Do you 'Expect' to Benefit from Your Parent's Will

[Pembsgirl]

My parents had nothing, so having no 'expectations' of an inheritance in years to come, I worked hard for everything I've got, but so many people own their own homes now, so am I being unreasonable in thinking that the vast majority of people these days 'expect' to benefit from their parent's Will, and wonder how they'd feel if parents left it all to people other than their children?

Someone in my family, at a very ancient age, suddenly felt sorry for an exploitative lying stranger and changed will to leave everything to the stranger. It was horrible for their only child, who felt completely rejected and unloved, and had done nothing to provoke this. It wasn’t about the money it was about the rejection and betrayal.

We never speak of the dead family member. The stranger who inherited gave us the personal effects / anything he couldn’t sell. We threw it out because looking at it was upsetting.

A crap legacy imo.

My parents have told us that the family home will be left to me and older sibling as half the value of that will be roughly the same as they gave our younger sibling to buy a house recently. Whether that is actually what is in their wills or not I've no idea but its been spoken about very openly in the family both before and after they helped younger sibling. Whether it goes to 2 of us or all 3 I'm not really bothered about, the longer we have to wait the better as it means they are in reasonable health. They won't be going into care at any point as all three siblings have agreed that any caring needed will be done by us (and that's the norm where we are from).

My hapless ex will inherit almost everything from his parents as he is the oldest son, so he will get the farm and farm house and the associated money that goes with it. As his father died first his mother has at least changed her will so the family home (not the farmhouse) will go to his other siblings, but he will get everything else purely for being the oldest son. His mother is worried as he's a feckless bastard who spent the money he got from me when we divorced in 6 months on alcohol and drugs but she dare not break the tradition of the farm going to the oldest son... I have a feeling that if my child had been a boy she'd have skipped a generation and given it to them direct, but as she's a girl the farm and the rest go to her son (my daughters dad) and his mother is just hoping he doesn't piss it away.

I'm thumping hard on wood here, but... Yes.

My dad died a bit over 2 years ago, and my mum inherited everything from him. Between them, they had generous inheritances from both sets of parents, and some from grandparents. She currently lives in a house they paid just over half a mil cash for, 6 years ago (no mortgage), and have hefty savings.
I have a sister to share with, but if mum were to drop dead tomorrow, I'd anticipate something around the 400-500k amount each.
She's only in her mid-60s, so I hope and pray she goes on for many years yet, as we're very very close.

I'm not sure if "expect" is the right word, but I know I will inherit. I am an only child and my parents talk very openly about the fact that everything will be left to me (and possibly DS, their only grandchild). My dad is an only child too and inherited his parents' estate in full, and that of an unmarried great aunt. My mum also inherited the estate of an elderly neighbour who had no family when I was 5, so we moved and they then had no mortgage. None of these estates were particularly large, but cumulatively they add up to a good sum, and meant that my parents were able to send me to private school from 11.

My parents live very frugally (by choice). They never had a lot of money when I was very young, but due to these inheritances, constant saving, hefty pensions and savvy investments they are now worth quite a bit. My mum is very cautious and likes to save, so that if they need to go into a home or seek private healthcare there will be no issues. Neither are really interested in money and are comfortable living a very ordinary life. They are afraid of debt and just save. Their house could do with modernisation, they have a small car, very rarely splash out on luxuries and only go on holiday once or twice a year, but this is their choice and they are happy. A lavish, flashy lifestyle doesn't interest them.

They often remind me that when they are gone I will receive everything and have arranged power of attorney and provided details of where all of their financial/legal deeds are stored. My mum jokes that when they've gone we'll be able to afford to move to the area which I would love to love in. I hate the thought of them not being here, but I think it's important to have an idea of what the future may hold financially and to be realistic. I know there are trust funds, etc, for my son, so it's good to know that he will be financially secure.

I work full time and do have a pension, but I don't worry too much about paying in extra.

I know I am very lucky and am very grateful to them for all they have given me. In turn, I hope that we can do the same for my DS (also an only child).

DH comes from quite a large, dysfunctional family, so I doubt we would inherit much, if anything, from his side!

@morecoffeemore no doubt your HX expects to inherit & given his haplessness & substance abuse(s) understandably your XMiL is concerned enough to set up her will to express her wishes. I assume that she has taken legal advice but could she not put the farm & lands into a family trust so that it can remain intact, in good & in family control? If he does inherit, previous examples suggest that he may loose the farm anyway so the tradition of primogeniture will end with him anyway.

