Wealthy MIL hoarding money

Even if that was the case - which I doubt - in such a scenario I'd want to do things to benefit my grandchildren. I'd be buying them clothes, treating them for birthdays and Christmas, taking them on holidays and outings.

MIL sounds miserable and deeply unpleasant.

Your DH can do a deed of variation to change whatever bequest he has from his parents which would allow him to pass money onto the DC without paying inheritance tax again. https://www.gov.uk/alter-a-will-after-a-death

Look, I am in a fortunate position that my parents and in-laws share their wealth. Not the millions we’re talking about in your case, but enough to make us all comfortable. They’re both of the view that they’d prefer to see us enjoy it than wait until they’re dead.

However, it isn’t the fault of your MIL that BIL isn’t doing well, why isn’t he doing well? Why is he on the breadline. What is he doing to better his position. Did he have his children knowing he couldn’t afford them? It’s his job to help himself, no one else’s.

She does sound stingy, but then you are actively calculating when she might die in order to get your hands on her money. So she may have the measure of how much you care about her and not feel like sharing with you, via your husband.

You have a very strange attitude to family if you think it's absolutely fine for OP's multi-millionaire MIL to refuse to help one of her sons who is in pretty dire financial straits while berating OP and her husband for not stepping up to help BIL when they don't have the money to do this.

It could be that as well.

Ah, MIL has secret knowledge that no one else in the family has ever discovered, or has ever has suspicions about.

Couldn’t just be that MIL is a cunt.

Unless she leaves it to charity. That happened in my family, though there was far less money involved.

Maybe MIL knows something about BIL that isn't being revealed here: drugs; gambling habit; frequenter of prostitutes, haribo habit, alcoholic, hoarder, maybe she suspects that he'll blow it all on videos of Kerry Katona from her Only Fannies site (she claims to have made millions)... Allegedly Huw Edwards spent £35K on pictures of teenage boys wanking... One can't begin to imagine.

MIL may have very good reason.

I completely agree with you OP. You think it would bring her pleasure to help out her children. You’re not being grabby, just merely wondering how one person who has had so much financial help, doesn’t pass some on to her kids.

Is she on the whole a nice woman? Could you talk to her? Could you just mention in passing how it’s tough for BIL what with petrol prices and COL? If you think she won’t budge there’s no point in bringing it up, but I totally agree that elderly people can completely miss the boat when dishing out inheritance - you need some now, not in twenty years.

She very clearly has failed as a mother as OP has said that her MIL is amused by her own children's financial struggles and misfortunes. She sounds hideous.

Could you ask her to help bil?

There will be plenty saying it’s her money to do with as she chooses, which is true, but I could never be that cold hearted to my own children and grandchildren. I think it’s typical of most of the boomer generation from what I’ve seen.

It depends on the relationship. I wouldn't give my brother the steam from my piss let alone any money.

She actually found her sons' misfortunes amusing? There would be no coming back from that for me. What sort of fucked-up callous mother rejoices in the misfortunes of her own children? She sounds intolerable. I bet her boyfriend's only with her for her money.

What a greedy cow, I could never be that rich and not help my family, even if it was just a little bit like a house deposit or something. You must have done or said something that pissed her off. Why don't you just ask her for money for the kids to go on holiday or something?

The last time he said this I asked him who he was talking about - he just spluttered.

Maybe he’s the person behind all the “I won’t be providing childcare for my grandkids” threads recently 😂

OP my dad is similar - inherited a lot of money, retired at 50 and travels the world with his partner who is in a similar position. I have never asked/hinted/dared to even hope for some help, but he constantly comments on adult children who expect handouts and childcare (he has no grandchildren, and I basically lived with my grandparents they provided so much childcare). The last time he said this I asked him who he was talking about - he just spluttered.

She's not 'hoarding' money.

She's just not spending it on you.

Both includes SiL - and I’m not being presumptuous as we have all discussed this as a family given PiL are in their 80s and DH and I have just done our own wills. SiL has left all her assets to my DC in her will (just as I and DH have left all of ours to them, but then onwards to her if there is a ‘wipe out’ event).

Some families DO talk about this stuff, even if we roll our eyes at PiL’s stubbornness. MiL does not want either of DH and SIL to feel they have been favoured, so it’s 50/50 despite the fact it dilutes their bequest if it goes via DH. Direct to GC or all to SiL would make the most financial sense, but they won’t hear it. 🤦🏽‍♀️

Yea, she does, that’s a given, but you being aghast at a sibling helping a sibling is bizarre too.

Not quite accurate.
Firstly it was the PIL he admonished not just the MIL (nice touch of misogyny on your part there - I guess women are generally the ones at fault in your book and you are happy to pin the blame on the female even if there's a male involved too).
Seccondly the DH also told his PIL that he would fight them for the £100k he thought his wife should be getting (it wasn't just the BIL, I suspect that was the cover, the excuse for his demands). You clearly think that kind of aggressive bluster is fine. That says a hell of a lot about you. Frankly I'd I had a spouse who came out with that line to my late parents I would have booted him out of my life at that point.

OP I would be happy to help my family members if I were in a position to assist (and have done so in the past when I had sufficient to help a disabled cousin with equipment needed to make their daily life easier sadly not in that position any more). I can understand your point of view. Families are complex and won't always act as you might.

I have a strange attitude to family? 😂

No. The mother in this situation has a strange attitude to family.

An incredibly wealthy parent has less moral responsibility to help their child who lives pay check to pay check out financially, than a sibling, who has their own children to help out financially.

Absolutely batshit.

How horrible.

I’ll never understand why someone would have children, raise them and love them only to leave this kind of legacy behind.

I would never want to be remembered like by this my family.

I can’t help but laugh at all the comments saying that she can spend her money how she wishes, she doesn’t owe her children anything, why don’t you and your husband help if you care so much.

Can only imagine if your BIL was a millionaire, was flying around the world first class, whilst his mother had no money to heat her home in the winter and was sleeping with 4 blankets.