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.

These threads are pretty much the only thing that makes me happy to come from a long line of only children.
And they remind me to check my will again.

Normally money would be left in equal shares to the direct line of descent, and then if one of those had died that share would stay on that line and be split between the next generation down.

So the nieces should in theory have had a share of 1/3 of the money. If there are three nieces they would have £80K each. But Granny split it 6 ways so they have £120K each.

How very dare she. Doing what she wanted, with her own money. Tut

I think people have generally been a bit harsh with the OP. Yes - I accept that people can do what they want with their money in a will in the UK. However, their decisions will have ramifications for their loved ones. The OP is upset that perhaps she and her eldest child were not as beloved by her MIL as she thought and that the disparity in fortune between her DC will be problematic in the future, especially as her DP would still like to leave equal shares between the children. I would be in a bit of a quandary too about how to best manage things for the future.

Daisy Godwin (who is wealthy in her own right) writes about the confused feelings she had when her mother left her out of her will here:
www.theaustralian.com.au/life/weekend-australian-magazine/i-was-cut-out-of-my-mums-will-did-she-love-me-less/story-e6frg8h6-1227193564991

I might be on my own here, but I think its obvious what she's done and its pretty horrible. Yes, its her choice to do what she wants with her money but theres no barrier to criticising that choice or someone's feelings about a person who has died. The poor son who doesn't inherit. If she didn't want that to happen, she could have just left the money to her own children to divide as they saw fit. So I think its pretty obvious that her aim was to exclude him. Imagine how he will feel if years from now he is still financially disadvantaged compared to his brother. How horrible.

Or better to leave no-one any money and give it all to charity. DH's family are obsessed with inheritance and all of his parents have fallen out with their siblings and uncles and aunts over it. FIL has solved the problem by gleefully telling DH and his siblings that they won't have to worry because he's spent all 3 inheritances he's had, including one from their grandfather!

I might be on my own here, but I think its obvious what she's done and its pretty horrible.

Yup, completely on your own. The woman left her money to her grandchildren. In the range of horrible things to do, leaving £120K to each grandchild doesn't strike me as much of a crime.

I agree that it is perfectly reasonable for a grandparent to split their inheritance among the grandchildren. Although some families appear to "get more", they don't. Each individual to inherit gets the same amount of money.

MIL arranged the will this way so DP would not inherit and my elder son would not ultimately benefit from her money

I would definitely have a problem with this though. The outcome might be, on paper, fair, but why would MIL frame it like this? Why not just say it's being shared equally between all (blood-related) grandchildren? Nobody can argue with that. Why make a point of it happening this way so someone is deliberately excluded?

*It is also possible that he will spend it on travel

What!! A young man of 18 spending his own money his granny left him to see the world and have fabulous life changing experiences.....that would be an outrage! hmm*

yes well you are more zen than I am. My mother left about 100k in total after a lifetime of saving, paying a mortgage, working. I work and have done since leaving school/college, I pay my mortgage and save - for my kids upbringing, education, and my retirement. I hope to leave something to my children like my mother did that will give them a hand up when they need it.

If my 18 year old (I have one) took the money my mother left after a lifetime of saving/paying mortgage and spent it on travel, while I myself was still (like most people) worrying about my pension and still paying off my mortgage, yes I would think "what a waste". no matter how "life changing" the experiences were. I couldn't do anything about it but that is how I would feel.

There are loads of threads on here debating inheritance tax which talk about the fairness or not of inheriting. The point everyone acknowledges is that inheriting from the previous generation generally gives you a leg up/start that you wouldn't otherwise have. My parents would talk about it ("well maybe what is left will educate the children" etc) - I think it gave them pleasure to think they would help. Personally I am not saving and being financially careful to fund an 18 year old's travel. If my son wanted to do it, I'd be fine but I wouldn't fund it. I am funding his university education though.

Of course in this case the money is the grandchilds-he can do what he wants with it, blow it on the horses if he wants. And maybe his grandmother was more like you and would have approved of whatever he did. I wouldn't.

I am with the grandmother on this.

DS2 has three children. Our plan is to split our money between him and DS1 who, currently, has no kids.

I asked on here if this was fair because of DS2's children, but it was very much the MN opinion that DS2's family planning choices were not my problem, hence our estate will be divided into two.

However, DS2 has a GF with her own DD. No way do I have, or want, the same relationship with her as with my own DGCs. She is a nice little thing but not part of my family, gene pool, or whatever.

We are currently exploring ways to ensure that if DS2 marries then dies, any wife cannot swan off with money destined for our grandchildren.

It seems the OP's grandmother-in-law felt similarly.

I might be on my own here, but I think its obvious what she's done and its pretty horrible

I agree. I'm not actually arguing that she should have left money to her stepgrandchild. But the way the inheritance scheme has been deliberately designed to bypass her son to exclude the stepgrandchild, because what? she was afraid that her son might one day want to give his stepchild some of his money? That her son might actually come to cherish, love and legally provide for a stepchild he thinks of as his own?

