Inheritance split - what’s fair

[Taraohara]

Parents who are not Outwardly wealthy but saves carefully for their children.

They have 5 children oldest pretty well off . 6 figure salary. House around £1 million mark and London rental. No kids. 2nd eldest, stable job comfortably off. Old enough to have been able to get on property ladder . Nice house. 3rd Newly married One baby. Stable job. Small house . Unlikely to manage next house for considerable time due to wages. 4th chaotic . Drink / drugs issues lives with parents. Youngest is single just starting out in work . Lives with parents. No savings .

What’s best way to split inheritance?
Equal for all?
Or split according to how much each would need ?
Not a thread about If inheritance is to be expected or not .
One parent thinks it should be equal split as unequal may lead to problems down the line

YABU = split equally
YANBU = according to need

Zip for 4 as he'd likely spend it on drugs, but equal for the rest.

Equal. I am youngest of 6. My dad always said whatever he has after mum would be split 6 ways, nothing to grandchildren as parents could sort them out. Very fair. He died 25 year ago now. Eldest sister bullied mum I to setting up trust funds for her childre and one other sisters children. Caused eruptions in family. She stole mu.s money slowly untill mum finally believed what was happening and removed her as executor. Mum now penniless in care home. One sister who genuinely loves and cares for mum. To me, she should inherit if anything is left. Families are hideous where money is concerned.

The problem with leaving someone out or reducing their share on the basis of current situation is that a Will can be in place for decades before it is executed.

In 20 years time the 'wild child' could well have settled down and be living a blameless life.

All that an unequal split will do is build resentment between the siblings, possibly adding to a sense of 'golden child' and 'scapegoat'.

Definitely equal. There's no way of predicting what the future holds for any of them.

I was the well off older child with the London life, lovely house, marriage, high flying career etc.

However couldn't have children, spent all my money on IVF with no success and then my marriage broke down as a result of the stress and had to sell the house, move to the country and step down from my job.

At the end of the day it's your money to do with as you wish, and the remaining spouse (and potentially and future partner they might have) will ultimately have the choice of how to distribute. But to prevent future resentment and bitterness between the kids and give them the best chance of remaining a close and cohesive family of siblings when you've gone, splitting equally would probably be the best route.

You would hope that if one fell on hard times unexpectedly that the others would help out and make sure they were ok.

In that situation it'll be the family relationships that determine how they support each other, rather than the money you've allocated.

Definitely equal. Our famly have always done it equally. I even had the probate extract of an ancestor who died in 1808 and even he left it equally.

I have 5 children. My daughters are London lawyers (on £100k etc) and my graduate son drives a van so on about £22k. However they all had the same chances and no way would I equalise things after and the same for my student children - they will all have the same. However as I am only 22 years older than my daughter inheritance will be something they will be up for probably in their 60s so not something like to have a big impact on their lives.

Equal my grandmother divided it equally between the 6 grandchildren so £70k each. At the top end one cousin earns about £250k and at the bottom end one earns about £25k. The rest in the middle.

Seems a very difficult situation. Essentially you have a cohort of children who are likely to have very different economic prospects simply because of when they were born. I think that's more difficult than if one has just done better in the career than the others. It's very hard to be fair and not cause resentment in those circumstances, because society hasn't been. I think in a lot of cases it's seen as the safest option to split it equally.

They really can't give a large sum of money to the one with drink and drugs problems though. Could kill them.

Yes, it should always be equal. They have the same chance when they start out, the rest is up to them. Of course the taxman will leech quite a lot too.

Absolutely qual split.

I am the female sibling who is being left out of the will due to being 'sorted' while my lazy arse sibling who still lives at home at 47 will inherit. With my Mum it's a boy thing though, she's leaving money she has saved to my Son as "he has been around longer" but not to my daughter. It's really fucking hurtful.

I don't want her house/money, my brother can have it, but what she's doing to my kids is awful and as it's her money there's diddly squat I can say about it, rightly so. Doesn't make it any easier to swallow though..

My parents are very frugal but have a lot of savings and I'm grateful that they have been scrupulously equal with us, even when I told them not to.

Brother - I'd guess earns £40k, travelled a lot, lived abroad, parents gave him the whole deposit for his cheap house. Single and intentionally will remain that way.

Sister - household income of £70k I'd estimate? Couple of years older than me, bought a house after me with whole deposit from my parents.

Me - household income of £100k. Husband and I refused house contribution, but later accepted same amount of others as wedding gift. We saved a 20% deposit for our house by ourselves.

I did try to persuade my parents to send the deposit money I didn't need my sister's way. They refused. After, it did occur to me that my sister had in fact had a similar or indeed greater income to me for a long time. She just didn't save. They were dead keen on a particular suburb also, whereas there were decent enough ones nearby.

