Stepchild wants to see finances and money spent on his stepsiblings.

It's absolutely wild tbh. Imagine being this grabby, greedy, entitled and tone deaf at 18. Wow.

He has no entitlement of any kind at all to his dad's money. And will lose any inheritance his dad kindly wants to leave him if he cuts off his own nose to spite his face.

This is precisely what should be said to him, in a message. Then he should be absolutely ignored until he starts behaving and replying decently again.

Im shocked that an 18 year old feels they have the right to ask this.
Your husband is in a hard spot because saying what he should say will do nothing but inflame the situation.

What a horrible situation, how did SS become this way?

The OP hasn’t argued that her children are somehow heirs to the grandfather’s property but surely its up to OP’s dh whether he ends up considering his wife’s children to be worthy of a bequest. This weird mumsnet spite towards second families is just startling to me. So unnecessary.

Teenagers can say some stupid shit. They're like giant hairy smelly toddlers - they have all sort of notions about life that they haven't got the frontal lobes to think through. Hasn't your husband realised this yet?

I'm astonished he didn't just reply with something along the lines of 'are you fucking mad?' and leave it there.

All this handwringing!

(ETA: I understand hurt feelings in the moment, but he really does need to learn to shrug it off, it won't be the last time all these kids you're raising make some ill-considered statement that crushes your souls a little.)

This sums up the situation perfectly.

Absolutely do not pander to his gross attempts at manipulation. It's not his business. End of.

OP, SS may have a point. probably not the one he’s making, but a bigger one.

First Marriage Children get shat on in wills. SS might be worried that his GF’s legacy is heading/already at your DC.

This happens too much, and it’s hideous - not only has FMC got no present dad, his/her heritage has been swiped too.

Would FIL want that? Nope. He left the £ to his relations, not another woman’s unrelated DC.

I’d explain to DS that the assets will be maintained out of their income by DH, and he’s not in any danger of losing his inheritance.

Your DC are entitled to O, incidentally. Except - depending on FIL’s wording - what DH gives them from his own income, which does seem fair.

If you think that’s unfair, welcome to the world of entailment and trusts. Keeping it to blood family and swerving complications with blended households is what they’re there for.

No one is going without? He’s being an 18 year old twat.

I think on the surface your stepson is being wildly unreasonable.

However, i do think there may be some mitigation depending on the terms of the Trust- if it is a family trust that includes him, he might not be totally unreasonable to want to see how the trust is currently being managed. Does your have a legal right, under the terms of the trust, to see how the trust is being managed?

Though I cannot see how he can ask for access to how your DH spends his income, whatever the circumstances of the trust. That is a fairly gobsmacking over-reach.

Does he have concerns that your children are benefitting significantly, at his (and his sibling’s) expense? I.e. is your DH spending significantly more supporting your children than he ever did on his own two children? Has your DH invested more time in your children than his own? I’m just wondering if it is all simply awful behaviour on your step-sons part, or whether this is actually an expression of brewing resentment, built up over years (even if a wholly unreasonable way to express it).

this.

the step son sounds very entitled, jealous and bitter. Could probably do with some psychotherapy earlier than later to sort his issues out.

But i would be very much, our money is ours to spend as we wish. We aren’t planning on dying any time soon, so stop ruining family moments by focussing on inheritance

Personally I don’t think this is actually just about money

It's never just about money.

If one of my DC came to me and said that I'd be tempted to remove them from my will. Entitled sod. I don't think I actually would but I would be reminding them they're not entitled to any of my money and there is no chance I will be giving them details on my finances.

It sounds like this is an ongoing issue. OP’s previous post about a wedding from earlier this year gives more context: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5509580-wedding-aftermath?page=1

At the wedding (which OP’s children weren’t originally invited to, until her husband requested they be added) stepson was asked to move away from his family to another table to accommodate one of OP’s children and it sounds like OP’s child was showing off about the skiing holiday to stepson’s wider family. Stepson made the “spending our inheritance” comment then and his Mum got in touch with OP’s DH later to back him up. OP’s sister in law (who I assume is stepson’s aunt) was apparently sarcastic and didn’t want to sit at the table with OP’s son.

