What do you think about this will?

[GlassTumbler]

Man dies aged 81.

He has 5 children aged 54, 48, 32, 30, 28.

The first 2 children are from his first marriage.

The next 3 children are from his second marriage. He was married to someone 17 years younger than him for 35 years. She was 65 when he died.

He left everything in his will (£650,000 house, savings and generous pensions) to his wife. She was able to downsize a bit (to a £500,000 house) and live comfortably off everything else.

She is leaving everything in her will to her 3 children (the 32, 30 and 28 year old).

The only grand children this man had when he died were the 2 children of the 48 year old from his first marriage. He left them £5,000 each. But nothing to their parent or the older sibling.

Would appreciate any general thoughts! Thanks so much.

Exactly - she is presumably also now without any income eg pension he had.

So she will probably use it all on care fees

Name change fail?

If it's not too late to talk to him I would do it. It will eat you up forever otherwise. Make it crystal clear to him he is choosing his 2nd family over you and it's hurting you.

Exactly. My grandfather died over 35 years ago. His second wife is still alive, but elderly. (No shared children) I think she may have spent all his money in the intervening years as she didn’t work.

If I thought that people were circling round me like vultures waiting for me to die then I’d leave the bloody lot to Cats Protection.

@bumpytrumpy no but I n/c for this thread

My dad has no children with his current wife.

Because all 5 are his children. They aren’t all her children. People are looking at this as if it’s all the fathers money and his wife has no claim, and no right to carry on living and spending it. 50% is already hers, not an inheritance at all. The man then left his 50% to his wife, who’s still relatively young, not a lot older than his eldest child. His children are old enough that they could be very old by the time it comes to inheriting anyway (unless people expect his wife to sell her house and give it all to them now).
I would like to think if there’s some left by the time she dies then she could give his kids a share of his share, but she’s also entitled to give her kids her share.

Make it crystal clear to him he is choosing his 2nd family over you and it's hurting you.

Yes @GlassTumbler if you can do this, please do. He may not have thought about this (men are careless) and be quite shocked.

And at least you will know what he really thinks.

The man is dead so no one is going to be talking to him about anything . I didn't have a name change fail in the middle of the thread - I think that was someone else talking about their circumstances.

Not quite true. He knew what his wife was planning to do before he died. Indeed, they rang one of the older children up and cheerfully told them about it!

I think it is very unfair and also sad for the children from his first marriage who must feel unloved. When he left the money to his wife did he expect her to pass some onto his older children when she dies?

it says that he prioritises his second family, but I doubt that comes as a surprise to his older children.

The wife isn’t as organised / clever as she could have been though. Someone I know arranged it so their wife left 50% to his children, but with a life interest for him.
the other 50% was for him and later followed his will. He included, as agreed with his late wife, her son. The spending after the wife’s death was massive and care costs came out of that half only. The split of that half ended up being about 3% of the original estate. So her son got 3% and his children got that plus the other 50%.

I think it's fair.
She could have more than 30 years ahead of her. By that time his money could be gone on her life expenses.

This is what happens when you marry the younger version.

We have no idea of context. That could change opinions massively. It is not up to anyone else to second guess or judge. Being born is not, in my opinion, sufficient cause to expect an inheritance.

It’s very unfair. It happened to my mum and she was very upset - not because there was any money but because it signified how little she meant to him. Another weak man too.

I think the will is very sad for the older children and I hope that the Dad was not under the impression that his wife who treat all children equally in his will and she chose not to. Also I hope he took proper legal advice.

What a nasty and spiteful thing to do.

Very unfair but very common.

Just happened to me too. Dad died last month. She's inherited £1 million house and loads of savings which she will leave to her daughter. She's never worked in her life.

What can you do?

I think it's totally up to them what to do and no one else's

Oh sorry about that. It's even tougher that you didn't have a chance to tell your father about the impact of his actions.

I don't know the extent of why he did not leave his children anything. However, I do know that I am doing the same for my adult daughters. They are the most selfish, ungrateful beings on this planet. So, instead, I am leaving everything to my three grandchildren. Adult children can be some of the worst people no matter how much you have sacrificed or given. There had to be something they all did for him to make a drastic decision like this. I work with trust and estates and see the same things in my client's will documentation. I've seen one child listed as not to receive a dime, while the others listed receive something. Not saying it always right, but people are so selfish when it comes to their parents. These are the parents who you see with no visitors to the nursing homes because the children they raised abandoned them for God know what or who else. There is this mindset now that children don't owe their parents anything going around the internet. Well, the same to be true in death. We don't owe you anything either. So don't be salty when you receive nothing. 🙂

All due respect Glimmy, but that is utter cobblers in this case .

I would think he was a bad man that I be would have no interest in knowing.

With all due respect, I have no clue what that means in the US and really could care less. 😂I answered the question based on my knowledge of subject, as well as personal opinion. So your comment makes no sense. The point I wanted to make is that as a person who works for a large US and global financial firm, and as one who has worked on hundreds of trust/estate/wills accounts of varying types, I am privy to the reasons behind why people opt not to leave kids anything (as beneficiaries). I see grantors/descendants choosing this options more frequently. It’s often explained by the financial advisors that the reason people are usually left out of wills is because something they have done to their parents or how they have treated them or their new spouse etc. No one seemed to address that in the comments! 😂It was mostly, that’s so unfair of the father. Most people are selfish or guilty of this behavior so they gloss over it. In closing, unless you’re the attorney that drafted the document or the decedent, we would never know, so it’s a pointless question to ask anyway and not enough variables to ascertain the reasoning behind it.

Unfair but tough. No idea of the extent of why, there must be a reason.

It's sad and frustrating and unfair, but there's nothing to be done unfortunately.

A similar thing happened in my family: Paternal grandfather (estranged for many, may years) died and left everything to his "living" children, which mean that the share which would have been my dad's, who died a few years earlier, when I was 11, died with him and we were entitled to nothing.

My aunt and uncle didn't feel inclined to dispute this and were happy to keep everything for themselves and leave my mum to raise her 3 kids with no help financially...

It hurts, but what can you do?

But he DID think of his family from his first marriage. He chose to leave some money to his grandchildren. Perhaps he felt that all his adult children were capable of supporting themselves, and that his Senior widow would need the money to care for herself in her old age. It's not his fault she chooses to leave it only to her own children when she dies.