Local landowner here has been forced to chunk off large lumps of farm land etc to pay off his hefty divorce settlements.

... My hapless ex will inherit almost everything from his parents as he is the oldest son, so he will get the farm and farm house and the associated money that goes with it. As his father died first his mother has at least changed her will so the family home (not the farmhouse) will go to his other siblings, but he will get everything else purely for being the oldest son. His mother is worried as he's a feckless bastard who spent the money he got from me when we divorced in 6 months on alcohol and drugs but she dare not break the tradition of the farm going to the oldest son... I have a feeling that if my child had been a boy she'd have skipped a generation and given it to them direct, but as she's a girl the farm and the rest go to her son (my daughters dad) and his mother is just hoping he doesn't piss it away...

I expect to eventually, only in the sense that I would be completely shocked if my mother and father chose to leave it to anyone else (well, either my generation directly divided evenly, or the grandchildren divided evenly). My parents are definitely not the sort to leave a late bequest to charity and I’d be genuinely amazed if they left it to another individual besides their children or grandchildren. Of course, this might obviously change if one remarried after being widowed, but both are thankfully in robust health and have strong longevity on both sides so I’d be surprised if that happened. They don’t talk openly about their wills but have from time to time said we should expect all to be split evenly among the children. As it happens, each of us have the same number of kids ourselves, so if they “skipped” my generation, it would still be evenly split “per family” in total, I’d expect.

My generation is each financially independent and well set up, including thanks to our parents support in education and when buying a home for the first time. Both parents are frugal savers and get great pleasure out of saving rather than spending. I try to encourage them to enjoy themselves more as they age and thankfully they seem to a bit - the occasional upgrade to sea view room while on a thrifty package holiday! But it simply isn’t in their personalities to “blow it all”. They seem to get great comfort out of knowing that they/we are financially secure.

Having said all that, I’d be happy to spend every penny getting them the finest care if the time comes. And I’m not at all depending on it.

Also, as much as or even more than money, one of the greatest gifts is administrative simplicity. I’ve known people left dealing with unfashionably complicated wills over very modest assets split in weird combinations - one brother left the farm of land as had been expected but the house on it where the farming brother had been and continued to live left jointly to the six sisters. It took decades to sort out.

So whatever about the money, encouraging people to make sensible decisions and plan for simplicity is a good plan

Unfathomably, not unfashionably!

No. My parents are splitting theirs in half for me and my sibling. But they don't have much and haven't invested.

I remember my mother paying into an account all my childhood and said I would get it when I was 21. When I was 25 I mentioned it and she said that "it wasn't much so we used to decorate".

I was also told last week, my "half" is being split 5 ways between me and my children.

I knew that my brother and I were beneficiaries of my mother’s will, but made no assumption that I would see much,, if any of it , as care home fees were rapidly eating up the proceeds of the sale of her house. My husband also never counted on actually receiving anything from his mother’s Will, saying it was perfectly possible that she would leave it to the Cats’ Home ( he meant it symbolically, as she wasn’t particularly fond of cats ! )

Better not to ‘expect ‘ anything - it’s the theme of many an old novel.

No, but my parents haven't ever had much. Mum died last year and everything went to dad. Dad owns the flat he lives (but small inexpensive area) so chances are that's all that will be left. But by the time it's all sold and split up between me, my brother and the grandkids and the funeral there won't be much left.

I have friends who stand to inherit a split of 100s of thousands, even millions and it's interesting listening when they all start discussing inheritance.

A friend once said that inheritance is not a given, but a gift. You can't expect anything.

My dh has a very wealthy dad, who, when died recently, left nothing to his dc, but
Had it split between his adult gc, luckily my dh expected nothing so it wasn't a shock, but his brother was distraught

@IHadADreamWhichWasNotAllADream
We are married.

No.

Parents are divorced and remarried. DM and husband have very little.

DF and wife are wealthy. Stepmum has an adult child from previous marriage. I have a sibling.

DF announced several years ago they had written their wills so that when one dies the other will inherit and when the remaining dies the estate will be split three ways between me, sibling, and step-sibling.

