sisters have dropped hints that I will be cut out of parents will as I see them less

[entiledornot]

I happen to live 200 miles away from my parents, that's just how it ended up with work and my partner.

My two sisters still live in the same city (Oxford) and they do constantly go back and fawn over my parents often sending their dhs to help fix things around the house.

I'm only back a couple of times a year and do not fawn over them. Sister was discussing how much parents house had gone up in value and when I said great, she replied "well that's if you get any, seeing as you left them and rarely help out"

Aibu to think that I should still stand to inherit 1/3? The sums we are talking about are pretty large tbf.

Well said Oldergrandmama.

Oldgrandmama, I am so impressed by your efficiency! I have a lovely image of one of your children crossing you over something and you stomping off to rewrite the whole thing. Were you (even for a moment) tempted to produce a PowerPoint to go with it?

I can understand when you say you enjoy producing it, particularly the colour coding!

People who discuss the contents of their wills with others need a good slap.
Children who discuss the hypothetical contents of their parents' wills should be horse-whipped.

That is just tosh. people who think they are going to live forever and don't make provision for what they want or discuss it with their families are ridiculous.

My children know what is in my will. I know what is in my parents will. My DM calls me about it every time she goes on holiday or buys a new item to add in a little bequest - it is a family joke. When we finally open the safe I imagine 30 years of handwritten notes that I will have to try and link to family heirlooms.

At Christmas discussing the will is a family entertainment. I should explain my parents have an exceptional collection of items and the discussion is usually about who wants the most recent curio or something that has surfaced.

This Christmas we discussed preferred funerals at length- with the children as young a 6 chipping in their favourite hymns (well songs and I don't think DF really knew who Elsa from Frozen was never mind wanting to be transported in his coffin on a sleigh).

My grandparents all discussed death very regularly as well.

noarmani- really? As I mentioned my mother gave me her home 10 years ago. My sister doesn't even know.

Yes really, I think that's awful. VivienneMary has already explained the pitfalls of this so I won't repeat them

Sensible posters accumulating now. Egnahc your approach is like ours.

People should really think about whatbtheybcan to to leave behind when they leave a will. I know every family situation is different, but I'd hate my children to feel that we loved one more than the other or that it was unfair and maybe even drive a wedge between them - not what I would want at all but every family had different situations to deal with so its not always easy.

We had to tell my pils that we disagreed with their will, that it was unfair and that they should change it, they just hadn't thought things through.

And it's not always the children or recipients that are greedy, my father tries to use his money as a way to control us. He already tried to diddle us out of the money my mum left to us - thankfully unlike those here that never discuss wills etc, we were well aware of my mums wishes.

I think it depends on what you have going on in your life at the time how much you want to discuss wills and death.

Re the posts about parents gifting property, I thought the only major pitfalls are if the parent dies within 7 years of making the gift or if they made the gift purposely to avoid paying care home fees.

CGT will be payable if the property is sold and the person who received the property hasn't lived in it as their main residence, but that's not really a pitfall as such?

www.saga.co.uk/money/news/2014/january/what-costs-will-i-face-if-i-give-my-house-to-my-children.aspx?page=2

bigblue, why not at least tell your sister?
it must be awful to find out something like that at the same time as dealing with the loss of your mother
most people would see it as a 'i never liked or loved you' message
if explained beforehand, she could at least be assured of her mothers love

I think there's a few things here.

A) you shouldn't expect anything anymore unless your parents are signifiantly wealthy - care homes can easily run into £4k a month in some parts of the country and unless you or your siblings are prepared to take in an elderly parent with conditions like dementia, you could be looking at 10+ years of that. The council only takes over when there's only £21k left currently, so a half mill house can be run through easily.

If one of your siblings is prepared to give up work, freedom (you can't get a babysitter easily for a dementia suffering parent, many can't be left - so family carers are often accepting limited time out and off for a decade), then there's an argument that they should get a larger reward from the pot for doing that... I would point that out to your siblings, they might not have had conversations about what they are prepared to do in order to protect their inheritance. (I would say anyone who's prepared to do the work should get the money, but then my parents looked after my Nana for 3 years, unfortunately then her phyiscal health declined along with her mental health and she needed a care home situation as my parents were getting older and couldn't do the nursing care or even cope with the lifting she needed - you might give up your career and freedom for a few years, just to find the older parent needs to go in a home after all.)

