To wonder if parents' will isn't "fair"

[toastedbeagle]

My parents have written wills recently and decided to split their estate etc equally between descendants rather than children. Do you think this is fair?
For the sake of argument let's say there are three children and three grandchildren, but unequally distributed. So estate divided into families would go 50%, 33%, 17%... But each person is only getting 16.6%.

I'm not sure if this feels fair, but on the other hand wills are for doing YOU want aren't they, not to keep people happy.

The potential for causing upset is massive if the estate isn't split equally between the next generation. I can see that some people think it's fair but if the youngest child inherits 1/16 of the estate and then goes on to have 3 kids while the eldest has inherited 1/2 between them and their 3 kids, I can see there's a huge potential for discord in the next generation.

Like I said earlier - my feelings are nothing to do with my own situation (I have power of attorney for my parents so we have a good degree of trust in one another) but I have always been brought up to believe in things being fair.

What the OP's parents are suggesting seems to me to be unfair. And it does reward the fertile, however much anyone says it's not about that. If your children inherit 25k each when they're at university/trying to buy their first house, of course it affects you as their parent. How could it not?

TalkinPeece - surely you noticed before she died that your MIL was a rather vindictive old woman? If not, then perhaps you have learnt to behave like she has if you think you should never trust anything, as she clearly didn't trust you to be nice to her unless you thought you would be getting something out of her. Either that, or it wasn't her last will and testament that went to probate, but one she had forgotten about, with the intended one tucked away somewhere that nobody discovered. I don't think it is ever a good lesson to learn never to trust anything. Never rely on an inheritance - yes, incredibly sensible advice, as even with the best will and honesty in the world, situations can change faster than wills do. Never trust anything - no, not good advice at all.

LyndaNotLinda - what makes you think it affects you favourably as a parent if your children inherit something? Do you think your parents benefit hugely from your money, or do you view it as yours? Why would your child spend money on something they knew you were planning to pay for for them, rather than on something they wanted that you didn't want to get them?... What you think that money had been hugely beneficial to your family if your child decided to overdose on it?...

(Would, not what!).

roundabout
no, we had no reason to disbelieve her and many reasons to believe
and four years of consistent misleading messages

it was gutting to the core
utterly unpleasantly visceral
i wish my kids had never had to face it

Do you fondly imagine that if your children inherited some money, they would buy you a nice house to live in?

Sorry, last message not directed at you, TalkinPeece! That sounds horrible. Are you certain it really was the will she intended, if it was more than four years old? Or was it a very recent will, changed over the time she had consistently been saying something else?

I'm sorry you had to go through that, it does sound awful - and pretty unexplainable if you had a good relationship with her.

I will be splitting my will:
33% to DS, 33% to DD and the other 33% split evenly between however many children they have plus one extra share, which will be split between my great grandchildren if I have any.

My parents left virtually everything to their only grandchild (our DS) in their wills, with me as their only child inheriting just their household effects. As it happened they both required years of nursing home care as they sadly both had Dementia. By the time they passed away - within ten months of each other - most of their estate (house, savings, pensions etc) had been spent on fees with DS only inheriting a fraction of the original sum.

He is fine with that as he appreciates his grandparents needed the care provided, but TBH - and I'm sure I won't be popular for saying this - I'm rather bitter that the grandson they adored "lost out" financially because of their health needs.

"I'm rather bitter that the grandson they adored "lost out" financially because of their health needs."

Do you mean that you had rather it been left to you as you would have coped better with getting nothing?

She spent 4 years constantly alluding to the provisions of her will, TalkinPeece? Isn't that kind of weird in itself? Your kids wouldn't have been disappointed if their expectations hadn't been raised; another reason why discussing wills before the benefactor actually departs this mortal coil is a big no no.

My parents have made it quite clear that when they go DSis & I get exactly half each of whatever might be left. We are both totally happy with this.

I have a DH & 2 DCs and we are pretty skint nearly all the time. DSis is single, no DC & earns a huge wage in London & has devoted her time to her career instead of family.

We both made our life choices, we are both happy with them.

My parents and my parents in law have both told us how their wills work in broad terms. My FIL isn't married to his partner and she isn't the parent of his children and he wanted to explain that she would (if he died first) stay in their house and to reassure his children that once she died things would be split fairly between his family and her family. My father wanted to show that he had his affairs in order and to ask my brother and I to be executors, oh and to talk about tax.

No one talked about how much money there was (not very much for ILs quite a lot for my parents), it was more about the logistics. Both were straightforward and the conversations caused no issues. I found it reassuring to know that all parties had thought about what they wanted to happen, had written wills and set up trust funds as needed. FIL is still in fairly good health (the conversation was ten years ago) while my father told us a couple of years before he got brain cancer and died. I'm very glad he didn't feel he needed to tell us things when the cancer affected his speech centre as that wodul have been very distressing.

