receiving. I'll never get over how appallingly she treat my grandma at the end and in my opinion acted very selfishly. I was with her until her last breath and sorted all her funeral and resting place, my Aunt showed no interest in attending any of this. So it just didn't sit right with me to share the money with her given her actions

I would feel sorry for Tom if the parents were minted and he was struggling.

As with all of these things though there is always a back story.

Maybe the parents are nasty tightwads. Or maybe Tom has a 100K per year drinking and gambling habit and has crashed a few Porsches in the past.

But it would be unusual IME for parents who were really rich to be happy to watch their children struggle unless they have either some sort of unpleasant superiority complex or a strong motivation as to why giving their child a lot of money would be a bad idea.

i got a couple of hundred from one grandfather, nothing from any other grandparents.

My parents have said their will splits everything equally between me and my brother, and that my brother having a kid didn't change this. I don't know if they will leave a token something to their grandson or not, but certainly the majority of the estate will go to their children and we can decide what to do with it from there.

Personally I don't think he is greedy. My husband and I are quite well off so when our mother's die, we will pass it straight on to our kids who actually need/can use it more.

My granddad died quite a few years ago without making a will . He lived in a sheltered accommodation council flat . He had 3 children , my mum and her two brothers .
When he died I know my mum didn't receive any inheritance and I assume she thought that their wasn't anything to inherit .
Both her brothers lived close to him and they emptied the flat out .
Years later and I'm into tracing my family tree on Ancestry and probate records show he left £125,000 .
I'm sure her two brothers left my mum out of it so they could have 50 /50 .
£125,000 back then ( at least 20/25 years ago ) was quite a bit.
All 3 siblings are now dead so my mum never knew and I can't help but feel a little sorry for her that they obviously did her over it .

It’s very easy to say that when you are the beneficiary. I don’t know your situation but I have known many situations where the deceased uses the will to manipulate or punish, or they are manipulated themselves. Personally if I was left money by a direct ancestor (parent or grandparent) and my sibling or cousins were disinherited, I would share it to prevent bitterness and discord in the family, unless there was an extremely good reason not to.

I think essentially that it is unjust to disinherit your direct descendants. Aunts/uncles etc I think there’s less moral obligation, but you still have to be mindful of your legacy being the complete destruction of relationships.

Sorry , can’t edit for spelling mistakes , but hopefully you get the jist !

If you use a reputable solicitor to write your will there is usually a clause specifically including any children who will be born to your children after the will has been signed. It saves having to update it every time a grandchild is born.

Me neither.
If Tom feels so strongly about this then he'll have no problem with his parents leaving their dosh to his, as yet unborn kids, then, will he?

I know my Mum (after inheriting from my DF) is living a house-deposit sized gift to each GC in her will, but my siblings and I will be the main beneficiaries.... unless it all gets swallowed up by care-home fees......

I was left a sizeable inheritance by 1 side of grandparents , the other left to their children . My grandparents spoke to my dad ( only child ) re ‘ bypassing him and leaving straight to us , she was fine with it as they already morrsgeb free etc but
its absolutely the person right to leave their money as they choose , Tom is being grabby!

My parents left everything to my son
only grandchild
he inherited the house life insurance policies and cash age 27

I did get my parents expensive watches jewelry and several handbags 2 cars a full size jukebox 😂

They did discuss this with me and it didn’t bother me as it’s set my son up for life and he would have had no way of ever buying a house and they absolutely adored him and weee very involved in him life growing up and thr last few year he actually lived with them and helped them a lot with there care needs

he’s also in line to inherit from his dad grandparents which will be a similar amount if not more but this has caused a few arguments from his aunt but his grandparents are adamant that they want him to inherit

Grandparents money went to my parents. They gave us £1000 each (in 1991)

From a tax efficiency perspective skipping a generation can protect the original capital much more effectively, if an estate is subject to IHT, because there are likely to be 50 or 60 years between taxable events than 25 or 30

Depends how old everyone is. If the children are 30 and the grandchildren toddlers, I’d leave to the children. However if the children are 50plus, and the grandkids 18plus it makes sense to skip or share between generations. You need money when your young, not so much when you're older. And makes more sense IHT wise to skip a generation if the children are already okay financially.
You also mitigate against a spouse remarrying and leaving everything to a new wife/husband and possibly then to step children/donkeys home!

My mum's parents were both deceased before I was born.

Dad's mum had nothing to leave.

Dad's dad died after my dad died. He left around £7k each to my 2 uncles and dads share was passed to and split for we 4 surviving children.

When our children were young we talked about our wills especially in the context of who would look after our children if we were both to die, surely that's what sensible people do.

I have discussed who would look after my children (person and that they would have the financial means to do so), but nothing beyond that.
I don't know why it would be sensible to discuss how my estate will be distributed with my siblings, not if they are not involved in the care of dependent children.

My Nan left her estate to my Mum and her brother. Myself and my two cousins didn't inherit anything, and to be honest we didn't expect too. I think my parents may have left my son something in their Will but the bulk of their estate will come to me, as their only child.

My grandma left all her inheritance to me (and my children). Her two daughters (my Mum and Aunt) didn't have a relationship with her for years and I was very close to my grandma. My Aunt has now stopped speaking to me because I didn't give half of it to her and my cousin!! Family can turn very nasty when money is involved unfortunately, I've had to learn this the hard way. But at the end of the day, all I'm doing is following my Grandma's wishes!!

I'm not the poster you quoted but that is exactly what happens in my family, all to surviving spouse, then on that death everything divided equally between the children, nothing to grandchildren or anyone else.

When I talk about family I mean that's what's happened with 3 generations so far that I know about, will happen with my surviving parent and is in my and my siblings' wills.
I can't imagine not having that sort of discussion with siblings, not in a formal way but over the decades it's come up in conversation. When our children were young we talked about our wills especially in the context of who would look after our children if we were both to die, surely that's what sensible people do. Our parents were open about what was in their wills, as were their parents to them.