It's an inheritance one

[Pupdate292]

I'll just type out the scenario and leave it to the vote, I'm a relative to someone in the family and I'm kind of stuck in the middle of it all. Just looking for an outsiders perspective.

So the man has 2 daughters from his first marriage. He re marries a divorcee who has a 2 year old son. His girls are around 8 years old at this point. They all have a happy upbringing, the man is close to his girls and also treats his step son as his own. His 2nd wife does the same with her step daughters.

Fast forward to today. The daughters are both happily married to very wealthy men, want for nothing. The son is also happily married, not as wealthy but has a mortgage on his own home, is in a good job, enjoys holidays abroad etc.

The man has sadly died and left nothing in his will to his daughters. It's all been left to his 2nd wife and son.

Yanbu- that's wrong, he should have left something to the daughters even though they are now very wealthy

Yabu-the daughters don't need the money, he was right to leave everything to his 2nd wife and her son as their need is greater.

Did he name the son in his will or just leave everything to his wife? In my experience, unless there is a vast fortune, everything normally gets left to the surviving spouse.

But, also, if a 3-way split wasn't going to make any financial difference to the daughters I can see why he might have thought it made more sense to give it to the "poorer" son. It isn't any reflection of love and importance.

He hasn't has he? He hasn't said anything other than he want's his youngest - the one who is not "very wealthy" to have all of the money.

My feelings are that money should generally be split equally. Obvious reasons not to include - say - leaving your house to the child who gave up work ten years earlier to move in with you and nurse you, or not leaving any money to the child who developed a drug habit and violently assaulted you whilst robbing your house.

A less obvious reason to is the relative wealth of the kids. If, for example, I was worth £10,000 and I had three kids, two of whom were mortgage-free and in good jobs, and other struggling, I might be tempted to have a chat with them all and say "look you two - £3,333 is nothing to you, but £10,000 will mean the world to your sister - I'm leaving it all to her". Likewise, in this case the inheritance might be £400,000 - enough for the son to pay off the mortgage and pay a lump sum into his pension to boost it a bit, and buy a new car. Enough to make a real difference.

Meanwhile £133,333 to each of the two wealthy daughters will mean absolutely nothing.

TLDR - equal split is a damn good starting point, but if some kids won;t really benefit from a share of the money, but another will benefit significantly from getting it all, then I see why you'd re-allocate. It would be good to speak it through with the kids so they understand. It would also be really good to only do it is you;re sure that it won;t cause a family split... but then again I don;t much like the idea of giving two rich daughters a share simply because they threaten to kick off if you don't.

His money his decision 🙄

I think the sideways step regarding second family is very common.

Keeping this sort of thing secret is rather cowardly. If he had made his first family aware then they would probably have been understanding. He has done it this way to avoid having the conversation.

We are very open with our DCs about the contents of our wills. I have started to go through are various documents and aim to put together a folder of insurances, notes etc marked up as 'In the event of death'.

GoodThinkingMax the few times I've spoken to her she just says 'it's what xxxxx wanted'. She just sees it as her carrying out his dying wishes and she can't understand why the girls have cut contact knowing she's lost her DH and raised them as her own. She just can't see it from their perspective, she thinks they're being unreasonable as they're so wealthy, how can they begrudge her and their step brother.

No, he was right to leave it all to his wife. I don’t understand why some of you think he should have split it with his children.

Those of you who are second wives, how would you feel if your husband of say 20-30 years died and you found he had split everything between you and your SC.

Love the fact that every time an inheritance thread is posted there is such righteous indignation about how a person's money should be distributed after their death.
You don't know the full circs, but the point is, IT IS THEIR MONEY TO DISPOSE OF HOW THEY WISH!
No-one has any 'right' to anyone's money, whether close to them or not.
If the OPs relative had left it to the local frog conservation trust, so what?

I think he should have done something for his daughters.

However, if he wanted it to just go to the wife, then the son he should have just left it to his wife.

It would have had the same long term effect but without actually slapping his daughters hard in the face with a “I’m leaving something to your brother but not you” stick.

He probably left everything to the son merely because he was male; and had the old-fashioned idea that only males can inherit.

I think it's awful, he should have ensured all his children were looked after.

What someone does in their will is the last thing you can do for your loved ones, it sends an awful message.

Additionally, the daughters have wealthy husbands. Not all marriages last forever, nobody knows if they actually have financial security.

