What are peoples experiences of inheritances within family, does it always cause a fight?

[SeaBoat]

What are peoples experiences of inheritances within families does it always cause a fight?

My mom is talking about doing a will. I didn't ask what her will is going to be and if I am in her will.

I have an estrangement in the family with a sister. That sister is also estranged from 2 more siblings and also our mum.

Whatever her issues were, she behaved in a despicable manner with abuse and harassment trying to punish us all. She sees the world with hate. She's horrible. She already made the threat of coming back for her piece of the family home and inheritance. Our mother isn't even dead yet.

This tells me that she will make a fight in later years about inheritance.

I was thinking if there's a way to avoid an inheritance fight. Maybe get the house signed over into one or more of siblings (me and my brothers) before there is a death/inheritance and avoid a fight. Would something like that work? If my mother is interested in that, that is. I can't see a reason why not.

I think you need to talk to your Mum first. Having someone sign over their home is a huge step.

We had a will contested by an estranged family member. They slung all sorts of mud at us, and I know having a whole house signed over would have enraged them more. They also tried to argue my Grandparents werent mentally sound when doing their wills so this might also be applicable to signing over a house. We did settle in the end - for far less than they wanted but more than they deserved (which was nothing).

My advice would be to get your own independent legal advice on upholding a will. The lawyers who drew up my Grandparents will really acted like they owed us nothing and that their job was independent to us the beneficiaries of the will. They knew my Grandparents true intentions (who wrote letters about them). I'd suggest your Mum did this. If she is leaving something to an estranged family member on legal advice she should write that plainly.

Depends where you are (there are rules against this sort of thing in Scotland, I believe).

Depends what your mum wants to do.

She may decide that she's going to be scrupulously fair and split it equally between all (four?) of you. If this is the case you're going to have to be emotionally prepared for both this fact and the aggro your sister's return is likely to give rise to.

On the other hand, she may decide she wants to split it between those of you who haven't been estranged. If this is the case you're going to have to be prepared for a considerable amount of aggro when your sister discovers this, and it would possibly be wise of your mother to put an explanatory note in the will (people used to leave "a shilling for candles" or similar in cases like this, so that the offspring in question couldn't claim they'd been forgotten).

If the house gets signed over that could be viewed as deliberate Deprivation of Assets in care funding cases, and (if the estate's big enough) will make Inheritance Tax more complicated.

I suggest you broach the subject with your mum - wanting to be prepared for how your sister will need to be dealt with. Do you know who she's named as executor?

With all due respect- how is your sister so evil?! Or what do you think happened?

id be looking at her childhood experiences in order to understand her more thoroughly

It may be wise for your mum to include a statement in the will explaining that x is not a beneficiary band why, thus reducing the chance of a successful claim by x. Assuming your mum wishes to do this of course. My will clearly states that certain relatives will receive nothing.

You (or rather you mum if she wants it ) need legal advice but my DM was told she could specify someone explicitly to not benefit eg x and y inherit everything 50/50 but z is not a beneficiary. This was regarding a sibling who is estranged

We came from a family where our parents fought for years. Not only normal regular fighting, there was abuse from father to our mother.

So we grew up in difficult circumstances and in poverty. It wasn't all roses with my mother either but I firmly believe she did her best. Under the circumstances, she could have turned to the alcohol to cope but she never did.

As sson as my sister hit 19 or 20, she was getting involved with married men. The first time, I thought nothing off it but there has been countless relationships with married men. She's only interested in married men. I think there's something there in relation to her youth. Maybe she has some father issues due to being abandoned or maybe she likes wrecking other peoples marriages and wreck them she does. I think she likes the power and control over a married man. When a married man upsets her, she harasses them and they probably feel they can't do anything due to a wife at home and then eventually she hangs him out to dry altogether. There's definitely some damage there in her.

She has turned outwards onto the siblings and indeed our mum too within the past 9 years. She is pure evil. Her harassment was relentless and non fucking stop hopping from one to the other.

The issue is that your estranged sister expects a share of your mum's estate. No amount of legal fiddling is going to change that. I'd let your mum make the will she wants, but encourage her to use a good will writer or solicitor and to make it all crystal clear. Then your sister won't be able to contest the will.

Your mother needs to speak to a solicitor without question.

This seriously irrelevant to what the OP is asking and is pure nosiness.

If its as simple as this, I think this would be fantastic. My understanding is that wills can be contested.

I am not trying to grab my mothers home for myself. I am genuinely concerned about a fight from my sister later on and I don't want that nightmare.

If signing the house over to someone will avoid that, I don't care which of my siblings it's signed to.

To answer your question in the title of the thread - no, it doesn't always cause a fight.

However, as that isn't really the question in your OP, my thinking is that your Mum needs to go to a decent solicitor, explain the situation, and make sure her wishes are clear in the Will. Keep in mind, that it might be her choice, to include your sister, rather than exclude her. Additional letters, dated and written out now might also support her wishes.

Be aware, as a pp said, that the laws around this are different in different countries.

Unless you’re in Scotland or France or some jurisdiction where adult offspring have a legal entitlement to inheritance, I can’t see that you need to do anything, much less get the house transferred.

