To think this is morally wrong?

[Banana0pancakes]

So DH's biological father died 4 years ago. He was a waste of space and did nothing but cause upset while he was alive.

Dh and I went to the funeral with DH's half brother to put the past to rest and support dh half brother.

At the wake dh met family he had never met before because of the loss of contact growing up, though dh half brother had always been close to this side of the family.

Dh grandfather died last year, dh had become close in the last 4 years after the funeral reconciled them.

We have had the will reading and went along. Dh was not mentioned in the will at all despite it being made in 2017.

Dh brother was left 1000.

Every other grandchild was named and left 2000.

DH's biological father was removed from the will and his third of the estate was given to the two remaining children of the grandfather. There is also a clause in the will that states should his children die - the two it is now shared between- their portion should be given to their own offspring.

So am I right in feeling this is immoral? They've removed dh father line completely out the equation, treated dh half brother differently to the other 4 grandkids and totally pretended dh doesnt exist.

I'm so sad for him. If he had received a split of his fathers share it would equate to 15k which would be lovely but not massively life changing, so it's not about the money. It's a about feeling like he's been shit on again.

We're not going to contest it, I just want to know if I'm being overly emotional or if this is actually a shit thing to do?

Immoral? no

This is DH's father's fault and his alone.

The other children might also not be thinking clearly.
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My Mother died in 2013. In 2015 her Mother (my Grandmother died). My mother’s sister (my aunt) behaved fairly badly in the aftermath of both deaths but it is the comment after my Grandmother died that has stayed with me.

“I think it is really unfair that my Mummy died and you are inheriting lots of money and my children get nothing”.

This was her interpretation of a totally straightforward will that split the estate between my grandmothers two children and if one of them predeceased her their share was to go to their children.

I’m now no contact but would love to know if she gave my cousins anything from her share.... when my paternal grandparents died the following year my dad/aunt did deed of variations to benefit my generation as help with housing costs and they don’t and it made sense tax-wise. Paternal family often more sensible about such things.

It's not 'immoral'. Morality doesn't really come into it when dividing up an estate, IMO. The deceased has the right to leave their assets to whomever they choose in the manner they choose.

This. My grandmother left her house, her only asset, to her son, and nothing to her two daughters, one of whom is my mother, who had been the one to undertake all of her care. I will assume some ingrained patriarchal nonsense about the male line etc.

It was a dumb decision, because my uncle has significant MH problems (not that anyone in the family will acknowledge them), and despite being a skilled builder/carpenter by trade, has let the house (which is empty) literally fall down in the 20 years since he inherited it -- he obsesses about it, keeps everything exactly as it was when my grandmother lived there, visits it to sit on the drive way, but is apparently unable to act to repair the holes in the roof, prevent vermin etc. It's now too unsafe to go inside,

But that was my grandmother's decision. No morality about it.

OP, I can't understand why anyone thinks YABU. I would feel deeply hurt on DH's behalf.

GF had a chance to make a little token amends for his son's bad behaviour, but instead chose to punish his innocent grandchildren. I hope DH can forget about his stupid father and grandfather, and just feel glad he's with you.

He made the will in 2017 but DH didn’t get reconciled with the deceased until 2016 so had only been on the scene a short time whereas potentially the other GC has been in the scene for maybe decades?

Have I got the timeline right? If so there’s your answer 🤷‍♀️ fair or unfair.

@Thinkingabout1t Would you put someone in your will if you had known them for one year? If not then you're being a hypocrite.

It's not nice but it was his grandfather's money to leave however he wanted.
Maybe he thought he had a few good years left and was planning to update his will.
Who knows....

IMHO a will reading is just another way for a solicitor to get more money out of the beneficiaries in the situation where a solicitor has been named as the executor. A friend of my dad's did this - the will reading session cost over £1,000....

Hopefully one benefit of this whole Covid-19 situation will be that we all realise that we don't know how long we'll live for, literally anything can happen, and that we'll all make sure that we've got up to date wills, funeral instructions and living wills to ease the burden on our families

@Thinkingabout1t his GF DID make amends. He formed a relationship with her husband. That counts for so much more than money and that is what they should be concentrating on. They had time together, who cares about the cash?

Not at all immoral. People should be allowed to dispose of their property, assets and money after their death however the hell they see fit. No one is entitled to money they didn't earn. If a person wants to give it all to Cats Protection League or Flat Earth Society, that's entirely they're remit. You're both miffed because you didn't get money you weren't entitled to.

It basically turns out that the grandfather was as much as shit as the father was.

It's awful for your dh, I completely agree.

Hard as it is, and unfair as it is, your dh needs to - for his own sake - try and shake it off.

So what relation is the half brother to the grandfather? Is he no relation at all to the grandfather, but the child of the ex-spouse of the waste-of-space son; or a child of the son by a different relationship, in which case why does he inherit anything if the problem is with the father?... Frankly, carefully giving one grandchild £500 less than the others and one of them nothing at all sounds ridiculous to me, but then if the father was a toxic waste of space, then maybe the apple didn’t fall that far from the tree...

