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 ?

In a happy family that supports each other surely this is perfect solution. Everyone is lucky to get any inheritance and your db sounds like a greedy *hit to be honest.

I hope your dp make sure their letter of wishes is crystal clear to avoid a court case after their death and what about care home fees or one dies first the next remarriage etc house gets lost?

Op you sound lovely.

Mustard it's the beneficiaries money to decide what to do with though!.. Deciding who we leave our estate too is our legal right!.

It's astonishing how the greed comes out after someone death... Never leave it to others t decide. They won't have had the same feeling or relationship!..

Why wouldn't people in ops situation support the one sibling who doesn't have a house get a house?.
That will help her dc your children's cousins?..

The greatest gift you can leave a child is a close relationship with siblings. If you split inheritance unequally, wave goodbye to that.

Surely that says more about the siblings than the parents.

Should always be equal.
If one sibling needs more support than the others then parents should give that support now.

@TheRubyRedshoes I know - could rather than should share things differently once the money is divided. I am of course going from what I would do - I had £10k early from my dad to help buy a house, if he split everything equally I wouldn’t hesitate to add another £5k to each sibs pots.

However if my dad died leaving £20k cash and a £300k house, and the house went to my brother because he doesn’t have one, I would feel upset about that. Rightly or wrongly it would feel unfair to me.

@TheRubyRedshoes thank you to be honest I am just thankful for my parents, without them I could of had a very different life, like previous to me going to them.
I instead always had a nice house, opportunity and a stable life for my DC.

I really couldn’t care less about having an equal inheritance.
I have been very fortunate and still am.

I think its fine OP. In fact ive encouraged my parents to offer different inheritances which they have reluctantly done. My DB earns less and lives in a more expensive part of the country. I dont earn huge money but feel we are comfortable and will be ok in retirement and would prefer inheritance to offer my db more financial security than to be shared equally

@randomer

The midwife could come into money,the brother may need expensive health care are the OP could have a massive change in circumstances. Not wishing ill on anybody.

What are the ways the midwife could come into money? A lottery ticket? Oh darling it makes me sad you can’t afford a home, but you might win the lottery? And the brother might have serious medical costs? He should also bloody well have insurance. We have health insurance, life insurance, disability insurance all set up so that if something happened to me, the home is mortgage free so dh can take care of the dc and any extra childcare/carer costs without needing my income. And vice versa. Yes these things happen but people protect against them. Yes anything can happen. But there are statistical likelihoods attached to these possibilities, treating them as equal is nonsensical.

[quote HotSince63]@GooseberryJam as the extra kick in the balls, DH gets the arse-ache of being executor of the will, SIL couldn't possibly help with that because.... ???

Anyway, we're about to have a discussion with him about Christmas dinner. After hosting him and SIL for the last 15 years we've decided we are having a break this year. I doubt SIL will do dinner and have him over and I'm not sure they'll go out for dinner if we're not going along to pay for it so I don't know (or much care) what either of them will do.[/quote]
You can decline being an executor. Just saying, no one can make you.

I've always been surprised by the number of people who say "split equally" or "equal unless someone's disabled" - no two situations/families/people are alike, so why would an equal split be best in most cases?

I received an inheritance which I believe was split fairly, even though it was divided unequally (not a parent, all relations of an equivalent degree, and I think would still have been 'fair' if it had been a parent)

Person A - took a multi-year career break to be full-time live-in carer for elderly relative - inherited the house, most of the personal belongings, and 45% of the savings/investments. Needed to retrain before returning to work, and essential work needed on the house.
Person B - provided respite care, helped with admin - received specific personal items and 30% of the savings/investments, hadn't expected to receive more than 10%. Wouldn't have known what to do with a part share of the house, but probably offered it to A for a token amount plus legal fees (me).
Person C - mental health issues and problems with addiction, very on/off contact wise - received 25% held in trust - pays for private medical treatment/therapy, and utility bills (and rent if not covered by benefits). Readily admits they couldn't have coped with even a small amount of money unrestricted. If C had inherited a share of the house, they would have expected to move in, probably brought some 'friends', and most likely expected A to act as housekeeper/maid/nanny.
Person D - hadn't seen, spoken to, or written to elderly relative for many years, no falling out, just hadn't kept in touch - received a token amount and a prepaid gift card for each of D's children. Hadn't thought they'd inherit anything, but would have expected A to immediately buy them out at market value (or put the house on the market) if D had inherited a share, due to D's financial situation.

A was least happy by the split, mostly due to a combination of grief, concern that one of the others would think they hadn't received their 'fair' share, and because they'd half expected C would get the house as C was least able to provide for themselves.

I'm not sure.

There's five of us - four have our own homes etc but large mortgages and work hard. #5 still lives at home despite being mid 30s and has never really worked, through choice, preferring to party and piss about. Spends all benefits on clothes and going out and has regular handouts from our parents.

My parents plan to leave them the house 'to make things fair'. Which is technically correct, but they'll end up with a house worth £300k more than any of ours, having never worked.

It wouldn't bother me. I'm the better off of my siblings and that's likely to remain the case (unless one wins the lottery). However I'm not well enough off to help them out in any meaningful way.

Whilst inheritance would be great, it would mean so much less to me than to my siblings, so if my parents wanted to give them more I think that would be quite fair and I'd support it.

