To ask how common it is for family siblings to fall out due to disputes over wills...

[BraveMerida]

....for whatever reasons? And how long did it take for it to finally resolve?

Fairest thing seems to be to leave everything to partner and then for everything to be shared equally between children - regardless of their situation.

But there are very few solo marriages these days. Most people have had several goes at it and several children by different partners. It can be a mess to untangle.

My parents had mirror wills, everything equally divided between my brother and myself. Only by father remarried after my mother died. Quite rightly he provided for his new wife, as any decent husband would do. Whether step mother lives up to her side of the agreement remains to be seen, however I dont begrudge her, she made my father very happy.

Lady, in this case, it was not an unfair case of sole beneficiary.

Happens in my DH's family every generation. You would think they would learn, but no. DH's mother is constantly on the phone to solicitors 5 years after her father died, as he left the farm and money to the feckless younger brother. Her brother and sister no longer speak and the family is totally fragmented. This is after her own grandfather did much the same thing. You would think they would learn from their mistakes, but DH's useless younger brother was bought a house and now looks down on DH for being independent.

SaucyJack the other side of the coin (perhaps not in your case) is I've seen people give up their jobs and independent lives to hang around waiting for an inheritance, doing everything in their power to be the one favoured in the will. And sometimes old people do have to go into specialised nursing homes, because its more beneficial for them.

I quite agree ceres. There is no rule that says siblings must be treated equally in a will. It's entirely up to the testator what s/he does with their assets.
Having said that, personally I do intend giving equal shares to my two if I am the one who is the survivor out of me and DH. If he's still around, then he gets the lot (and vice versa when he dies). Keeps it simple.
I will have (haven't done it yet, must sort it) a letter of wishes stating my intentions for a few minor gifts to people, charities etc, which I would hope my beneficiaries would implement. But they would be free to choose not to.

On my side, I inherited nothing when dfather died, nothing was transparent or communicated by my elder brothers. I have 4 older brothers, I'm the youngest and only girl, it was a very traditional chinese (plus dysfunctional in our case) thing that everything goes to the oldest son. I still see them as my brothers, i hold no resentment towards them.

In the case of leaving to children, sometimes those children have died. It is never cut and dried. A will has to be what you want to happen otherwise whats the point?

In my family the will got changed because of this. This was seen as unfair.

My fathers family fell out over my grandfathers will. It was before my time but there would have been very little money.

My mother split all money (not huge amounts) fairly between myself and my sister and we decided between ourselves re personal belongings. Neither of us would have wanted any bad feeling. I have been surprised at the number of people who have commented on our agreement and the stories of what has happened in their families Match what has been said on here.

ceres - Fairness does come into it when leaving money to children. Because if you are not fair as a parent, it sends the clear message that you love some children more than others.

My DP is the unfavoured child in the family. My FIL is quite blatant about it, although denies it if anyone confronts him. There won't be much money, but I know my DP will probably inherit a lesser share than some other siblings. It is wont be the money that will hurt, what will hurt my DP is once again being treated as the unfavoured child.

Can you refuse inheritance? If you are left a property with a mortgage but only relatively small equity, located a long way away. It could easily be possible that by the time a buyer is found, the mortgage costs, travel costs and legal fees could result in the inheritance actually costing you money.

Precisely, Grennie.

ceres Some people are just mean and spiteful and enjoy sowing discord amongst their family and enjoy the power of continuing to do so after death through the medium of their will.

So sometimes it is much more healthy to ignore the will and come to a mutual agreement of a fairer distribution, this is what my DF and his siblings did.

Yes, Bear. We went through something similar. We (my siblings and I) 'settled' at mediation against the person contesting the will (abusive stepfather who had left my mother 10 years before) because even though we'd have won in court, we had to consider the expense (emotional, and financial) of doing so, and cut our losses.

I must say, I find the concept of being the sole beneficiary due to the luck of being both firstborn, AND a male, completely odd and am surprised it still goes on. I would struggle to judge a second born female who challenged such an antiquated custom that was born of the view that women are unworthy simply because they are women.

It goes on a lot....maybe not in this country now a days but certainly until not so long time ago.brag

In Scots law you cannot disinherit your spouse or children in a will. All your children are entitled to share a third of your movable estate – so, everything except land and buildings. Your widow/er is entitled to another third.

