Imheritance

[EWAB]

My son aged 8 has just inherited just short of £120,000 along with all of his first cousins from a much loved grandmother. Her nieces got a couple of grand. My eldest son her step grandson precisely nothing. She was loved and credited me with encouraging her to travel to see her siblings and she went to NZ with sister last year so no comments that we wanted her money etc. her three children however did expect to inherit but DP's siblings happy enough their children are inheriting [one able to buy outright house in university town}. However, it now appears that the niece has said that MIL arranged the will this way so DP would not inherit and my elder son would not ultimately benefit from her money! I asked my DP if we could arrange things to be more equitable ie leave more to older son. He refused wants his half of our assets to go to his son and my half to be split between both. He is upset and according to one of his sibs has approach sib with three children asking them to make things fairer as essentially instead of will being divided between her own three it was split 6 ways so ultately family with three children benefitted disproportionately. I am devastated for my elder son that he is financially worse off than his brother and for the future.y partner is clearly upset about everything but isn't sharing thoughts other than it was unexpected and he'd hoped to pay off mortgage! It has made me question everything about the grandparents who always seed nice.

Also,myou are out of order to ask your DH to arrange things so that he goes against his deceased grandmothers wishes. But if the grandmother set it up properly, your DH won't be able to do anything about it anyway. Your DH is also out of order to ask his sibling to mess around with their children inheritance. Neither of you have any right to go against the will.

There seem to be two issues here.

The first is the inheritance from the grandmother and your desire to 'balance' that in your will and your DH's by leaving more to the child who hasn't just been given £120k. I don't think you'll get far with that.

The second and IMO much more important issue is that your DH wants you to split your estate between both your DC while his goes solely to your youngest (his biological child.) Your MIL had every right not to pass money on to her step grandchild. Your DH has every right to pass all his estate on to his biological child. No one has any right to tell you how to split your estate and your DH has a bloody cheek to suggest that having inherited £120k at 8 years old, your youngest child should inherit three quarters of your joint estate if you and your DH get hit by a bus. I would see a solicitor privately and make sure that your will gives your estate to your eldest child.

As unfair as the current inheritance issue might be, I would be a lot more concerned about what would happen to your eldest if you died before your DH. Would he ever see any inheritance at all? Would your DH just leave all his assets to your child together?

Just re read and noticed you said partner and not husband. Please get some good legal advice.

Anon, the OP wants her DH to split his estate unevenly and leave less money to his child and more to his stepchild to compensate for the fact that his child has inherited money from his grandmother.

Backforthis I know. I understand that entirely. I wasn't commenting on that as I have very mixed feelings about it.

I was commenting on the fact that if both of them got hit by a bus tomorrow, her DP wanted their joint child to inherit 75% and her child from a previous relationship to inherit 25%. If my DP wanted that for my children, I'd be straight out the door. I asked my DP his thoughts on it and he was also appalled.

It took me a while to notice that

But what if the eldest child is due to inherit from his own father or paternal grandparents?

Can the person who says there's no inheritance tax if the money is left to grandchildren back this up?

Op are you expecting elder son's family to leave money to your younger son? No? Then why should it be the other way round. She has gone to great lengths to ensure your eldest doesn't get her money, there must be a reason for this.

My estate goes to my children, my mother would never leave money to my partner's children. Money stays in the family!

But what if the eldest child is due to inherit from his own father or paternal grandparents?

I think if this post proves one thing, it's that you can really never count on you (or your children) receiving an inheritance from anyone else. Anyone at all

Well OP, there's nothing to stop you changing your will to favour your eldest and state it's because your youngest will also inherit from his dad (your DP), while your eldest will only inherit from you. You don't need your DP's permission to change your will nor do you need to tell him what your will contains.

Another thought, is it possible that your oldest child will inherit from his father's family? Either directly his dad or grandparents on that side? Even if you don't have anything to do with them, they might still mention their blood relation in the will.

This doesn't mean that she didn't care for DC1, that she didn't enjoy his company. Perhaps look at it this way, your DC1 is a relation of hers via marriage, in the same way you are. If she hadn't decided to skip a generation, would you expect the inheritance to be split evenly between just her sons and daughters, or would you expect it to be split between sons, daughters, son-in-laws and daughters-in-laws? (even if that meant that some couples got more than a single DS/DD). Effectively, your DC1 is a "grandchild-in-law" - a relationship that's via marriage/living together rather than a 'blood' relation. She might have loved and cared for him, and she might well have loved and cared for you, that doesnt mean she should see you as a DIL in the same way as a 'real' DD.