It's horrible when a will results in family conflict that could have been avoided, and if any money or assets were left directly to any of the children the default position should have been that they all received the same amount. In a case like this the wealthy daughters could have chosen to waive their inheritance in favour of their less well off stepbrother, but that should have been their decision to make and shouldn't have been made for them.

If everything was left to the spouse to use or pass on as she pleases, the daughters might feel disappointed but it doesn't send the same divisive message from beyond the grave.

Eightiesfan well the issue is that he left everything to his wife and step son, his daughters have had nothing and will get nothing when my auntie dies. His step son is not a blood relation, his daughters are and they were all close throughout childhood.

I type wills for people as part of my job.

It’s extremely common for people to write wills leaving more to some than others due to their own wealth. Some children get nothing or a token few thousand to show they have not been forgotten.

It’s not wrong and often parents will discuss this with their children to let them know what their intentions are and why, so there are no surprises. The father in this scenario should have done this. It correctly advised, it’s likely he has written a letter kept with his will to explain why his will has been written this way.

I can see the logic in what he did and I like to think that if I were one of the daughters I would understand. However I suspect that where your uncle has gone wrong was not to explain to his daughters beforehand. I imagine this has come as a shock and the daughters are hurt at the perception that they matter less than the second family.

Agree that giving them a share when they don't really need it because they'll kick off is not a good reason. However someone having a wealthy husband and apparently a nice life might not be the whole story - which is why these things should be discussed and everyone know where they stand.

why? His money, his business
No-one should have any expectation that stuff will fall their way when someone dies

The Aunt may not intend to leave anything to her stepdaughters but her son could give them something if he wishes at that point.

Of course they must be hurt by what their father has done, but in effect they are now asking someone with a modest lifestyle to live more frugally so that they can have some of her money!

It depends how future proofed the daughters are. People can and do lose everything- spouses can have secret debts, their business that they have mortgaged all their assets against can go tits up, they can divorce and move abroad to avoid maintenance, they can be financially controlling and hide all their money etc, they can get ill and have to stop work, they could have been living way beyond their means. If he knew for sure that the daughters both had a couple of million stashed away and some kind of contract making it untouchable by anyone else then I could maybe have understood it, but he didn't speak to them about it and I think thats shit. Equally his step son could win the lottery. It's a massive assumption to make that they dont need the money and I'm not surprised they are very hurt. And I'm surprised the step mum doesn't understand where they are coming from either, yes they have a lot more than her but it doesnt sound as though she is desperate either

I come from a family of 6 children. My parents left everything to be split between all 6 regardless of how wealthy (or not) each of us were. Also, some of us are childless, so there wasn't any provisions for grandchildren. We all got an equal amount.
I am in a step family. We both have children. Our wills have stated everything goes to surviving spouse and then when the time comes, split equally amongst all children. Some of them could be very wealthy when the time comes, it does not matter to us. They will all get an equal share.
I don't understand the reasoning when someone makes a will and can't see the problems that could arise - as in this case. It's sad.

It doesn't matter if you think he was wrong or right. It was his decision and his will and nothing to do with you.

The normal MN answers would call the DDs grabby and say they are BU because it was the DF’s money to do with what he liked; I’m surprised answers are suddenly so different this time around.

Although hurtful, he’s explained that his DDs do not need the money IHO. It’s not the SS’ fault. DDs will have to get on with it and get on with their SS and SM. Ask beneficiaries not to talk about it as it’s upsetting but try to move on.

lunar1 the irony is that my aunties 1st husband was wealthy but she was left with nothing, he had nothing to do with their son growing up so she's experienced that vulnerability first hand.

It's just a mess. Hopefully time will heal things but at the moment the family is completely fractured.

Also the dad clearly saw the step son as his own but I'm not convinced the step mum sees the daughters as her own. As she has a choice about what happens to her assets when she dies surely

Your auntie sounds incredible selfish, and very small minded if she can’t understand why her step daughters are hurt.

My guess would be that she understands perfectly well why they’re so upset and no longer want to know her, and that’s why she didn’t raise this as an issue when her husband was alive. She could have retained her security without her step daughters being disinherited. There is no valid excuse for her behaviour.

I always think that no one should be left out unless they are absolutely loaded and even then a token of some kind is lovely so they are not left out. He should definitely have left his daughters something as you never know maybe the husbands are not so generous and always good to have a little bit of money for yourself as you never know what will happen in life. This happens so much and not right to leave his own daughters out of the will, it is shocking.

Did he leave any thing else to them?