Discussion on inheritance - is it sometimes ok to give children different amounts.

[Whattheactual20201]

Was talking to parents the other day and then DB
We are a family of 3 siblings, I am the youngest at 28 then the eldest is 36.
I have 2 children soon to be 3, my own house with a very small mortgage and not much left to pay. We survive and have luxuries. I do have savings
DB who is a few years older has 1 child but they are trying for number 2 and has a house with an affordable mortgage and a great income.
Eldest is DS who has one child and one on the way. She has always worked as hard as us but does earn a lot less and rents has no savings and lives a bit more day to day than we do.

My parents have always told us the grandkids will have their own “ pot “ which will be equal.

However us as their children will get different amounts due to circumstances.
They would want to leave the house to sister
With w smaller cash inheritance
Then a bigger cash inheritance to me and DB ( it wouldn’t be as much as what the house is worth by any stretch )

I am ok with this and see their point in a way however DB feels a bit hurt they would leave the house to only one of us ?

What happens if the house has to be sold to pay for care home fees?

There will be no house for your DS to inherit and is all the cash split between you and your DB.

The reverse is also true, cash is all spent and only the house if left.
Your DS inherits. You and your DB get nothing

Needs to be a % of total assets if your parents are determined for your DS to get more, say 40%/30%/30% or even 50%/25%/25%.

Personally i think it needs to be 33.3% each to ensure that it does not become an issue in later life between siblings.

I think it's pretty unfair, but more than that, I think it's a huge expectation that it wont drive a wedge between the three of you. You will all have to have a serious pact that when you parents do die, you cannot let the inheritance cause problems between you. I come from a pretty working class family, so bar my parents house I have no inheritance, but my DHs family have big inheritances coming from so many people, and when one came in 5 years ago, the caveats that came with jt it caused major issues in the family. I have to say, I hate inheritance. The greed makes me sick. In my experience, it causes mayhem in so many families. Money isnt worth it. Try to keep the perspective that family is worth more than money.

Care fees are covered
In all fairness I have no idea how much my parents are actually worth 🤣🤣
But my dad has told us that my mum has enough for her care if needed.
The house in questions is worth more than my house 100 percent and less than DB house.

If you only have £50k, unless there are some life-saving treatment involved, then you don't give it all to one child. If you help one child, you help (or you save) the same amount for the others. Wow, so you would have seen the OP and her children homeless when she was coping with such a sick child.

I guess all families are different. Glad I'm in mine, like the OPs family no one in my family would have an issue with one being helped in the OPs circumstances.

I don't think it's fair, but of course it is their choice.

The greatest gift you can leave a child is a close relationship with siblings. If you split inheritance unequally, wave goodbye to that The OP has said she is fine with it, others on here have said the same so in some families it might be a problem and in other families it wouldn't.

I am always surprised when parents (disability excepting) choose to leave their estate to their children in anything but equal shares.

DH is one of three children. All adults. DH and his eldest sister earn high salaries in professional roles. DH’s younger sister earns less, in an arts related role. They all work hard, DH works the longest hours by far. But they’re all hard workers.

PIL decided to leave a greater share of their estate to DH’s youngest sister as she earns less, so would be able to afford less. Which is of course their prerogative and I wouldn’t dream of giving my opinion on it at all. But I was surprised. They’d each, as siblings, had the same opportunities. DH’s youngest sister had a private school education, and DH and his eldest sister went to state schools. Do you could argue that the younger duster had already had a lift up.

Obviously I’d never ever say a word. But I did find it surprising.

I can understand why your brother is upset, it’s irrelevant how much he earns or how many houses he owns. People don’t deserve to be treated with less generosity from their own parents because they’ve done better in life than a sibling. Unless there was a disability to consider, I’d think much less of people who treated their children so unequally.

@Whattheactual20201

Care fees are covered In all fairness I have no idea how much my parents are actually worth 🤣🤣 But my dad has told us that my mum has enough for her care if needed. The house in questions is worth more than my house 100 percent and less than DB house.

At around 1k per week in an average care home that is quite a pot for a possible life span to 95, which apparently the age you should use for care calculations.

I see your parents point of view, but by the time they pass away your sister might be in a better financial position. I personally think it should be equal share. I plan on leaving everything to my two sons 50/50.

@ancientgran but the brother isn't fine with it?

My DM has discussed her Will with us and has split it exactly down the middle, which I think is fair. DB earns a lot more than me and only had one child. I have 5 children. These were our life choices.

If when the time comes we don't need the money then we are free to pass it on the grandchildren if more appropriate.

MIL doesn't have much money and we aren't expecting anything from her. My BIL helped her buy her house, so anything back from it I would expect to go to him, and the other BIL does a lot for her as he lives very close by.

Aside from that sort of situation I would expect that parents would treat their own children fairly.