In any case, it’s up to your mum to make any will she wants, and tell you what’s in the will of she wants. It would help if people explained their wills to the beneficiaries ahead of time, though. I’ve been on the sidelines of two horrible will sagas.

I think the best advice is for your Mum to get independent legal advice and for her to be very honest about the situation. They can keep a record of her wishes or include some detail in the will stating why a family member is disinherited. Its some protection.

my husbands parents both passed away and settling the estate was incredibly smooth. my father passed away a few years back and my mother has now downsized and passed on the majority of her estate (while alive and retaining a relatively small amount) to my brother and i.
i chose to share a good chunk with my 3 children right away while their gran is still well enough to be thanked.

Limited grounds to contest wills in England and Wales eg that the testator making the will was not of sound mind or was under duress or that the person bringing the claim was financially dependant on the deceased and falls within one of the categories in the Inheritance Act 1975 (a child would).
If your mother gets a solicitor to draw up the will, the will can include a paragraph explaining how the estate is being divided up and why.
A person making a will can include or exclude whoever they want if they are of sound mind and not supporting someone they have excluded.

I'd go for making sure your Mum has legal advice, suggest she asks lawyer re putting in reasons either in will or a separate letter. Also consider suggesting she sees a GP to test/record in medical notes she is 'of sound mind'.
Belt and braces.

Agree with PPs your mum needs legal advice when drawing up her will. It doesn't need to cost a lot. If she is a trade union member she may be able to get free legal advice.

I'm in Scotland where the law does not allow children of the deceased to be disinherited. This has caused a massive rift in my cousins family. One of the children got nothing and the other absolutely everything, the value of which was over £2m. The deceased didn't tell the child who got nothing they'd changed their will but their spouse and the other child did know. Just awful.

Nobody is contesting our will but its ugly. Step family (who up until their df died, after our mum) had been nice as pie. Now showing their true colours. It's been incredibly difficult and I really wish it to be over so I can send them an email with what I really feel about them and forget they ever existed!
I don't know about signing the house over now, does that not invite inheritance tax if your dm were to die within a certain time frame?
I have heard of people leaving very nominal amounts to certain people instead of the share they think they're entitled to. I think this is to try and stop them contesting, because they have been named? I may be very wrong about that.
Families can be shit sometimes.

I am not a lawyer and neither, I suspect, are most of the people who've replied. Your mum should do nothing without legal advice. Handing ownership of her house over to other people while she's still alive would be a very risky thing to do. If she ends up in a care home, social services could insist the house is sold to pay for her care, even if it's been transferred to other family members.

As others have said, unless you live in Scotland, she should be able to leave her estate as she likes, as far as I'm aware, but there are some very limited exceptions, so she needs to talk to a solicitor to make sure her will is watertight, whatever she decides to do.

There's a lot of loose talk about challenging wills, but in practice my impression it's very difficult to do successfully, and it's expensive. The main reasons as far as I understand it would be:

1. The person making the will lacked mental capacity (i.e. didn't understand what she was doing).
2. The person making the will was pressured into leaving someone money when they didn't want to.
3. The will doesn't stand up legally (this should be completely avoidable by having it drawn up by a solicitor or a really good professional will maker).

How was she disinherited if you can’t be disinherited in Scotland?

About a year before he died, my fil wrote one of this adult children out of his will due to something they wanted to do with him about his living arrangements and which he didn't agree with. He wrote an accompanying letter explaining why he did this and in his will he wrote that this child wasn't receiving anything.
This sibling of my dhs blamed us for him doing this and tried to get the will null and voided saying we forced him to rewrite it. It was all written above board with a solicitor with no coercion from us. They decided to remove all of us from their social media, including their nieces and nephews!
We had solicitors letters from them, first of all trying to use the previous will, which we explained there was a new one. Then their reply was basically emotional blackmail. We didn't reply to this one and had a very tense wait once probate was granted to see if they would contest it. We half expected them to wait until the last day to do so.
But, they obviously realised they couldn't use any of the reasons why they should contest the will ( very highly paid and had not needed their fathers help financially for many many years).
Probate was very trying due to another sibling who was one of the joint executors with my dh, deciding they were going to do it all and not let my dh have any say, otherwise they would get aggressive and then not keep him updated.
It was a very long year, which once over, we have not spoken to a single member of that side of the family since.

Your mum should make her will in accordance with her wishes. You should all stay out of it. Dear God, you are all as bad as each other, disposing of her things before she's even dead. If you were my kids it'd all be going to the dogs home. Leave the poor bloody woman alone. Once she's dead and out of it all, you can all rip each other to shreds to your hearts delight.

I think your DM might soften towards your Sis in later years. My DM gave extra to useless DB in her final years 🙄

Former solicitor here, your mum should consult a lawyer to ensure all is watertight.

I think it would be a really bad idea for your mum to sign over her will over to anybody. People change and turn into people that you never thought they would be.

If I were her I would make sure my will was absolutely clear. If I were to leave a child nothing, then I would explain it fully in the will.

I really wouldn't mind one of my children discussing with me what was going to be in my will, as long as they were civil.