Personally I don’t think this is actually just about money, I think stepson, his Mum and his aunt feel OP’s children are being favoured by her DH over stepson and his sibling. Whether or not they actually are, OP’s DH needs to speak to his children and try to get to the bottom of why the stepson feels like that and how they can improve their relationship. Once he’s dealt with the emotional side he can then addresses the inappropriateness of the request to go through his finances.

I wasn't actually claiming he did, rather that the fact that what is or isn't mandated by law isn't necessarily coterminous with what is or isn't pretty crappy behaviour.

And in answer to your question about the imbalance between what is and isn't said to SFs and SMs, the difference I think is that men tend - not all, but very generally - to move on and forget to defend the interests of their own dc whereas SMs are more about defending their own at the expense of sdc.

Did the stepson think he was entitled to funds when he turned 18? Does he think these are being denied to him? He’s shaping up to be a right one isn’t he though?

How do you know that the man walked out on his children? It’s also rather wild that step-mothers on MN are often told that stepchildren must be included in every aspect of the “blended family” be it childcare, holidays, spending money, whatever but the same is not expected from stepfathers?

Is this for real? This grossly entitled teenager has totally unreasonable expectations, how could he think for a moment that it's right to spout this nonsense? A clue is that dad thinks asserting proper boundaries will cause their relationship to fail. Has this entitled brat been subject to boundaries before? Does he know what one looks like?

The correct response to these demands is 'you are having a laugh, mind your own business'. Certainly don't dignify this entitled, divisive money-grabbing by pandering to his grubby fantasies.

Don't invent things. It's the same amount. The daughter doesn't work.

Why a disparity between what your FIL left his daughters and what he left his sons ?

That still doesn't justify the frankly deranged level of spite and vitriol being thrown at him. He's a teenager and navigating life with his father having a second step family. There aren't many youngsters who manage that while maintaining perfect saintliness - and nobody baying for his blood and calling him every sick name under the sun, fantasising about him being kicked in the testicles and all the rest of it has any right to condemn him. They don't exactly have glowing halos themselves. If he's old enough to know better, they certainly are.

It's utterly disgraceful.

I’m going with the Ex being the one who has his head this way

My bet is ExW doesn’t like that he has OP and her family now, and the DS has been caught in the middle. It is probably more pertinent now too that DS is 18 so Ex won’t get maintenance and DS will have less spends.

But ultimately the OPs DP can spend his money how he wishes, and that includes on both DS and DSCs.

I have an inkling that the step child has gone down a rabbit hole with chat gpt and it told him to ask these questions. It sounds like the sort of thing that comes out of late night research and then he has acted on it.
I think it might be a good idea for the father to go and see a solicitor with his eldest and get them to lay out his inheritance, how it will be protected and what he is and isn’t entitled to at this point, including his rights to dig into his fathers finances. Hopefully that will give them both piece of mind and they can move on from there. Eldest might be feeling like he is now grown and will eventually lose contact and any rights to his inheritance and doesn’t understand fully what is happening now his dad has a new family. A solicitor could really help here and give him the actual facts and if he doesn’t see the facts after that then that’s entirely on his head.

I don’t have to show my financial breakdown to my husband, I’ll be damned if I need to explain myself to my child because they feel “hard done by”

Coming from a family of significant wealth in a family investment company, I highly doubt he has no prior knowledge of it.

DH’s family have a similar financial set up and all the children are aware from a certain age (usually mid teens) with the option of attending AGMs, etc once they turn 18.
I’m pretty confident none of them are asking to see a breakdown of their parent’s finances to see where “their” money is going!

Because there is another thread where he is rude to OPs children too because his dad paid for them to go on a trip.

He is awful and entitled and it doesn’t matter how old he is, he should know better.