Excluding family members from your will

[Strawberrryfields]

I understand that your money is your money and after death you can choose to leave it to whoever you choose. However should people be more transparent about their wills in life so the family don’t aren’t left guessing in death? Have you shared your wishes with anyone verbally, shared a copy of your will, or is it under lock and key? If your will is private is there anything you think will come as a surprise to those left behind? (A good or bad surprise).

When wills are seen as last wishes or a parting gift from the deceased it can feel like a big FU to someone who is left out or left much less with no clear explanation. I’m thinking siblings or grandchildren being left out or given unequal shares. Or read a different thread where a childless uncle left money to two nephews but not a niece. Is it an oversight? Did they know it would cause hassle and they didn’t want to deal with it? Is it unreasonable, cowardly even, to stir up dramas you can predict but won’t live to see, leaving everyone else to deal with it?

Whenever I go the last thing I’d want to do is leave family with arguments of resentment. If I was doing something I felt might be interpreted as unusual or unfair I’d bite the bullet and tell the people while I was alive so my actions were not misinterpreted.

Are people secretive because they feel people will treat them differently in life?

Or is it just no one else’s business and that’s that. Interested what people think!

Both.
I was left in no doubt that I was 'baggage' and unwanted from parents first marriage, made worse as absent parent had been the one who had bought 'their' house but signed it over as I was to live there!

A letter of wishes has no legal validity. It can explain a will but it cannot change it. If someone wants to change their will then they must either make a codicil making the amendments (which, just like a will, must be formally signed in the presence of two witnesses at the same time who also sign it in the presence of eachother) or make a completely new will (which revokes the old one).

That’s really sad. I don’t think it’s fair to bank on it in this way, there’s never any guarantee.

Alternatively if the beneficiaries all agree they can make a deed of variation to vary the distribution under the will.

If say children aren't being treated the same, it's always a good idea to leave a short letter with your Will explaining why. It's a backup if Will is contested after your death.

Ok, I wondered if it may be used as supporting evidence to challenge a will.

My will won't be an issue. I'm widowed and have two DC. My will splits everything 50:50 between them.

My mother is 90 and currently her will splits everything 50:50 between me and my brother. However, lately mum has been saying to me she thinks she might change it as DB barely bothers with her. He only visits a few times a year, despite living just a couple of hours away, and rarely thinks to phone her in-between. We promised our dad, on his deathbed, that mum would be cared for, but I'm the one who visits her every week, calls her, helps her when she has emergencies. Mum says she feels like an inconvenience to DB. She's also worried something will happen to DB and "his wife will have all my money" (they have no DC but have been married over 30yrs, so SIL is long standing family). Mum is conflict avoidant and wouldn't tell DB in advance, so no doubt I'd be the one dealing with the aftermath, as DB would be upset.

I changed my Will to fully exclude one of my adult children. Their child will have some of what would have been the child's portion. I told the child who is excluded that I had done so, so they are fully aware. The solicitor also advised me to write a Letter of Wishes to explain why the child has been excluded.

Good point.

I'm not quite sure what you mean. I'll give an example which may help explain.

Under his will Adam gives everything to his son Bob and nothing to his daughter Cathy. He leaves a letter with his will explaining this is because Bob, a musician, struggles financially whereas Cathy, married with a child has a lucrative career in the City. Three years later Bob has hit the big time and is being hailed as the new Ed Sheeran. Cathy has been through an acrimonious and expensive divorce and her child has developed a severe life limiting illness which means she has to give up work.

Adam's letter explaining why he left everything to Bob and nothing to Cathy will do nothing to change the will. It may persuade Bob that the right thing to do would be to give some of his inheritance to Cathy (under a deed of variation) because their circumstances have changed but it can't be used as 'evidence' by Cathy to force a change.

If Adam, aware of the change in circumstances, left a new letter to say his children should get equal shares to reflect this, it would no legal effect. Again, it would be up to Bob to agree to vary the distribution.

That did help thank you, a very clear example.

My Will is equal between my children. When we did it I asked my (adult) daughter to sit in the meeting with the solicitor, so my children know exactly what it says. They are aware of what my husband’s (not their dad) and my Wills say.

I wish my parents had done this because we were not prepared for theirs!

My mum has left a letter explaining everything. This adult child has been giving money during their lifetime much more than myself.Theyve had lots of financial support.

my mum has also planned her funeral to a T so that I don’t need to discuss(argue) what she wants with my sibling, I’m NC with them and I want to keep it that way.

Does it make a will harder to contest? If one party claims they were accidentally left out or it's unfair, but a letter explains that it was done purposefully and why?