And my brother snipes about my 'lovely home' - but it's not all mine. It's shared with my husband. I've just chosen to enter a legal arrangement where my chief financial asset is shared with another person, which he never wants to do. With the good and the bad of that! His house isn't half as nice as mine either.

Long story short - my parents are right, split equally all the way!

Frenchw1fe Sun 01-Dec-19 21:31:31
"My parents have a slightly different problem as my ds is a nun. Any money left to her will automatically go to the convent . My parents would like my ds to have some money of her own just in case she ever needs it. Atm she is an equal split. My dm would like me to keep the money for her but that could saddle me with other problems."

@Frenchw1fe, I'd suggest DPs put your nun DS's share in a trust. That way should she leave the convent and need the money, it's there for her. Or if she remains a nun til the end, the convent will get it after she's passed away. If you keep the money for her, you could have tax implications etc. so best to separate it all out so your DM's wishes are complied with but you're not saddled with any problems.

@CleansUpDragonPoo
I think you’re right. I’ll chat to them over Xmas.

what are everyone's thoughts re: one 50+ sibling living in the parents' home (rent/bill free) - the other one independent - does the one 'residing' in the family home (not looking after parents or anything like that - quite the opposite actually :-( ) automatically become sitting tenant...

@Frenchw1fe, there'll be charges and fees of course with a trust, but also peace of mind all round. Hope the chat goes well, wishing you a merry Xmas..

Equal split between the siblings. We are currently rewriting out wills. My kids are young, but if we find there are issues with drugs or financial struggles we will look into an executor to manage the funds or pass to the next generation for that person. It would still be an equal split but managed differently.

I’ve seen it argued before that the less well off sibling should get more. I don’t agree. Hard work/success should not be penalised. It should be an equal split of the family’s fortune not a chance to discriminate.

equal shares. If the oldest, richest etc. decide to give to the others that their business but I think that all children should be treated the same.

You have no idea what the future holds for any of the siblings. Siblings will benefit differently throughout their lives anyway eg. My parents had no money when I was little so I had little, never had financial help of end kind, With my DS they were doing better- she got help from them through UNi etc. Stayed at home longer as well.
I don't begrudge her, they'd have done the same with me if they could have. I would be really hurt though of they left her more than me for whatever reason ( she'd split it with me though as I would with her iof positions were reversed,) and she would if they left me more.
It should be as fair as they can make it.

Equal all the way. Please don't chastise a child for being sensible. It happened to my husband, he's the youngest but most sensible, did everything right. His brothers (2) made total mess of their lives, always borrowing from parents, never paid back, thousands upon thousands. Mine got no help right from start of his life. Because he was successful through very long hours and hard work, guess what, they left it all to the others, he got nothing. Also, this could cause terrible rift between siblings after your demise.

Equal split unless one has health issues.

I agree with bpirockin, equal split unless one has health issues that require special care.

If children are hard up and struggling during parents life time, there's nothing to stop the parents giving them a helping hand sometimes. However when it comes to inheritance they should be treated equally.

Wow I disagree with this. I would say it depends how much they are likely to have as an inheritance and I would give kids 3, 4 and 5 priority over an equal amount which would make a difference in their lives (eg to afford the deposit/ move house). Anything left would then be split by 1 and 2 up to the same amount as 3, 4 and 5. And anything left after that to be split equally by all.

I would make sure 4's was in trust for him and I would make arrangements now to help him move from the family home or provide in the will that he can remain living in the house for a set period after death conditional on him maintaining this.

I would explain what you are doing to at least 1 and 2 and this would be on the basis that the first amounts would not make a significant long term interest in their lives. I might let them have first dibs on any personal possessions / jewellery.

That said, family dynamics are odd and I would split equally if I thought 1 and 2 would create a real issue over this. I hope they wouldn't as they have received benefits the others won't, but people can attach disproportionate emotion to things like this.

the charities were a complete pita hassling for the money before it was all sorted.

I work in probate (it's fascinating!). I love my job but I never fail to be shocked at the behaviour of the charities and it seems the bigger they are, the worse their conduct is. One in particular has caused deep upset to the family of one of our clients with the way they've acted.

Personally my brother is better off than me. I would be angry with my parents if they gave me more than him because of it. His worked hard to get there but I have been a mum working part time to provide for my kids. We were never treated differently so why should that happen in the event of loosing our parents. It would only create conflict and wrip the family apart. If your going to treat them different you need to discuss it as a family now so they know the reasoning etc. With the drink and drugs i suggest putting it in some kind of trust or stipulating how it's to be used. Maybe set it up as a monthly figure for x amount of years or it can go towards purchase of a house or something. Seek legal advice on that bit.

If you want to split unequally, please talk to all those involved first. It may be that they agree with you and that the eldest agrees they don't need as much as the others. Just don't split unequally without discussion first. It can ruin the relationships of those left behind and create incredibly bad feeling.