Ie maybe grandfather was a toxic person himself and enjoyed making a bitchy will.

Maybe he wanted to recognise family who had helped him over the years? Not that you didn't, I don't know.

Wills are funny. They bring out the worst in people. I can see why your DH feels hurt. To be completely ignored must hurt.

My father was a vile and abusive man. He neglected and abused us and the 4 of us were taken by my Grandparents when I was 7. My siblings were 16, 15 and 13, so our Grandparents played a parental role, obviously more to me than the others.

Although it was done in a more complicated way my Grandparents basically disinherited my father and split his share between my siblings and I as if he was dead. Two of my cousins feel this is very unfair as they feel we got cash and they didn't. They can't see at all that the holidays they went on, or the first car one of them was bought, that their parents used the money for was them benefitting. They firmly believe that it should have been just children or just grandchildren.

Hmm I do see why your miffed OP although I wouldn’t describe what he done as immoral as such, but it was a shit thing to do.

This is the problem with families/wills and inheritance. I’ve seen it happen twice in my own family, an my friends family.

You do wonder what makes people make the decisions they do. Some would argue it’s distasteful to discus such a thing and it’s up to the deceased, which of course it is, however.....I think for some (rather than it being about the money) it’s about not feeling important to the person that died. There’s definitely a give element of that for some people. Then they’re left feeling crap and the person wasn’t that bothered about them.

Again I’ve seen it happen it my own family and rifts it can cases are tragic really. The fallout for the sake a few thousand pounds, is so sad.

When I die I will share mine equally between my two children and grandchildren if I have any. I would hate to cause a rift

Also as another pp pointed out. Inheritance brings out the worst in people mostly!!

People on this thread have shit reading comprehension and/or aren’t reading the OP’s subsequent posts and they’re just rushing to mouth off. The husband didn’t just meet the grandfather in 2016.

The OP’s husband always knew the grandfather all throughout childhood but weren’t that close due to issues with the father. They even said the grandfather sent presents, etc. It’s just that the two men grew closer once the bad actor in the equation, the father, was removed/died. The OP’s husband has known his grandfather his entire life.

@Banana0pancakes Yes it feels odd that he was left out of the will entirely and even weirder that the half brother was given half of the other grandchildren. I would see that as something to query rather than the husband being omitted. You can at least explain the omission by thinking the grandfather didn’t get around to updating the will. But the half-brother’s inheritance? Really odd.

This. My grandmother left her house, her only asset, to her son, and nothing to her two daughters, one of whom is my mother, who had been the one to undertake all of her care. I will assume some ingrained patriarchal nonsense about the male line etc.

There's a relative of mine whose MIL has split her will in a ridiculously patriachial way.

She has two sons and a daughter. One son has two daughters, the other has no children. Her daughter has a son and two daughters.

So 2 sons, 1 daughter, 1 Grandson, 4 Grandaughters

Her estate is split into 4. She kept saying so and everyone assumed it was 1/4 for each of her children, then 1/4 to be shared between the Grandchildren.

Turns out it's 1/4 each for her 2 sons, 1/4 for her Grandson and the remaining 1/4 is to be split between "the 5 girls". After her child-free son pointed out that that was ridiculously unfair on his sister, who does all of the running around after her because the two sons live abroad she said she'd change it, but never has

I think it's immoral to take a stand on his wishes after his death.

You just think his decision was bad because your family didn't get anything. Just because it's bad for your family doesn't make it immoral.

Who will decide what happens to your money after you die?

Legallyblue I would not leave a grandchild out of a will just because his father behaved badly. If anything, I would treat that child better because of the lousy father.
la1ka the OP seems more hurt by the GF's rejection than about the small amount of money. So would I be.

@lyralalala holy crap. If I were that daughter I would stop doing everything for that woman immediately. How insulting.

[quote JingsMahBucket]@lyralalala holy crap. If I were that daughter I would stop doing everything for that woman immediately. How insulting.[/quote]
I would as well. It's somehow even worse that she's getting a considerably less share than her son.

My friend said they always had a feeling she might leave the grandson more than the granddaughters because of how she's been with birthdays and christmases, but they didn't expect her to lump her daughter in with the granddaughters

Neither of the sons have much to do with her as they're abroad. They've encouraged their sister to do less, but the mother has disabilities and she feels that she should, even though she resents it.

It's a horrible situation.

@TooTiredTodayOk

I haven't known there to be an actual gathering for reading of a will in years.

How did you get notified of it and why were you invited if your DH wasn't even named in the will?

It's really most unusual.

This. It's like something out of an Agatha Christie novel.

Anyway, at the time this will was made, DH's father was already dead and DH had only been in touch with his grandfather for about a year. I doubt his grandfather meant to make a point of leaving him out.

It sounds your DH didn’t really know his grandfather that well. A will isn’t a reflection on someone’s legitimacy or lineage etc. It’s reflect on how close they were to the deceased.

Everyone says "it's not about the money" but rarely do they mean it. I work in a care home and it's amazing how many estranged relatives pop up when they're nearing the end of their lives or as soon as they've died. So many vultures around.