This is not contesting the will, as a child you have a legal claim & just need to provide proof that you are their child (birth certificate). My friend's mum did this when her vile mother left everything to charity.

It is difficult when parents remarry - it is hard when you don't inherit the family home & it goes to another family, but 'fairness' and 'legal rights' are 2 separate things.

I wouldn't contest a will, but I would assert any legal claim I had, which is different.

My siblings inherited large amounts of money from a rich relative who died before I was born. I got nothing, except that one sibling bought me a skirt when he came into his money.
When my mum died she left the bulk of her small estate to me. The others didn't like it.
I can truly say that inheritance has destroyed our family, but I see that as a good thing. At least I don't have to have anything to do with them anymore.

There was a thread not so long ago when someone asked if she was being unreasonable because she was upset as her mother was leaving her rather large house to the son, not the daughter. Or perhaps allowing him to live in it for as long as he wanted. I can't quite remember. The son, was by all accounts a perfectly functioning adult who had lived independently but had moved back in after his divorce and had been back with his mother for some time and was showing no signs of moving out. So he potentially could live in the house for the rest of his life, and the sister may never receive what she had been bequeathed.

She was called horrible, greedy, and grabby by many posters. I thought her mother was being monumentally unfair.

My eldest brother will inherit our family's property almost entirely.

Quite right to, he has been there all his life first working with our Dad and he pretty much took over when Dad died and he was only 16.

We all know the plan and agree with it. I think my Mum will probably leave her house to my younger brother who still lives with her and looks after her now. Again no argument from me.

I only I asked that I get right of first refusal on home if my brother ever decides to sell.

Have not read that thread brag, but I hope the brother wasn't expected to be homeless so that the op could get her 50% share of the house.

In a moment of rare candour a couple of years ago, my father told me his/stepmother's will put their house in trust to her until she dies (he has serious life limiting illness so will no doubt go first), then splits 50% to stepsis with 'his half' split between me & blood sis. On a rational level, i know it's his/their money to do as they wish with. Although the current 50:25:25 split makes sense & I wouldn't want 1/6th if stepmum had had 4 kids for example, the way he's done it does hurt. We've definitely been pushed out by stepmum. My sister doesn't know about the will, but I know she will be very hurt by being treated as only 'worth' a smaller share. She is also an avaricious, vindictive sort of person, so will probably contest it & tie us up in court for years. I kind of wish they'd just split it equally 3 ways, as no-one would feel less favoured. In our case, the % split will be seen as signifying the lower esteem we are held in, even if that isn't what is intended.

Well Brave, it was more a case of him being a perfectly capable, gainfully employed grown up of 35 who had moved back in with his mother after his marriage broke up, 5 years previously. The house was (according to the OP) large, expensive, and paid off.

Well, that's how I saw it anyway! As I said, others saw it much differently.

my parents decided a few years ago (after my sister got in trouble with the law a number of times and stole thousands from them) to put their grandchildren (as all of us siblings had children) into the will instead of us children, so that they could easily bypass my sister inheriting. I'm not really fussed, as any money I inherited would most likely have been used for the benefit of DCs anyway, but it has caused some bad feelings among my other siblings.

I don't know the legal ramifications of it all, but my parents (although my father is now deceased, so this will occur when my mother passes away) were very open about it, so it was common knowledge. Hopefully it won't kick off, but I have my suspicions that 2 of my siblings, plus my sister (so basically everyone but me) will fight it to get the money themselves. I imagine it'll be pretty ugly, so I'm glad I don't live near any of them.

My mum's toxic family have done so many truly AWFUL things that I couldn't list them!

One thing that stands out is when Dgrandma died, she left a Will that shared everything equally among her children, but it didn't go into personal possessions.
DGM had four daughters and 4 gold rings. My mum would have loved to have one, and it seemed obvious that 4 rings went easily into 4 daughters!
However, the witches 3 decided in my mum's absence that "to save any falling out" all the rings would be buried with DGM (who was cremated despite her expressed wishes to be interred in the family plot because of one sister "not coping with seeing her Dmother being put underground")

My mum is convinced that those rings never got put in the urn and buried at all.