To worry about children getting different inheritances?

[KingsHeath53]

My 2 DC have different sets of godparents. Both lovely, hands on godparents and close friends. DC1 godparents are child-free, DC2 godparents have children. DC1 godparents have indicated when they die, DC1 will be in their will. Obviously not the case for DC2 where godparents would rightly leave their estate to their own kids. Should add when we chose godparents for DC1 we didn’t know they were going to be child-free forever, so this didn’t factor into our godparent selection!

I’ll say upfront i’m not hugely worried about this. I plan to raise my kids to be resilient and make their own way in life, not expecting or needing inheritances or hand outs. Also loads could happen in future, godparents could get other godchildren etc etc. Who knows.

However, it did get me wondering. If one (by then I assume adult) DC inherited a lot (godparents are wealthy with property etc) and the other one didn’t, based on an arbitrary choice of who would be godparents, would that cause tension between the siblings? Does anyone have family experience where one sibling inherited a lot from say, a distant relative, and others didn’t? Did that cause problems and jealousy? As a parent would you guide your one child to split an unequal inheritance with their sibling if the situation arose?

I've never come across Godparents leaving money to godchildren in their will, unless they have another connection e.g. an uncle with no children leaving money to nieces and nephews. I wouldn't be expecting anything from them but in terms of fairness, all you can do is if one child gets left money and the other doesn't, ask them if they'd share it? If they say no, they say no.

It may also not be a substantial sum of money, so don't assume they're being left the whole estate or anything resembling it, of course. My sister has godchildren who are named in her will, but we are talking a 'token' amount of £5k. (Obviously a nice sum of money, but not life changing.)

When they say your dc1 will be, 'in their will' that doesn't necessarily mean a massive sum. Also people change their minds about beneficiaries as the years roll by. They may lose touch with you and your family. They may divorce/die/remarry and acquire step children. They may decide to leave everything to charity.

But no - I wouldn't expect an adult to split an inheritance with a sibling. That would be a ridiculous expectation - though of course dc1 may choose to share.

My niece has 3 children now. At the point her Great Uncle died she only had two children. He left each of the two children named in his will £60k each. This has been invested and grown a bit more. I don't know how much more. The youngest child being several years younger than siblings has no inheritance. My niece is intending to leave all her three children an equal share in her will as she says she loves them all equally. The Great Uncle had a very close relationship with her two older boys and saw them most days. He chose not to leave the money to his great niece, as he thought she'd inherited from her own parents but instead left her share split between her children. Youngest will miss out.

That's a very different scenario to the one the op described. I think it's safe to assume that the great uncle would have included the third child had they been alive at the time he made his will.

DH's grandma left some money in her will to our very young dcs. We invested the money and shared it out amongst all our dcs - including the one that hadn't been born when their great grandma died - when they reached 18. We did that on the basis that she would have wanted all her great grandchildren to benefit - even one she never met.

But the people in the op's case are only godparents to one of her children .

I get where you're coming from OP but I don't think it needs to cause resentment. Surely this sort of thing happens a lot due to a variety of reasons?

For example I have step children. My child with DH will likely inherit more from "us" than my step children because I don't intend to leave my share of the house to them. It will go to our child together and DHs share will be split 3 ways.

I don't see why that should cause my stepchildren to resent our child together. It's just life. Especially if this were to happen when they were adults themselves (I hope!) And therefore more mature and able to understand the differences better.

I have 4 kids (all adults now), 2 of them have the same Godmother, who is child-free by choice and have no nieces or nephews, and at present, her and her husband are leaving everything in their will's to be spilt between their Godchildren, this could be quite a substantial, life-changing amount of money, if they choose to share this with their other 2 siblings is a decision only they can make, and is not something I would even suggest to them.

I hope you got permission from the children who did actually inherit. To take it without asking to give to their sibling the Great Granma had never even met would be theft. I think my niece is leaving it with the DC named in will as they were the ones who had a relationship with her Great Uncle. I think my niece is hoping her eldest 2 son's offer to share. She wouldn't just take their money to give to their younger sibling. In OP's children's case the child that has Godparents who may leave them a legacy will end up with a helping hand it's sibling won't get. That is life.

presumably your kids will also one day inherit from you?

if the inheritance from godparent to child A is small (less than 10% of what kids might inherit from you), then child A gets it and is lucky.

If the inheritance really is massive, then you could leave a bit more to child B in compensation. but if you do this, make it VERY clear to all over multiple conversations that you love both kids equally and you want them to have the same advantages, which is why you are trying to make the ££ more equal between them. Hopefully Child A will be secure enough that they won't be bothered.

