What would you do re inheritance and unborn children?

[Plasticfoot]

A relative has left all his estate to his grandchildren, split equally between them (in trust). He has a lot of them, also wealthy, it's c. £150k each

This has caused various frictions. E.g. one of his children has 5 children, another has none, so it hasn't been split equally between his DC iyswim.

Similarly, GC are still being born, so the childless son, may yet have children and the existing GC may end up with siblings who don't inherit.

As the adult children (parents of the GC), would you do anything to try and even this up? Is that even possible, given those who have inherited are mostly minors and the money has been left to the GC, who could decide that some of it is to be given to future siblings?

Among your own DC, how would you manage a situation where one DC had a big inheritance and another didn't?

If you have a child (or children) who will inherit from their grandfather and you are planning to have more kids then I'd aim to put aside an equal amount of money for the ones born in the future. Explain to all DC that they will inherit X amount at 18 and just say that Grandpa left money to all his grandchildren but as Mary and Tom weren't born yet when he died, you have supplied an equivalent amount for them instead so that all will get the same.

More difficult if you can't afford to do that, obviously, but at least you have many years to plan for it.

Upsetting for his own children that he didn't divide it equally between them, but that was his decision and there's not much for anyone to do about it.

Well it may end up not being up to the children, depending on the age of their children when they inherit. I think it’s quite common now to split between GC rather than DC mostly because DC will be older and so already have houses etc, GC will need the help for that. It would make more sense in the will to be more vague and state that money is to be split “between GC” and then at point of death it’s shared. However if relative doesn’t want to do that and wants to be specific I wouldn’t go against their wishes.

How many people could afford to put aside £150k (or multiples of) whilst also raising children to 18yo?

There are a number of ways he may have done this.

He could have named them and specified the amounts.

He could have said all my grandchildren (which will then include any born after the will is made). He might also have said something like all my money goes to my grandchildren in equal shares.

So unborn may not be an issue.

He's already died. The existing GC range from a few weeks to 22yo and there's one already on the way, who won't inherit.

None of them are mine, he's my uncle, so it's my cousins who have this issue.

Can he split any amount for his grandchildren between the number of children he has himself, and stipulate that it must be shared equally between any kids they currently have or will have in the future?

Or seems quite unfair to the son who has no kids to far, compared to the child who has 5 kids

IANAL but I don’t think there’s anything to be done.

A deed of variation has to be signed by the beneficiaries and most of the beneficiaries are minors. I don’t think the adults can choose to deprive a minor of their inheritance.

How are the trusts set up, did the deceased set up one per GC already?

He has died; the Will can’t be changed by him.

That seems like he didn't really think this through, or expected to die in maybe another decade or so when all GC are born.
I agree it's awkward and unfair and I don't know how I'd deal with this if it were my children with some inheriting and some not. It would be horrible as I wouldn't be able to make it up to the ones who didn't get anything and it would cause such resentment. What a difficult situation.

(And to add, if he has already passed away, I'm sorry)

The money already belongs to the living grandchildren who have inherited. The trust is just a way of safekeeping it until they are adults. So the adult children (legally) cannot decide to redistribute the estate as it's not theirs to give away.

Once the children who have inherited in trust reach adulthood, they could (in theory) choose to share the money evenly, I think I'd be very wary of asking that of them as it obviously puts a huge pressure on them as young adults, not really fair to put them in that position.

It's shit for your kids who have not inherited but there's not much you can do except try to save for them yourselves.

It’s unfortunate that some of the unborn grandchildren aren’t going to inherit, but it is what it is.

I don’t think their parents can choose to deprive sibling A of half their inheritance by splitting it with as yet unborn sibling B.

We had this. My son inherited £50k, my daughter got nothing. She wasn't around when the will was written and jt wasn't amended in time.
Legally we can't enforce our son to share the money.

So we remortgaged the house and they both have trust funds.

My Grandfather left our inheritance to us stating the amount left to us and any was to be left to any child born within a year of his death. The amount did not vary depending on how many children each of his children had. One family had three and the other had none. Also it was not shared in the case of any other child being born with in a family after that year. Thankfully that issue did not come up. However one uncle had no kids before my Grandfather died or within that year. They have not inherited from their Grandfather.

We Grandchildren had no say in the whole things as we were all well under 18 at the time.

Not many people can save close to 10k a year 😅

Well clearly some could, some couldn't. A PP has already said that she did exactly this for her younger child (albeit "only" £50K). Your OP made it sound as if this was your own situation , but from your update it's not directly relevant to you anyway. Your cousins will presumably make their own decisions about how to provide for any unborn kids.

The executors should probably get specific advice on whether the expected grand child en ventre sa mere should get a share - depends on the exact wording of the will as I understand it.

True! But the majority of folk won't have more than 1 additional child, so it likely wouldn't be quite that much. Still an awful lot, but if I couldn't manage it by 18 then I'd be aiming to give it to DC2 more gradually over a number of years post-18, or just to ensure they got it when I downsized or died. My real point was that I would personally try to make sure that DC2 didn't inherit substantially less because of an accident of birth, and while in an ideal world they'd get a lump sum at 18 like their sibling, there are other ways of managing it depending on family circs. OP has now said that she isn't in this situation herself, so it's all pretty hypothetical anyway.

Noone can provide for kids not even born when they die - crazy to expect it - they wont have even known him.. you can put 'per stipes' in your will which allows.for all children born up to the point of your death but it cant allow for unknown numbers after that. Its just a nice thing that some of the children have a bit of funds - why does it matter that unborn children havent got any of it.. not everyone gets the same in life! With our first child we had more money and went on more holidays, clubs, saved more for college for him - years later we have four kids and two redundancies behind us and dont do the same things - we are not killing ourselves to provide the same everything for our youngest child that we did for the first - it just is how it is!

I hate all this leaving part/ everything to grandchildren trend. It encourages unfair situations like this. My own mother has talked about leaving half to my brother (childless) and the other half to my kids ‘because she just loves them sooo much’. Effectively disinheriting me. I was my grandfathers favourite by a country mile, we were very close, but even he didn’t stray beyond dividing his assets equally between his 3 children. As it should be. If he’d stipulated a 4-way split between his children and me I’d have been mortified. Obviously people can do as they see fit with their wills but I’m sure some folks just don’t comprehend the ramifications of their actions.

If grandad is that loaded he might think that he has already "gifted" his children plenty and his grandchildren are going to have a financially more difficult start in life.

You can't take into account people not born yet, how exactly do you do that? Because theoretically male children could continue to get younger women pregnant indefinitely.

Honestly if grandparents left our kids £150k that would be helping us, that's a lot of uni debt (if applicable) paid off and a decent house deposit. Saves us two jobs.

So you are very lucky if your kids get this sort of cash. Can you not just be grateful or thankful even and not stress that others whom may never be born have not received anything.

My grandad did 80k each for his 2 children and 4 grandchildren.

“So you are very lucky if your kids get this sort of cash. Can you not just be grateful or thankful even and not stress that others whom may never be born have not received anything.”

OP and her children aren’t in the line of inheritance- the deceased is her uncle.

Surely you can see that if one sibling, currently 2, gets £150k at the age of 18 and the other, currently in utero, does not, that’s an issue which needs managing?

The residual from the trust can be split between any grandchildren yet to be born or a deed of variation can be applied for to split the trust including the child yet to be born

@mitogoshi is a deed of variation allowed which disadvantages minors, who can’t sign it?