I don't have a will yet, i'm only 39, but my husband and I have discussed our wishes only with each other in case something happens to one of us. I was having a morbid day thinking about my uncle who died aged 45 from the same condition that I have and my husband used to work as an undertaker and has witnessed the trouble that wills or lack of can cause in families so we wanted to make it clear what we wanted.

I'm not an expert but as far as I know the only grounds on which you can contest a will (other than challenging the capacity of the testator) is if you are financially dependent on them. I think a court would require evidence to prove that. But I know it is sometimes advised to include an express clause giving a nominal sum to any beneficiary who might reasonably expect to be included to prove that they have not simply been overlooked. I don't know how these two things interact - if a beneficiary can show they were a financial dependant it might override a specific 'exclusion/nominal bequest'.

My 3 kids know that everything will be split evenly. If someone had addiction issues or similar, I’d probably do something different, but as of now they’re all fairly reliable.

My adult son still lives in the family home, so there’s a provision that the home will be sold no later than 1 year post croaking and the proceeds divided by 3. If he (or any of them) want the house, they are to get 3 estimates of fair market value and can buy the other two out. In the meantime he is liable for the costs of running the house it should not come out of the estate. However, I’m optimistic that he’ll soon have the money to buy his own place and it won’t be an issue.

I’m an even stevens person and always try to keep all financial help as fair as possible, even if it would seem someone “needs” it more than someone else.

We were invited by childless DH's sister to be told we are not getting anything. Her god daughter will. It's fine with us as we don't plan to give her anything either and we were childless at the time and have considerably more money. It makes it easier to set everyone's expectations so they don't expect anything from us either. On a side note, she's the type of person who has many home decorations that says family are people you choose which I find so cringey. When shit happens she still calls DH anyway instead of her 'family'.

Legally the terms of the will must be adhered to - unless a beneficiary agrees to sign a deed of variation agreeing to their share being split / reallocated. So to answer your question the terms of the existing will must be stuck to.

A letter of wishes is simply that morally it can set out what the person might like to happen I.e. strawberry fields should use her share to pay for their childrens university education but they don’t have to. Or if the letter says in the event of strawberryfields having another child they should get an extra 20% of my assets. if the will doesn’t state that then it doesn’t happen unless the other people receiving the inheritance agree.

letters of wishes are helpful to explain why someone might be omitted from the will or be receiving what might be perceived as an inequitable amount but shouldn’t really be used to express how someone might want to use the funds as it isn’t legally enforceable and circumstances change.

Our will leaves nothing to my step-daughter. The majority of the $ in our marriage comes from my family. She has stated that she wants no relationship with me or our sons.

She's older, has a business and a house. Our kids are both disabled and will never be able to work.

I've asked DH and our solicitor did as well to write a letter explaining this but so far he's chosen not to. Pisses me off mightily but nothing I can do about it.

Did she say she wanted nothing to do with you or your sons after hearing about your will or does she have no idea? Is she close enough to know that her half brothers will need money for care? Does she still have a relationship with her father? It’s a shame he’s buying his head about it. If you died before your husband, do you think he’d leave something to her too?

I quite like the idea re Letter of Wishes - as I’d rather no one was left feeling hurt or sidelined without an explanation, but it’s not something I’d want to discuss while I’m alive. I don’t have kids, so this would be for distant family members, friends, etc. which probably alters the dynamics of being perceived as unfair between children.

What I do have an issue with, and I’m the fifth person in my various friend groups to experience this, is fathers that have an affair, fuck off and marry the OW, write a mirror will and then, when they die first, the wife changes their will to leave everything to her kids only. And yes, I’m bloody bitter about it!

It's because someone could be very close to someone and write them in their will, but as time passes that relationship could fizz out. It would be a weird thing to tell them they were in the will.

No she made that decision years ago and it has factored into the will making. She lives in a different country to us but had enough of a relationship with her half-sibs to know the reality. When she sent an email to her dad saying she didn't want to know about what was going on with them was the last straw for me.

I believe she has a few phonecalls or emails with her dad--TBH I think he's been a bit of a disney dad over the years. Last time she was in the country with her family, staying 30 minutes away from us, she suggested he meet them on the train taking them to the airport on their way home. I suspect she has a lot of issues over their relationship and I actually don't blame her for all of it.

My inheritance from my parents will be ringfenced from him. I know if I die first he might change his will but nothing I can do about that. Whole thing is an absolute shitshow really.

I was an executor for a will that was the final FU from an individual. It was awful as an executor to be honest. The angry person deflected the blame and hurt onto the executor- lots of accusations about coercion and continued poison pen letters to one of the executors. There was constant worry about legal action and it was just not a very nice process.It is not just the person that is left out that is hurt by this approach.