I'm leaving money to my Godson (I've no kids) and, to make it fair, I'm leaving the same amount to his sister.

I've spent the same amount of time with both of them, they are lovely young adults now, and if I can lend them a hand when I'm gone, I'm happy to do so.

Seemed very mean to just leave her out.

My brother may inherit a lot (we’re talking millions) from his godmother, I won’t. I don’t give it much thought, it’s just one of those things in life. If I was struggling I imagine he’d share some but I’m not so don't expect him to

I guess you could in principle give DC2 the same amount of money as the godparents give DC1? Assuming you can afford it? I'd feel really odd about one of my children randomly inheriting from a friend of mine. Though I guess it would also feel odd if one won on the lottery and the other didn't. It feels different to them earning different amounts, somehow.

I would be asking the godparents to split any inherited between both kids.

If they didn’t (as is their right) then yes I would be asking the beneficiary DC to split equally.

I had some money from a family member which was gifted to me before my sibling existed. My parents told me they thought it should be split and I agreed without hesitation. It’s only fair. Obviously not quite the same situation but similar.

You can't really do anything about it - except to teach your children to be supportive and respectful of each other.

I've come across this yes it has caused massive tension and a 10 year long rift.

It didn't help that the child who wasn't God child was the one who visited, did the general running around, sorting stuff, arranging nursing home, etc etc
I think they were absolutely cut to the bone. It would have been better if the God parent had ignored that and split equally.

Seems a bit weird. Do the godparents of DC1 have anything at all to do with DC2, or do they just interact and do birthdays and christmas for DC1 and ignore DC2 ?

And yes, anytime siblings are not treated equally then it is a cause for potential resentment, and it happens a lot. And anyone who sets them up to be treated unequally must know this unless they are completely insensitive.

If it were me then if possible I would try to make it up to DC2 by making sure they had a balancing amount. Of course if it is a massive sum it may not be possible.

While I have no such inheritance coming my way, and neither does my brother, I know that if either of us got a life changing amount (imagine winning a big lottery or euromillions), wed help the other. Even if it was just enough to pay the mortgage, so that the other could be debt free.

Obviously, neither of us would be obligated to do it. But I know that we would (weve talked about it, in a " what would you do if you won the 65M jackpot this week" kinda chat)

Godparents are such a luck of the draw thing... Im 40 and mine are still in the picture. But my brother s disappeared from the face of the earth when we were teens. They were really good friends of my parents, and when we were kids they were very present in our lives. But at some point, they just ghosted my parents.

I will not be inheriting anything from my godparents, as they have 3 adult children and several grandchildren.

I’d like to think my kids would get on well enough to split the money between them and their siblings.

Yes, I find this a bit weird too. Aren't they close to your other child too? How much do they actually have to do with DC1? I can't imagine close friends being so involved as to leave all their money to one of my children but nothing to the other, regardless of what their 'title' is. I'd treat both my best friend's children equally.

Thats ridiculous.
If my sibling inherited from a godparent I would be over the moon for them. But if I inherited and my parents made me share I would definitely be resentful. If I inherit something then it should be my own decision to share.

Its like winning the lottery. I might share some of it, but in the end its mine to do with what I want 🤷🏻‍♀️

I'd respect the wishes of the deceased .

While they are children now and the Godparent is say in their 40s.
You can't really predict what the relationships will be like in 30 or 40 years time.

When the children are adults with lives of their own and the Godparent is in their 70s or 80s.

It's just life, I think. My dickhead of an ex-DH has never paid much towards our DC (now adults) but is extremely wealthy and will presumably leave them quite a bit of money.

I remarried - and my youngest DC won't inherit much from their father and I (we are currently struggling financially and have little). Our estate will still be shared between all the DC equally. I'm sorry for the younger ones who obviously won't inherit as much as their older siblings, but that's not something I can do anything about.

To me it's not like winning the lottery at all.

Winning the lottery is random. When you win the lottery you pay the price and you stand to benefit (or not) from the result. The lottery isn't taking any sort of active decision to make you benefit rather than anyone else. You can't claim the lottery is valuing one sibling more than the other. It has no concept of that. Your sibling could complain that you won, but it's hardly unfair as the same opportunity (to buy a ticket and potentially win) is equally open to them.

In the inheritance case then someone is actually making a proactive decision to benefit one sibling more than another, basically (seemingly) solely on the fact that they were nominated godparent to that sibling. It may be down to luck that one sibling got the right godparent, but the act of exclusion is not down to luck at all.

Agree....I wouldn't dream of doing that. Presumably the god parents are in the whole families life. But....mn favourite saying, their money, their choice, which of course it is.