If there were any discrepancies between DH and his sister's inheritance there'll be hell to pay. He already thinks she's the favoured sibling ( I don't think she is).

One difference is my family are very open about finances, financial issues and inheritance where as DHs parents are very secretive and I think that's caused resentment.

I think thry have given their reasons and they seem logical and well thought through - it will make them happy to know that all 3 of their children will be secure when they die.
My dad made a choice about splitting the farm and the house differently - it definitely wasn’t equal, but we’re all well off so I hope no one is going to start scrapping over it. My brother has always been the favourite, the will reflects that.

Hmmm. I dont think dh should inherit more from his parents because he works for a charity whilst bil went into IT (and made a packet). It was a choice, after all.

I think there’s so many different circumstances and family dynamics at play that’s it’s hard to say.
My mum wasn’t left my grandparents house, my uncle was. Because he still sleeps in the room he was born in and has never moved out. My mum and dad have two homes (I know 😱) so my mum would have been a bit of a horror to force her brother to sell his home to make things “equal”. She actually loves her brother, and like her parents felt that his security was worth a lot more than making things exactly equal.
Nothings black and white with this stuff.

I'm the lower earning sibling, and dh is the lower earning sibling in his family.

We fully expect inheritance to be equal.

Anything else is punishing the dB in this case for chosing a well paid career, which if the sister is a midwife, she clearly could have made a different career choice and earned much more (its a hard degree followed by a tough job needing long hours), she has the ability to have picked a well paid career and do well. She knew when starting the midwifery degree what the pay was like for the work. This was a conscious choice. I assume for personal fulfilment.

The DB has chosen a better paid and possibly less interesting/less fulfilling job.

Noone who has 2 siblings being given a third of their parents estate could think it was unfair. But unless everyone is completely on board, a sibling being given significantly less than a third could see it as unfair.

This risks damaging your dbs relationship with his sister, his relationship with his mother (who will be on her own soon) and his last 18 month with his father.

Talk to your parents and suggest something closer to being equal. A third of a house would definitely give your sister the good deposit to buy a house. If you privately wanted to give her the £50k you were gifted, that would help further.

@VinylDetective

One child might have made sacrifices to earn their money, another may have consciously wanted job satisfaction rather than a higher salary. To try to “even things up” from beyond the grave is effectively lobbing a grenade into the relationships of the family you leave behind.

Two of ours have received a life changing legacy, the other two haven’t. I wouldn’t dream of “lobbing a grenade” from the grave. It would be discussed in my life time.

ANd I think that's the important thing - if there is going to be any disparity, people need to know about it beforehand - it should never come as a shock. That is just cruel.

eaglejulesk when you say that if a parent splits inheritance unequally, then the fact that the siblings can often wave goodbye to their close relationship with each other says more about the siblings than the parents, are you either a parent who wants to gift one child more than another (barring disability etc), or a child who has been given more than another? Do you honestly expect another, equal sibling, to continue to have a chummy relationship with their other sibling(s) when their life has been made easier than anothers? As I said before, it would take a very big hearted sibling, or one with very little self-esteem (as is probably the case when they're not the 'favoured one') to make that work.

Obviously I'm not talking about the odd few hundred pounds here - most people would admit that's neither here nor there - I'm talking thousands.

Let me share with you , being on the receiving end of this is devastating. It has absolutely nothing to do with greed.

And those pouring scorn and sarcasm on my suggestion that peoples situations can change, who could have predicted Covid. Things can turn on a sixpence.
Anybody going through this try and get all paper work, Power of Attorney and so on very clear. You will save yourself heartache further down the line.

I think it's not a great message for your sister as she now has little incentive to work for a house.
My parents have given me money that one of my sisters hasn't had. I asked them to give an equal amount and they wouldn't. I then said I'd be unable to accept it so they had a conversation with my sister, she said she was fine with it and in the end I accepted it.

I guess it's up to your parents but I would be extremely unlikely to do this myself.

@leavingvegas

and do people really think that midwives work less hard than a banker??? its not about talent or working hard but society's value system

No, it’s just that the bankers pay for midwives since they are more likely to be net contributors, so let’s not get into that ridiculous debate about who’s worth what. On the inheritance point, if OP feels she has been given too much inheritance she can always gift some to her sister. But why should her brother not get an equal share.

Do you honestly expect another, equal sibling, to continue to have a chummy relationship with their other sibling(s) when their life has been made easier than anothers? As I said before, it would take a very big hearted sibling, or one with very little self-esteem (as is probably the case when they're not the 'favoured one') to make that work.

Or just an understanding one. I have more money than my siblings, I went to university, got a medical degree and met another university educated person and we both have jobs (and incomes) that reflect that. My siblings did not go to university, left school and work in supermarkets and as care workers. They work hard, they earn significantly less than me, and as a result their lives are harder than mine and the opportunities open to their children are fewer. More of the inheritance would equal things up for them. And I have no resentment towards them for that. And before you say it, no my parents didn't give me money for education.

If my Bro gets equal to me I'll be fucking livid. One of us has cared for our DM and one of us has not even bothered to call her during lockdown. If you're NC with a parent why would you expect to inherit anything at all?

Doesn't mean they don't love you all equally. Making sure all my children have security would be my priority so if one child needed the house more than the other then that is what would happen. If my sibling needed house and I didn't I would understand parents reasons and not be offended.

Watch this space HMSSophie, he is male and therefore entitled.