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 your mum has to be open with everyone about what is in her will, so there are no shocks.

BTW my step father told his kids they were not going to inherit anything and the reasons why and attached a letter to his will on the solicitor’s advice.

As PP have said, your mum can write in her will who are the intended beneficiaries and who are not.

My stepdad and his mother were estranged from his sister, and his mother rewrote her will to only leave inheritance to my stepdad and other family members. After his mum died, his sister was told about the funeral but chose not to attend. About a year later she sent my stepdad a letter asking when her inheritance would arrive! By then it was too late to contest it, and she wouldn't have had much luck doing it anyway. She had written letters to my stepdad years ago saying she wanted nothing to do with him or their mother, and my step dad's mum had written quite clearly in her will why she did not intend her daughter to be a beneficiary.

Personally I wouldn't sign over the house to a sibling if I were you. Just get your mum to write a will, get some good legal advice and make sure she makes clear who her desired beneficiaries are and who aren't.

@Quitelikeit Legal processes ongoing as deceased not yet been dead 2 years. The "disinherited" was one of the executors. The situation it has caused is so sad. I was amazed that the deceased didn't know they couldn't disinherit without consent. When my DF died my sibling and I were asked by the lawyers if we were content that in his will everything went to DM. We had to sign away our right to challenge so the lawyers could get on with sorting out DFs wishes.

You may find this interesting;
willwritten.com/legacy-advice/the-supreme-courts-decision-in-heather-ilotts-case

Families are horrid. Sad parents can't treat children equally and sad siblings can't respect they are equal.

Wills can be contested but unless there are grounds (coercion, capacity, flawed mechanics) then it is unlikely to work and in England, solicitors won't act on a contingency basis so your sister won't progress unless she has money to flush. Get your DM to write a will with good legal advice while she has capacity and have an executor who is firm and ideally not a beneficiary. Signing over the house is a bad idea for many reasons.

Why not sign it to your sister then?

I think it is really horrible to describe your sister as “pure evil” - especially when you know the horrible childhood she has had.
you may have survived but maybe she didn’t, and seeing others just swan about seems to be adding to her problems.

Actually OP, you’re being a massive shit stirrer. The way to avoid hassle is to sit down, listen as much as you talk, and not bad mouth people behind their backs.

It’s none of your business who she sleeps with. Don’t get involved, and try to side step drama.
You are fully aware that excluding her will maximize the negative fall out- why is that what you want?

Consider a trust, rather than a will. Trusts are trickier than will for anyone attempting to challenge. The fact that a trust is instigated by a living person who continues to participate in it makes it very difficult to argue incapacity.

There are pros and cons to both. Speak to a solicitor who will be able to best advise you.

OP’s mother has no duty, at least in the UK, to treat her adult children equally when it comes to the distribution of her estate. It’s her estate, and if she wants to she can leave it all to charity, or the postman.

The sister is not entitled to receive anything. There’s no ‘her share’ here that she’s possibly being denied because it’s not her money, and won’t ever be unless it’s expressly bequeathed to her.

Indeed, no one is entitled to anything. It’s entirely at the discretion of the benefactor.

OP your mother hasn't even written her will yet, and you admit you don't know what her intentions may be. Why are you so sure she wants to disinherit your sister?

My sister fell out with all of us and it was all for very petty reasons.

One brother was living his life abroad and my sister took offence to that.
I will hold my hand up and I will say I had a row with her but the aftermath of that was awful. I was genuinely sorry for the row but she snubbed it. Not only that it set of a level of hate in her that I never saw before. It was intense and it was over the top. Show me a family who doesn't have rows. She wrote some unforgivable things to me including mocking a physical deformity that I have.
Another brother was also living his life and she took offence to that took and felt ignored. She never discussed her issue at all. It was always angry confrontations followed by revenge.

She developed a problem with our mother too where she felt excluded. Our mother explained to her that it wasn't intentional but my sister snubbed her too and carried that around with her.

She carried out some despicable acts of revenge. One of my brothers was getting abusive messages from her and then the next thing he got a call from immigration and someone reported him to the immigration authority but he had no enemies.. He doesn't have proof but it happened at he same time as he was getting abusive messages. He believes it was her. He was setting up life abroad and his girlfriend was pregnant with his baby. He never felt so humiliated. He was investigated and he was so worried in case they found anything on him. He was terrified in case he was kicked out from the country while his girlfriend was pregnant too. That move she did, it was designed to hurt him. It was designed to try and break him up from his new life and family abroad. He did nothing on her.

She carried out many despicable acts of poison and revenge against the family.

There came a point for all of us where we realise that she's evil. She's purely evil. Well and truly evil.