DH and I have Wills with a solicitor that pass everything to the surviving spouse, or if we go together are split equally 5 ways. Only one of my DC has a house - the others rent - and one of them has DC, but I don't believe it's up to us to try to even it out.

I would hope my parents leave everything to my brother and I 50/50. If they didn’t I would make sure it ended up that way if the will favoured me.
I only have a small family and I love my brother very much.
My kids will get everything 50/50 and I hope they are as close as my brother and I.
End of the day stuff is just stuff, you only get one family. I miss my grandparents everyday.

It's not fine, it is unfair but at least the parents are of sound mind and are discussing it.

If your sister is a midwife then doesn't she also have a degree? Was she supported through her education too?

but the brother isn't fine with it? Maybe he needs to add up what was spent on his education and how much extra he's earned because of that. He might not be due anything if it is all done on a "fair" basis.

At the end of the day what matters is that it is the parents money and they can cut it up to make confetti if they want to. If one of my children started telling me who to leave my money to they'd find their share might suddenly reduce.

My motto with inheritance is to be open about it before you die and never deviate from an even split unless there are truly exceptional circumstances and the next generation are onboard with the idea. I have seen a number of family relationships destroyed because parents made decisions to favour one child over the others. They might have had their 'reasons' but this didn't take away from the hurt they caused. When it comes down to it, inheritance isn't just about the economic value, it is also about personal value. In a 3 children scenario, if one child gets half and the other two each get a quarter, it sends a message that they loved one child twice as much as the others. This might not be the intention, but it is the reality, and there is no getting away from it. My view is that you and your brother are never going to let your sister become homeless, so they should have an even 3 way split. Any gifts to grandchildren should be small.

She did her degree much later and it wasn’t funded by my parents.

As for me I got lucky.

If your sister is a midwife then doesn't she also have a degree? Was she supported through her education too? If she trained more than a couple of years ago she had no fees and a bursary.

@ancientgran would of been about 11 years ago now.

@ancientgran

If you only have £50k, unless there are some life-saving treatment involved, then you don't give it all to one child. If you help one child, you help (or you save) the same amount for the others. Wow, so you would have seen the OP and her children homeless when she was coping with such a sick child.

I guess all families are different. Glad I'm in mine, like the OPs family no one in my family would have an issue with one being helped in the OPs circumstances.

Where did I say I wouldn't have helped the OP? I just would have made sure I helped the others equally, or had enough to do so.

I am entirely against penalising one child because they managed to have a better lifestyle.

I have a family with a lovely and healthy relationship, we still have our own bedroom in our parents house maybe because we know we can all help each other but no one would have been able to take the piss and constantly need hand-out whilst the others got on with it.

I don't agree in equality but that comes from a very personal perspective. Because I'm a farmer equality will mean the business I work for being broken up. My brother will be treated fairly but not equally.

I'd also not leave money to kids of mine that were likely to do bad things like drugs or drink with it.

Or disability would mean I'd leave more to one than another.

But in your parents situation I'd leave it equally.

No split equally! What if one child goes out and parties, lives a good life while the other is more careful and pays off a mortgage earlier due to making better life decisions. No far and is the same issue my dad had with old age pension around 10 years ago. He just got a standard amount but the guy he worked with who bet, drank loads and had no savings got a bigger amount.

@WellTidy we are in a similar situation. DH has one sibling and he is the higher earner.

FIL got DH and SIL together at the start of this year to tell them that (by far) the greater share of his estate will go to SIL. We were surprised, DH is hurt, but we haven't expressed an opinion to anyone other than each other about it.

I can't in all honesty say it won't affect our relationship with FIL and SIL going forward though.

DH and SIL (along with me and his 2 grandchildren) are literally the only family FIL has.

DH and I are the default house for family gatherings, Easter, birthdays, Christmas, summer BBQ's. If we go for meals out together we always end up paying. SIL wouldn't dream of hosting and having us and FIL over, going to any effort to arrange anything for FIL's birthday, or putting her hand in her pocket to contribute to meals out. I go to some lengths to include FIL, SIL and nephew in my family gatherings.

I'm just feeling much less inclined to do any of it now that it's become clear that SIL is the clearly favoured child.

In a 3 children scenario, if one child gets half and the other two each get a quarter, it sends a message that they loved one child twice as much as the others. This might not be the intention, but it is the reality, and there is no getting away from it. My view is that you and your brother are never going to let your sister become homeless, so they should have an even 3 way split. Any gifts to grandchildren should be small.

Well that depends on how you view love and money, not everyone thinks love can be measured in £1 notes.

I will leave my grandchildren exactly what I want to leave them thank you and they won't all get the same, all my children know which ones will get more and why and funnily enough they are totally in support of that, in fact it was one of the uncles who pointed out to me that two of them needed more than his children. I thought about what he had said and told him what I intended to do, he was pleased that "I'd thought of it." He had obviously wanted to give me the idea without telling me what to do and I'm glad he did.