I don't think it's fair.

But hey, what can you do?

(Apart from hold a grudge ;))

roundabout - is that comment directed at me? I already own my house thanks pretty much outright and it's lovely. But thanks for your concern. What a bizarre take on things. Once again, I'm not talking about me. I know exactly what I'm going to inherit - I was with my parents when they drafted their will because I did mine at the same time.

The reason I said that is because a lot of parents help their children out financially - with university costs and/or with house deposits. So of course it's very helpful to the next generation if those costs are covered by grandparents. So not 'nothing to do with their parents' as another poster (or possibly you) was attesting.

That takes the prize for the most badly written post on this thread. Hopefully the gist comes across

Scooby, yes, I know you are right there. It will be something I want to discuss with a solicitor soon.

I am chewing it all over in my mind. I have a recommended solicitor in mind who is well versed in these things. This thread has nudged me towards setting up an appointment this week.

If this thread is making anyone think of writing a will then you might want to have a look at WILL AID info here. It means you can get a solicitor to write you will in return for you making a donation to charity. They suggest a donation of £95 per will (I think) but it's optional.

We used WillAid when we wrote our will a few years ago. It was easy to find a local Solicistor.

Would you rather I sounded really affected and asked whether "one" would do this or that, Lynda, so as to help you interpret my posts less personally? I'm not remotely interested in your personal situation, just your interpretation of who benefits from money. If given while grandparents are alive, then yes, they could benefit their children by paying the grandchildren's school fees or university costs and insisting their children spend any money they had saved for this purpose on themselves, instead, but why would they offer to do that if the parents had already saved up for it themselves? I would have thought most grandparents do it because otherwise the burden would fall on their grandchildren. And what parent would fail to save up for it on the assumption that their children would get an inheritance in time to pay for it and that their children would then choose to use it to pay for that?

Roundabout - are you really saying that if DCs get an inheritance, they should be allowed to spend/waste it as they wish, whilst their parents still use their saved money to assist them with uni fees/house deposits?

DH and I are careful with money, such that we have built up significant investments, primarily for our retirement but with the thought that we may help our 2 teenage DC with house deposits in the future.

A bachelor cousin of mine died at the start of the year, leaving his estate, which turned out to be larger than anyone expected, to cousins children. Mine will get approx 90k each on their 18th birthdays, which for my DS is weeks away.

Are you honestly saying that if either of my DC fritter away this significant (& unexpected) nest egg, that my DH and I should still use our savings to help them with a house deposit?? Cos that definitely wont happen! We will still help with uni costs, but if they choose to waste their inheritence money, rather than save the bulk of it for house deposit, then that is their problem!! Fortunately both are sensible, and DS prefers to save, rather than spend, his wages from PT job, so I dont foresee him having a spending spree just after his birthday!

My DH is self employed, so no company pension, only personal pensions and investments, but we now know that we will not have to dip into them to help DC buy houses, which makes planning for our retirements easier.

Probably the OP's parents had good intentions but it has the potential to turn into a massive, lifelong rift. The simplest way is to just leave anything equally to your dc.

I am always gobsmacked at people on here saying inheritance is a gift that shouldn't be expected. I'm sorry, but most struggling families in real life absolutely do not see it that way. I remember the financial impact of my own grandparents dying. We were then able to buy eat 3 meals a day when we got that money! I remember the joy of my mum having the money to buy me some socks from a shop. You people must have a lot of money to suggest inheritance doesn't matter. Really it makes a massive difference.

Also, it's all pie in the sky until someone's actually dead.

Pil's will divides everything equally between their dss. Bil was agitating for same system as OP's parents, ie divided amongst number of descendents which, coincidentally, he has the most of...

Anyway, fast forward a few years and due to care costs - both pil have dementia - we are now talking about dividing up around £20K instead of over half a million.

I would be the sibling who would benefit in a split like this and I feel that it would be deeply divisive despite being fair on paper.

My parents have discussed their will with DSis and me and and are leaving it strictly 50/50/ As it is, my sister is unlikely to be able to have children so may well end up leaving her estate to my kids, but it will be her choice whether to do that, spaff the lot or leave it to the cats protection league.

kath6144 - fair enough, I take your point. I'm just a soft touch! I agree with Bogeyface: it is fair on paper, but I don't think it takes a genius to see that it could be divisive. The divisiveness has nothing whatsoever to do with the parents concerned having "favourites" or wanting to benefit one family unfairly, though, and everything to do with human sensitivities. I just don't see the point in arguing it is an unfair way of doing things, it's just a way more likely to reawaken insecurities and sibling rivalries that are better kept under the surface.

FWIW in my case, there was never much money, it was not the issue.
It was certain chattels that we had been promised but will never see.
What was said constantly was "I will treat you all fairly and equally"
but the nature of the will made that impossible.