Fully expect DF to die first. He has multiple health problems unlike stepmum who can do marathons etc. Fully expect stepmum to then leave everything solely to her adult child and grandchild. It sucks because all the money has come from DF and it's unlikely that his grandchildren (mine and siblings children) will see a penny.

I've accepted it for what it is.

@Cookit no you literally ing

@Cookit no, you literally inherit the debt. You are also expected to continue paying back the debt until the estate is settled.

Oops something went wrong there. Ignore first sentence. Couldn't see it for some reason when typing.

In that case giraffe there’s no tax benefit from the first to die leaving anything to children - you can leave it all to your spouse and then carry over the unused IHT allowance: that’s up to 1 million quid in total including value of main residence.
www.saga.co.uk/magazine/money/personal-finance/inheritance/how-much-inheritance-tax-will-i-pay

@cookit

"the debt gets taken from the estate first or you can literally inherit debt?"

If you are in England, you can't inherit a debt. If the debt is greater than the value of the estate, you inherit nothing, it wil all go to pay exenses and the creditor. (you can try to buy sentimental items from the executor).

If you are in China it may still be different.

I googled the Germany thing, which intrigued me. Yes you become personally liable for debts when you inherit an estate, but you don’t have to accept, you can disclaim the inheritance. So if you were terminally ill and child free you probably wouldn’t get away with racking up enormous credit card debts on fancy holidays and then making a will leaving everything to Piers Morgan. There’s only a limited period of time to do it though, so if the debts were concealed and the legatee was unprepared maybe they might accidentally affirm the inheritance and only find out too late (IANAGL so maybe it’s not like that really). I bet it happens all the time in the German equivalent of Agatha Christie.

MN always talks as if the right to leave it all to the cats’ home (Testamentary Freedom) is obvious and unchallengeable but actually the Anglosphere (apart from Scotland) is an outlier - most of Europe enforces defined shares for children and spouses.

Debts must be paid before any inheritance is paid out.

If there is not enough to pay off all the debts there is nothing to inherit and any remaining debts die.
There is an order to pay off debts.

This is why it takes so long to sort an estate. You have to gather everything in and sort all bills.

It's worth remembering that widows and widowers often meet someone new, and leave all their possessions to them, sometimes on the understanding that they eventually will pass to the children.

The second wife or husband may however do something entirely different.

Brot was clarifying their earlier point about German law pigletjohn

thanx

Mil and her second husband both had wills. She always thought that his mirrored hers, so that whoever died first left everything to the survivor, then when they died everything would be split between dh (mil's only child) and step-sil (his only child). Actually, HIS will left everything to his daughter, with mil entitled to live on the interest of his investments until she died, at which point it would all pass to step-sil. Unfortunately for mil, he has always put all investments in his name only (but promised her she would be well looked after if he died), and the interest in those investments would have given her approx £1500 a year by the time he died. Luckily, step-sil was willing to act as if there was no will (the solicitors said this was allowed, they are in Scotland if that makes a difference), at which point they both got half the money straight away. That benefited both of them, as the way his will was phrased neither of them would have had any money until mil died. So step sil has had her inheritance (and spent it within 6 months, without anything big to show for it), and mil has said she won't be spending any of the money she got as she thinks of it as dh's inheritance (she's actually managed to spend more than half of it already, 3 years later). We won't see any of that money, and we're ok with that, but it does sting to see step sil blow through that much money without even thinking about the future.

We did inherit from dh's uncle, even though we'd barely spoken to him in years. He'd written his will years earlier, leaving all his money to dh as his only nephew. He didn't own a property, but he'd worked full time for 50 years and had very frugal habits. He had enough that we used it to pay off half the mortgage on our (small) house.

If there is not enough to pay off all the debts there is nothing to inherit and any remaining debts die.
There is an order to pay off debts.

Well here yes, but it doesn’t sound like that is the case in Germany. I’m finding that a bit mind boggling tbh.

I am one of 2 beneficiaries to my parents' will. It is completely possible that either/both of them will end up needing care so there may not be much left. They're in their mid 60s so I very much hope to not consider the matter seriously for another 20 years or so. They're amazing grandparents and great parents.
I suspect my in laws will live a very very long life out of spite then leave it all to the grandchild they actually bother with/the adult children who have failed to adult and keep going back for handouts, as opposed to the adult child who shows them respect or all their other grandchildren they don't bother with.