B) even if there is money and your parents are the lucky ones who keep their health until just before a quick death, then it's their money - they could spend it (many people sell their houses when they are too much for them to live in then run through the difference from the family house to flat if they don't have good pensions), or they could decide to leave it anyway they want. You might find that no matter what your sisters think about them 'deserving more' your parents might not even consider changing the % you each get from anything other than a third each - or they might decide to skip you and your sisters and leave everything to their grandchildren, or to charity.

C) Do you feel you dont see your parents much or hae much of a relationship with them? You say they don't visit you, but have you ever actually invited them? As in a specific "do you have any plans over Easter, would you like to come to visit?" Could this be a round about way of your sisters telling you to make more effort. In a non-mercenary way, could you make more effort? It could well be that your sisters comments are so hurtful because you don't see that you have such a different relationship. They might well not be 'fawning' over your parents, but are motivated by actually liking them.

I'm a bit at all the posters 'helpfully' telling the OP that the money isn't hers and that the parents can leave it to the cats home if they wish. I think the OP already knows that.

yabu I am afraid. just because you are their children doesn't mean they are forced to leave you anything.

my mum does sweet fa for my nan in comparison to what her sister does because she lives 300 miles away and my aunt lives 40 miles away and is retired so has more free time. equally I live near my mum and do far more for my nan because I chose to and because I enjoy getting to see other friends and relatives that live near her. mum does a lot of ringing round and getting quotes for work on the house or sorting out other things that can be done from a distance as my aunt finds that stressful and dull. aunt on the other hand does all the gp and hospital visits.

neither my mum, aunt or I do it with any expectation over inheritance. we do it because we love my nan and it's what families do.

the way you speak about your sisters "fawning" over your parents is very disrespectful and nasty.

I think you need to grow up

BigBlue - unless there's no relationship between you and your sister and your sister and your mother already, then I'd say she should know before the fact. That way, it's something she can discuss with your mum and have directed any anger at her mother's actions at her mother - if not, it'll be you getting in the firing line. As Viviennemary has said, your sister could cause you problems, if she's told without any time to process it, she's more likely to cause that trouble.

It's always best for everyone to be open if they doing anything other than straight spilts between children. Otherwise it just causes ill feeling and anger between the DCs. If the OP's parents have done this, it's incredibly cowardly not to tell her when she's got time to tell them that they've hurt her. A will is your last message to the world and usually seen as a way of saying who/what matters to you (and on the flip side, who isn't).

Can supporting your parents, seeing them regularly and helping out with the practical things as they get older really be described as 'fawning over' them?

My sister emigrated when I was 12 years old.
In the past 40 years she has visited twice. Both times she had our Mum to a lawyer asking to have the house signed over to her.
On repeated occassions she has asked our mother for gifts of £40K. My mother became nervous.

My mother is now in her 80s. I have bought a large family home for my family and for her, using the money which may have been swallowed up in care anyway.
My mother is warm, secure, no worries about bills, fit and able enough to catch a bus and most days meets friends for a coffee. She comes home to home cooked food and surroundedby love.

Hmmm, a PowerPoint presentation - now there's an idea!

As for the different colours for different topics, even though I say so myself, it does look pretty. For example, the page dealing with the cat is printed in dark brown - the cat is a tortie, mainly dark brown. The Bank page is dark blue, as my bank is RBS and that's the colour of their logo etc. I use different fonts, too. There's a title page. Originally it read: 'WHEN I DIE', but two years ago, one of the grandkids spotted it as I was handing the latest copy over to my daughter. Child looked alarmed, until daughter hastily explained 'oh, grandmamma is writing a novel and that's what it's called ...' Mind you, our family doesn't shirk from talking about death - unfortunately, two grandparents have died in the last six years - and left an unholy mess for their heirs to sort out.