My mother was getting máil in the post with porn pictures. The envelope was her writing. The cops have allowed her to continue the harassment because she's not threatening violence to us and its all psychological abuse from her.

Horrible horrible horrible person.

You think she's a horrible person. That doesn't mean you mother wants to disinherit her. It sounds like you want her to.

@SeaBoat you don’t have to justify why you don’t like your sister or why you think she’s evil. Ignore the moralizing and nosy posters. You don’t have to respond to them.

It’s up to your Mother, you hate your sister but it’s not your decision.
Apart from the legalities such as deliberate deprivation of assets in the case of benefit claims getting a house signed over to one or some of the siblings sounds like a recipe for disaster. What if the person who it was signed over to has a further falling out.

If your sisters behaviour is as destructive as you say and your childhood was as awful as you say then maybe her awful destructive behaviour is a direct result of her childhood. Each child develops within the family and can be different. I have a destructive sister who has appalling behaviour but I just ignore her.

Maybe the petty reasons were not petty to her. She sounds seriously disturbed but you seem to thrive on drama, none of this is healthy.

My parents are wanting to avoid any fighting after they've gone (my sister is nasty) so after some provisions for my nieces are leaving everything 50:50 between me and my sister even though it pains them to do so as she's a drug addict and even before that lived a champagne lifestyle on a beer budget so would blow any inheritance anyway.

I keep encouraging them to spend it all while they can and not focus on saving money to leave us.

Honestly I don't think you should do anything. You said yourself you don't know what your mum's put in the will so you're being a bit presumptions Tbh. Even though they're estranged and your sister is awful, she's still your mother's daughter and she may want to leave her something, how would that make you feel? I'm sure your mum will do what she needs to and you'll deal with it at the time but I wouldn't ask her if she's not volunteered the information to you.

Another reason to keep your nose out is that encouraging your mother to cut your sister out of her will could well give grounds for her to contest the will on the basis that you exerted undue influence on your mother.

I'm not telling my mother what to do and what to do about a will. I am not encouraging my mother to cut my sister out of a will. My mum did say herself that X is getting nothing for all she's done and mum said that without encouragement from me or my other siblings.

This is a really common situation OP.
My mum did say herself that X is getting nothing for all she's done
If you are in England or Wales... your Mum needs to make a will otherwise her wishes won't be carried out. She should see a solicitor for this to ensure it 's all done properly. The solicitor should be a STEP member ( a wills specialist).
Contesting a will is very difficult and expensive so don't worry about your sister succeeding with any such attempt.

If your Mum doesn't make a will then the rules of intestacy apply - see here - www.gov.uk/inherits-someone-dies-without-will - and if your Mum is not married then the estate by law has to be shared equally between her children.

In short, if Mum is in E&W and has a will sorted, written and overseen by a solicitor, that's all that's needed.

The idea behind writing this thread was to explore some ideas to get things to run smoothly in the years to come.

I have 3 more siblings aside from my estranged sister and we are placed into a situation where we are all working together to try and savalage a mess. My sister isn't aware of the events happening because we just can't afford to have her come back and throw her weight around. I have no doubt in my mind that when the time comes we will work together once more when that day comes.

I fear about my sister. It will be used as an excuse to push her way back in and abuse and harass us. At some points during her harassment campaign, when she wasn't able to make a point, she used vulgarise her anger against us and claim all my brothers wanted to do was suck her tits (referring to me) and all I wanted to do was (suck their cocks). None of this was true but she used to vulgarise her anger.

She will use an inheritance as an excuse to push her way in and abuse and harass us once more. She will absolutely fight and dig her heels in.

Or would it be possible to make two executers instead of one perhaps? In that if one or my other siblings is an executer, maybe there could be another executer too but someone outside of the family where she will be less likely to abuse someone outside of her family of origin. She will keep language clean if it's an uncle or aunt or perhaps a cousin might be better because aunts and uncles would be aging now.

“If your sisters behaviour is as destructive as you say and your childhood was as awful as you say then maybe her awful destructive behaviour is a direct result of her childhood. Each child develops within the family and can be different. I have a destructive sister who has appalling behaviour but I just ignore her.“

That may be the root cause, but it doesn’t mean that she hasn’t behaved in an ‘evil’ way, and that OP can’t consider her as such. There are plenty of genuinely terrible people that have had a woeful childhood. It’s not an excuse and it doesn’t make someone not responsible for their later actions.

@SeaBoat perhaps a solicitor would be best placed to be executor.

@SeaBoat Unfortunately there’s no way you can stop her from throwing her weight around in regards to the will if she chooses to. The best thing you can do is consult a solicitor to make sure it is as incontestable as possible. Like I said before, you can look at the possibility of a trust also.

You may want to consider a non-mol order in response to her abuse.