It seems harsh to me.

TrickyDecision However, DS2 has a GF with her own DD. No way do I have, or want, the same relationship with her as with my own DGCs. She is a nice little thing but not part of my family, gene pool, or whatever.

We are currently exploring ways to ensure that if DS2 marries then dies, any wife cannot swan off with money destined for our grandchildren.

Wow. Lets hope they don't inherit the family way with words then either!

I would definitely have a problem with this though. The outcome might be, on paper, fair, but why would MIL frame it like this? Why not just say it's being shared equally between all (blood-related) grandchildren? Nobody can argue with that. Why make a point of it happening this way so someone is deliberately excluded?

Isn't that what she did? She gave her inheritance equally to her blood grandchildren. Anyone who isn't a blood grandchild was excluded.

because what? she was afraid that her son might one day want to give his stepchild some of his money?

Yes, because she wanted HER money to go to HER grandchildren.

That her son might actually come to cherish, love and legally provide for a stepchild he thinks of as his own?

Well let him do the providing himself, rather than use the Grandmother's money for it.

People make selfish, nasty wills that seek to control the behaviour of others from beyond the grave. That's what happened here, and it's what trickydecision intends to do to her children as well. It's like lobbing a bomb in the middle of the surviving family members. I think you just leave the money to your dc, and they need to decide what to do with it. Split evenly and leave them to it. What they do with it, how they protect it, how they spend it or who on is not for the deceased to decide, if they want to maintain the best relationships in their family.

TheChandler

But the way the inheritance scheme has been deliberately designed to bypass her son to exclude the stepgrandchild, because what? she was afraid that her son might one day want to give his stepchild some of his money? That her son might actually come to cherish, love and legally provide for a stepchild he thinks of as his own?

This was an allegation by the OP, correct? Do we know for sure that's why she did it? My understanding is that she only left money to her grandchildren, thus she bipassed all of her children in the will. If she intended to prevent the OP's older son from inheriting, she could have left some money to the OP's younger son, and then the rest to the OP's DP's siblings. She didn't have to exclude all of her children just to exclude the stepgrandson.

Itk the DSs know exactly what we intend to do, no bombs to be lobbed.

I agree Itk - it does exert control from beyond the grave.

To everyone who's arguing the toss, the OP says in her 2nd post that the wishes were prompted by her ex-MIL's (the DGM's) ex-DH:-

If money had been split 3 ways ( between partner and two siblings) our little family would have had an extra £120,000 but by bypassing that generation DP's nieces have benefitted. I am confused about my original AIBU I don't feel MIL should have left my elder son (he's 15 and his father rents) anything but to have been so blatant and not left her children the inheritance makes me ill. I have never had cause to complain about any of them they never left older son out.

she clearly states above that it is her DP she is upset about having been left out not her eldest son and:-

I hope elder son doesn't hear about this and when his brother accesses money for house etc he will recognise the money came from paternal grandmother.

The eldest DC will just have to accept that, just as if there were his own proper DGP and they left him anything in the future then of course they would not leave the favoured one anything now.

TrickyDecision what will you do if any wife is considerably wealthier than any son of yours, and earns more money too, so that your son benefits disproportionately from their marriage with her? Will you subsidise your son so as to enable him to catch up? Or be happy for your son to swan off with the benefit should they divorce?

IMHO if any fiancé of mine had parent that showed such behavioural traits, I'd be telling him if he didn't expressly ensure that he inherited nothing whatsoever himself, he'd be getting ditched.

No way would I let someone treat me as a second class citizen.

tricky exactly - the stepfather can treat his DSS well in future if he so deems fit.

I'm in a sort of similar position - got stepfather but parents not legally married. however mother is 10 years older than stepfather. If she dies first she leaves house to be split between the 2 DC (me and DB) and DSS. also contents etc. they also own a property in France and 2 BTL properties. all that is to be split between all 3 of us plus savings, investments etc.

if he dies first then DM automatically leaves all this to us 2 DC.

It's a bit of a pain to work out but that's the way its planned and its very fair.

The only thing they haven't worked out is care home fees but as both of them are adamant that this is not what they'd want then that's not an issue yet.

I think if my DM and DSS had had another DC then of course this person should be factored in.

when DGP on DSS side died they didn't leave us anything but SDGM was quite generous with money towards us SDGC. there's also DSS DB who's schizophrenic and he got the house as he lives there but this would be split between his 3 DB if he died and his DNephews (4 of them) - we would not expect anything!

DSS has also written out his Dnephews from will.

I think the DSS not receiving an inheritance is a red herring and the crux of the matter is that the OP is feeling hard done by because had her DP and his siblings inherited, they would have received £250k, not £120k. Greed is an extremely unattractive trait.

The MIL was fully entitled to leave her money to whomever she wished.

As for 'taking advice' which I presume to mean legal, I hope you have lots of your own money to waste on legal fees which will achieve nothing providing MIL was of sound mind and her will was legal.