To think this inheritance split is not fair?

[Big8]

Ok, firstly I know I should be grateful to be getting anything from my grandparents. And I am. But I'm just wondering what the general consensus is on this...

Grandparents have 2 offspring.

Have set aside £x for grandchildren.

There are five grandchildren.

My father has 4. His sister has 1.

Now rather than the £x being split into 5 equal portions for us all

Half of £x goes to Aunts child.
Half goes to my dad's children to be divided between 4.

So say it's £1000

Cousin gets £500.

We get £125 each.

What do you think of that?

It's really not 'standard'

'Standard' would be estate split equally between DC and then special equal amounts gift to g/c.

Blame your dad, he chose to have 4 kids!

[wanders off to fantasise about killing siblings]

Yanbu

All the grandchildren should get the same, in my opinion.

We've made our wills. As a family we've always tried to be fair, both DC have had some financial help, at different times in their lives. They are both in healthy financial situations ATM , neither 'need' to inherit. Regardless of their finances, we have always been set on 50/50 to the children, and They know that's what we've done. We've left a relatively small amount directly to each of our three (2&1) young grandchildren, they'll all get the same. Its up to our children to eventually do what they wish with any inheritance. I could never favour one over the other. There won't be much money, but they'll get a bit from the house.

"So suck it up"

such an intelligent comment. I think people should be banned for this.

OP, I'm with you on this and everyone else who's said that as the grandchildren's money is separate and isn't part of their parents' inheritance, they should get the same amount each.

I disagree mambono5, I think it's totally unfair, either you just leave your estate to your children 50/50 (in this case) or you divide equally you don't set out one favourite.

So in my imaginary will I leave my estate totally in equal shares to my two children. Or, I leave my whole estate in equal shares to my 5 grandchildren. Both fair.

Or I leave 50% of my estate to my 2 children (i.e. 25% each) and the other 50% to my 5 grandchildren (i.e. 10% each). Still fair.

What is not fair is that I leave 25% to each of my children, 25% to one grandchild and then the remaining 25% gets split into 4 for the other 4 grandchildren. I wouldn't be surprised if my grandchildren were upset if I'd done this. And I'm not surprised that OP is upset by it either.

And it's not "grabby". If my parents leave their estate to a cats home then that's their choice, I would not be upset. But if they leave their estate 50% to my sibling and 50% to a cat's home then that's unfair of them and I would be hurt by their actions because this would clearly show that they think more of my sibling than of me. Not grabby, just hurtful.

How is it actually worded in the will? You say in your op that it was left "to the grandchildren"; that doesn't put their parents in the loop at all?

Surely grandparents have a relationship with each of their grandchildren as individuals? It's not like you carefully spend two hours with your son's one son, then half an hour each with your daughter's four daughters.

Great point.
Do the GPs spend 4 times as much on Xmas/birthday presents for 1 GC?
Attend 4 times the number of family events/shows, etc?
Probably not.

All GC are equally important and should be treated as such.

If the grandparent left £1000 to be divided between the grandchildren, then it should definitely be split evenly ie £200 each. It all depends on how the will was written - but I'm sure that this is what the deceased would have intended. My own mother died last year and left £1000 to each of her 7 grandchildren. I think this is the norm and the fairest - and I say that as the mother of the single grandchild, whilst the others have 3 each. My son would have been quids in, if it were how the OP described, but it wouldn't be fair on the other grandchildren.

Leaving a small equal amount to each grandchild does not "favour" either of the two children in op's example does it?

If they are leaving £10,000 in the grandchild pot and the rest of the estate is £90,000 (say) then if each child gets £45,000 that is totally fair. No one child is missing out on anything because there is a separate amount ringfenced for the grandchildren.

Odd that they want to be fair to the parents ie 50% each but not the grandchildren.

Not logical or fair.

YogaDrone I understand the points you are making, I just don't agree with you.

By the time I have somehow helped my own kids with uni, car, deposit, wedding... I won't have anything to give away anyway

If the money is an amount that can feasibly be spent in the deceased's children's lifetime, then I think it should be left to the children.

If it's intergenerational money, it probably makes sense to consider the number of grandchildren.

My grandparents have changed their will as my aunt married a feckless arsehole to fritters their money away, has led them into bankruptcy and managed to blow £200k of his own inheritance without ensuring he even had a roof over his head. No children involved, everyone is an adult. If aunt dies before grandparents, the money will be split between dad and his other sibling. I think this is sensible.

Inheritance very often isn't fair. If we were to sell our family home, proceeds would be split between 4. I have 3 children, so my share gets split by 3 when I pass it on. My sisters both have 2 children, so each of them gets more. One sibling doesn't have any children, so that could end up split between them all!

There are 2 ways for wording the bequest you can leave £1000 to be split equally between all grandchildren or you can leave half that amount to be split equally between grandchildren in each side of the family. Neither is right or wrong just different ways of viewing things, I doubt very much that the individual dgc were named.

This is one of those funny old threads where I think nearly everyone is posting bollocks.

Hello Hully!

bibbitybobbityyhat

what would you do? Spend everything before you die? That's an option too.

In the event of the inheritance being passed to the grandchildren, (missing out the parents, assuming they had died) then the inheritance would be legally split in precisely this way if there had been no will left by anyone. The law would rule that the original inheritance be split in two equal shares, one to ds and one to dd. Then the grandchildren would receive the share of their (assuming deceased) parents inheritance. Under law, this is the correct split.

Most of my family leave only to the next generation to avoid this issue after one relative split their will on an individual basis to their grandchildren but didn't factor in that other grandchildren would be born between the date of will and the date of death, nor did he factor in that he would have another child himself. No one fell out but there was a huge amount of hurt that would have been the last thing he intended.

Same boat here mamabon5

My parents have the simplest of wills possible - equal shares each of their children. We as a group can then decide whether to gift the grandchildren, nieces and nephews etc. out of the overall estate. If they have one of course!

My Aunt had a lot of 'fun' rewriting her will. Playing about with who was in favour. Eventually she died leaving sums not to her brothers or nephews and nieces but to our children who ranged from 18 to just about to be born. Some of us had finished having children, two of us were pregnant, one nephew will never have kids.

So we have a range of kids some with a nice nest egg, held in trust till 18, some born a year later with nothing. The children of the stepniece were included although she's actually a proper jet-setting millionaire!

I struggle to think of my Aunt without the complicated headache these pots of money have had long after she's dead. Wondering how I match it for my younger child.

If, when I die, I have any money to leave and I have any grandchildren, I am pretty sure I will leave an amount for the dgc and the rest to be split equally between my two children. And if I leave any for the dgc then it will be an equal amount to each of them.

I must be some sort of freak!

If, when I die, I have any money to leave and I have any grandchildren, I am pretty sure I will leave an amount for the dgc and the rest to be split equally between my two children. And if I leave any for the dgc then it will be an equal amount to each of them.

Bollocks!

Not really. I agree. Divide between DC and then separate and equal bequest to DGC. It's fairly standard.