Inheritance

@Sillyme1 , I confess I haven’t read most of the responses to your question. Bottom line, it’s entirely dependent on the person whose estate is involved, some will disinherit under those circumstances some will retain equity in their behests to their children. No one should assume entitlement in England at least, long may that remain the case.

My parents would never do that because they’re not assholes, and neither did—or would—my grandparents. Covering someone’s actual expenses or lost wages is one thing, but giving one child more because they were able to provide more care is another, especially when another child is sick and doesn’t live nearby. And not that it should even make a difference, but I stayed where I’m from—the rest of my family moved away. Obviously, people can do what they want with their money, but being unable to provide the same care because of your health or the distance doesn’t mean you love your parents any less. I’d be pretty hurt if mine decided that deserved a smaller inheritance.

That's exactly what I said though - I don't think it's unreasonable to cover lost wages and expenses (though that could be done during the life time). That seems fair to me. You enable someone to be free to provide the care by freeing them up to do so. Then, after that, everything is divided equally.

I'm the closest child to my parents and I'm a plane ride away. Them covering the cost of a flight to come and help them (not a holiday) might be the difference between, "I can come help" or "Sorry, Mum, I can't come again." Air fares add up quickly.

Yes, and I already said I don’t object to covering actual expenses or lost wages, so I’m not sure why you’re explaining that back to me. My objection was to giving one child a larger inheritance because they were able to provide more care. My sister and I are both stay-at-home moms, so there wouldn’t be lost wages, and given how long people in my family tend to live, my brother will probably be retired by then anyway. The limiting factor for me is my health. Paying for a plane ticket unfortunately doesn’t make me less chronically ill.

Probably because you replied that your parents would never do that because they're not assholes, when I only discussed covering fair expenses, not giving one a larger inheritance.

I do understand limitations. I have a chronically ill older child. I have been straight with my parents that this may mean I can't travel to them, plane ticket or not. No lost wages here as I can't work for looking after my child with their medical needs anyway. In some ways, that makes covering expenses even more important because I'm also saving for my child to have a complicated future once I'm gone.

Really? I didn’t know that. What about the celebrities who say they aren’t leaving their children anything. How would that work?

I'm not familiar with Scottish law, but sometimes, in other places, you can leave a token amount of a very small payment so you can show they weren't forgotten, then leave the rest elsewhere.

No one should expect inheritance and equally, no one should be obliged to care for an elderly relative.

Okay, thenwhy did you even reply to me? My comment was about giving one child a larger inheritance and if you're just talking about covering expenses you were arguing with a point I never made.

It's more complicated than that - it's only the moveable estate. You can easily stop a child getting anything by keeping all your assets in property and your spouses bank account.

A family friend had to do some planning as she wanted to skip a generation and not leave anything to her criminal son.

It was obvious you completely missed the point in my post. Never mind.

And you obviously completely missed the point of mine ...

Тhe rule is that they get a share of one third of the moveable estate, so they wouldn't be able to claim houses, for example, or land. (Jewellery and cars count as part of the moveable estate.).

Any bills and funeral expenses, etc have to be paid out of the moveable estate first, so that reduces the amount. It would also be possible in theory for someone to give a significant amount of their estate to their spouse before dying, if they knew that their spouse was likely to outlive them.

There are Scottish law firms which advertise that they can formulate some kind of trust in order to avoid giving money to children, but I'm not sure how that works.

I do have a friend who has become estranged from one of their adult children. I don't know the full story, but I believe that the child behaved in an unacceptable manner towards another adult child who became terminally ill. (So far as I can tell, this was not a case of 'golden child' syndrome - there are other children and grandchildren and they are all supportive.)

They have done everything possible to disinherit the child who behaved in an unacceptable manner. That child's share will be going directly to their children, thus skipping them. The deceased child's share will be going to their own children, of course.

As I said, I don't know exactly how it works - I've never been in a situation where I've had enough money to make it worthwhile for me to contact a high-powered chartered accountant or solicitor.

I did have the help of a solicitor when I was my husband's executor and he did want to write the letter mentioned by a previous poster, asking whether they wanted their legal rights.

I told him to change it to something along the lines of "The enclosed cheque constitutes your legal rights", but I believe he added a paragraph saying that cashing the cheque meant that they accepted that this was their legal entitlement. They were also sent family jewellery and medals, but these had to be valued first.

I never did see the letters that were written - I only signed the cheques as executor. My understanding is that such letters are written to a particular formula.

There was also a cheque sent to an adult grandchild, but no deed of variation was required since this came out of my inheritance, rather than the estate as a whole. (My husband had told me how much to give the grandchild.) I also passed on some family jewellery to the grandchild. Again, no deed of variation was required for that.

Well, I don’t want my adult children to run around after me. We have had conversations about it. My husband’s and my money will be split between our children in our will. We would not change this even if one of them stopped talking to us.