Both your DCs are your DCs, but they are not both your DP's DCs. No matter how well people treat them within your DP's family, this is only his family because you are with DP. If you split up with DP, your DC2 will still be related to these people, but your DC1 won't be in the same way you won't be anymore.

I got what you meant OP

My DH and I are potentially in a similar situation.

However I am in your DH's position rather than yours.

Frankly it's very difficult. However we have discussed it.

My position is that when I married DH and became a step mum, I made a commitment not just to DH but to DSD.

A caveat here is that I have been SM since toddler years, so what follows I would feel differently about if the relationship was more recent.

DH and I have agreed to "offset" the inheritance our son will get from my family for DSD (we know she will get FA from her mother's family - not lack of love, lack of cash).

There is a caveat in that "family items" which include furniture, FE Books, jewellery etc are excluded from this (which to be fair is when added up is far from insignificant).

So it's not perfect, but we think it's fair. From a "cash" POV we are striving for them to have equality.

Hope that helps.

oh, see the point about the DC1 potentially inheriting from his paternal family has been made! It's not a given, but then when DCs have different families, you do have to accept there's a chance they will have different inheritence outcomes.

DinosaursRoar - That is the point. Generally when people marry they accept that any child who comes into that marriage, is their child and should be treated as such. So of course it is galling when other family members don't agree.
In Scotland there are rules about who you leave your money to.

Sorry meant to say, the way your partner wants to split your joint assets is in my view unacceptable (especially so in light of recent events) and I say this from someone in "his" position.

I'm torn on this. If the elder son has his own grandparents and father to leave his an inheritance, should the younger one share this?

My father offered to buy his granddaughter (the youngest from a blended family, she has two step sisters with different fathers - and her own father, my brother, is dead) a car. Should he also have offered to buy the older two girls a car each? They both have fathers living and grandparents.

Starling - Sounds fine. Except not all fathers or grandparents have any money.

That's true... But my dad can't afford to buy them all a car either. And my niece doesn't have a father any more.

Of course he may prefer his own kin to his step-kin - even if he could afford to buy them all a car why should he?

Like so many others, I found your opening post very confusing.

However, ultimately, it's up to the person making the will to decide who they want to leave any money or assets to. Just because one recipient (or non-recipient) feels it's unfair, it doesn't mean things should - or could - be changed.

Presumably - if I've understood the first bit right - the thinking is that the dc who wasn't mentioned in the will, isn't gifted anything as they aren't actually the grandchild of the person making the will, but they will have their own sets of Grandparents ?

The question that's not being asked is what would DC1 stand to inherit from the OP's family?

I'm assuming it's bugger all given if this was not so the opening post was irrelevant.

The key issue is the 75/25 proposition right now, not the inheritance already dispensed.

I can't see anything wrong with the way the GM distributed her estate. 1/6 each to each of her grandchildren is fair.

I understand why she didn't leave anything to your son especially as you are not married to your DP. I am NOT saying I think it's the right thing to do but I bet a lot of people would do the same as the GM. If your DP had adopted your DS then it would be wrong of the GM to exclude him.

I think that the best way to deal with you and your DPs wills is to do the normal thing of each of your estates being split between you own children. So 'your' estate is split between your two sons and your DHs estate goes to his only son.

I think you should disregard your younger sons inheritance.

If your elder son has no contact with his bio 'dad' then perhaps you, your son and your DP could consider your DP adopting (not sure if that's the right term) your son then it would be right for him to split his estate between both his sons.

larant - no, not all do, but if you have DCs with different fathers, then one thing you have to accept is that while their maternal family side is the same, their paternal side of their family is different, with different amounts of money, different interest levels, different outcomes (and obviously the same but reversed when men have DCs with different mothers). The DCs don't have the same family backgrounds, so the inheritance outcomes may well be different.

MIL's inheritance here is a red herring imo. Your Dp's behaviour is the important bit. He is telling you through his actions that he does not, and won't see your child as his, hence his comment on splitting legacy. He is also telling you some unpleasant things about his attitude to money, and social boundaries by going to siblings about 'unfairness' that they have more children. I'd listen to what he is telling you and think on it hard.

I honestly can't see why it's unacceptable for the DP to want his estate to go to his children only. Once each half of a couple have split their assests fairly down the middle, what they do with it is up to them. This couple aren't even married.

There are nearly always going to be differences between what children end up recieving in blended families, but that's because they have different parents.

He is telling you through his actions that he does not, and won't see your child as his

What's wrong with that? I'd have been pretty pissed off with my DH if he'd behaved as if he were a biological parent.