By the way, you can 'gift' whatever money or valuable assets such as jewellery as you like - but you'd better live for seven years after the date of the gift, else the recipient will be liable for tax on value of the gift which will be due when the Estate is settled. I think you can gift £3,000 a year without liability for tax, at the moment. Gifting a house comes under the same rule - and if the donor intends to gift it but remain living in it, that's very tricky - legal advice essential.

I was able to help both my kids buy their own places, back in the early 1990s, so those 'gifts' are well out of the claws of the tax inspector.

As for disinheriting my kids if they piss me off? Of course they piss me off sometimes and I'm sure I piss them off regularly, but I adore them and my grandchildren and that will never, ever change.

Now going to look into PowerPoint! (I'm not exactly sure what it is, to be honest, but it sounds ever so businesslike).

you can also give away as much as you want out of your regular income eg pension without it coming under the 7 year rule (which is on a sliding scale with less tax due per year)

Formally invite them to stay with you twice a year. It sounds like they are hurt they are not part if your lives.

" I really don't like going back home tbh as im totally stranded there as its the middle of nowhere"

Oxford is not "in the middle of nowhere" and has a particularly good public transport system - or have you forgotten you said in your opening post that they live in the city?

I appreciate some people are paranoid about giving real details, but if you don't get the fake ones straight before you start posting, it all starts looking like you made the whole thing up.

"Can supporting your parents, seeing them regularly and helping out with the practical things as they get older really be described as 'fawning over' them?"

I agree StAndrewsDay

I did all this and more for my old mum and she didn't leave a house to sell or money in the bank to inherit

wonder what the op would make of me?

Hmmmm. I can see both sides of this. Me and DB both live hundreds of miles from our mother, but in different directions. She's recently been widowed and now wants to move as close as possible to one of us and has already started to talk about us 'looking after' her. DB is dying for her to move closer to him, his DCs love her, he has a very different relationship with her than I do. He's happy to look after her. I on the other hand, would find it incredibly hard, having her round the corner expecting me to do X, Y and Z for her would drive me bonkers.

So....fast forward 20 years and something happens to her. He has potentially been 'looking after' her for years, having her round for Sunday lunch, doing DIY for her, dealing with the stresses and strains of a potentially difficult demanding elderly person day in day out. I've been to visit once every few months, done some financial / practical stuff perhaps.

To me he would have earned every penny of 'my' 50% (not that I even think like that but let's say I did). Would I feel a bit hurt that my mum had written me out of the will? Probably, but not surprised. Would I begrudge him? Not a bloody penny. He'd have earned it IMO. It's her money to do with as she pleases, and if she felt DB was more entitled to or deserving of it than me, that's her choice. My relationship with her is what it is, and there is no way I'm going to start pretending its something different just because there might be some cash at the end of it. (I do love my mum btw, it's just that our relationship has always been 'difficult', we are just very very different and never been able to find a middle ground).

So OP I think what I'm trying to say is to have a look at your relationship with your DPs. If, like me, its not that great and you are not genuinely motivated for other reasons to make it better or do more, I think you might just have to take it on the chin that you might not inherit anything. Some parents would split equally in any event regardless of what their children do / don't do, others will weigh up how much they feel each child 'deserves'. Everyone's different.

I think the OP's issue (sorry for the assumption) is that, given her parents have so much money, to disinherit her would be really painful. I doubt she would complain if her parents were to give her sisters extra in their Will for their care and effort. To leave her with nothing, though, when they have so much, gives a really clear message that she is worth nothing to them.

I think parents should try to treat all their children with equal fairness, both in life and in death. I also think it's better to be open with your children about what you hope to leave them (although it would be reckless to take anything for granted as life could still throw a few curve balls your parent's way). Nevertheless I'm struggling to sympathise.

It's not just the 'fawning over' comment although that was very revealing; it's the way you only seem to talk about your parents in terms of their value to you. You really don't sound as if you care about or even like them very much. Maybe you have reason to feel that way but I can only go on what what you've told us and that doesn't show you in a great light.

And, as Skylark has pointed out, Oxford is hardly 'in the middle of nowhere'. Why did you say that?