That's very loving of you. Sometimes disinheriting a child can be one last kick when there is no way to talk about it after. Is that really the last message some people want to send? I think you'd be doing the right thing.

As a post above says that someone who behaved unacceptably in their family will not inherit. One person's unacceptable is another's totally reasonable boundary.

No, that wouldn't work in Scotland. However, as I mentioned previously, it's apparently possible to draw up some kind of trust.

A will can be contested, but there would need to be grounds for it. Just saying "I'm a child of the deceased and therefore should inherit" isn't enough - they'd need to show that the deceased was not of sound mind or was coerced.

We had one case in our family where an elderly great-uncle died intestate. After the tax had been paid, his money was shared out equally amongst his nieces and nephews. (He was my great-grandparents' last surviving child. Apparently if one of his siblings had survived, the money would have been split according to the number of siblings and only then to their children.) If they had already died, then it went to their children.

The biggest complication was tracing everyone. In the end, only one person was missing. A niece had two biological children and one adopted. No one knew where the adopted child was - the niece had moved to England and the biological children had lost touch with the adopted child.

Initially, the adopted child's money was put into a separate bank account whilst the lawyers in Scotland tried to find them. Notices were placed in newspapers.

In the end, the missing child's money was divided between their siblings...but the siblings had to take out an indemnity insurance policy to cover the sibling's share if they ever appeared.

As I said, I don't know the full story. The parent and child are currently NC. The parent is at least making sure that the child's children will inherit - their money is being placed in trust until they're adults.

It's a little bit more than that. It only applies to 'moveable estate' which is cash and cars and jewelery etc, not any property and if there is a surviving spouse or civil partner then it's 1/3 for all children together. If no surviving spouse then 50 perc for all children of moveable estate. You can disinherit children from property and you can put all your money into property with secured loans that are paid out of the moveable estate in probate. So you can effectively disinherit them to the very bare bones if you really want to.

A person is at liberty to leave their possessions to whomever they wish.

A parent can leave a neglectful child whatever they please; they might still love them deeply; the child might be a source of happy memories.

But the really good thing is that children have up to 20 years to claim any legal rights after death. So if some hidden stash becomes known 15 years after death, for example, they can claim it. This might happen when the pre deceased spouse dies and things come to light on their death.
Very important. Step children are not included or protected unless they are officially adopted by the non bio parent. This can be huge for a step child where a step parent who has married their bio parent dies. They have no legal rights unless adopted.

Having seen inheritance and threats of disinheritance used as a weapon to manipulate relationships time and time again, I agree with you.
The attitude 'I'll punish them for all the things they did I didn't approve of by not leaving them any cash' is self indulgent and self defeating and is a power play. It's common on my community where farms and land is involved.
If you use disinheritance as a threat to force children to take a path you think they should, then you are manipulative and a horrible person. That's really horrible, not just horrible.
If when you die they find out you disinherited them because of their life choices do you expect them to suddenly see the light and repent all their wrong doings and become a great person because they didn't get your house. You'll never know, will you. Being dead.

If it gives you a sadistic self righteous good feeling knowing they are going to be devastated when they find out you have disinherited them, then that's for you and your feelings. But your legacy will be how mean and cruel you are and you will never really know what they felt when they found out. They, and everyone else, might just think that you were a mean manipulative bastard anyway and move on. You won't know. You are dead.

So it's just about power and 'punishing bad behaviour'
The only legacy the vast majority of us have is our children. Even if we wouldn't lead our lives as they did, do we really want their only memories of us to be how hurt they felt on reading our will.

This is my situation; I’m NC with one parent after years of physical/emotional abuse and finally putting a boundary in. I’ve been cut out of the will (my sibling who is the executor told me, not with malice). I’m fine with that. I’m fully prepared for a spiteful letter, but my other sibling will deal with that. The only thing I want from the estate is a personal item that belonged to my grandmother, and my siblings will make sure I get it.

I’m thankful that I’m married to a citizen of a Napoleonic law country, and we live in a second country with the same laws, so no cutting out possible for my child.

In my country children are entitled to an equal share of half the estate (property included) which I think is right. Parents can reward or not children who they feel deserve it while they are still alive but once dead all children are equal, which I'm sure prevents a lot of inheritance related fallouts (not all, currently experiencing a big one, but a lot at least)

I know that my parents have split everything equally between me and my brother in their wills. They don't need care yet, but they're in their mid to late 80s so that may change at some point. I would not expect them to disinherit either me or my brother if we aren't closely involved in their care. In my case, I work full time, have teenage DC and live over an hour away, so it will be difficult to be there for them as much as I'd like to be. However, I guess our inheritance will be reduced if they use it to pay for care, which is obviously fair enough.

PP was explaining why it maybe be reasonable/fair for one child to receive a larger inheritance due costs incurred due to caring (which may run into the £10 000) - this was not mentioned in your initial post.