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?

In this case, if I were here, I would leave the youngest the £60k and then split the estate.

Presumably the godparents are close friends/relatives of yours, so surely if they were going to leave something to one of your children, they’d leave something for both? This may just be my experience, but god parents largely just seem to be a name thing and don’t actually do anything different or special with the child, compared to eg their siblings. But like I say, maybe that’s just what I’ve seen.

😂😂😂😂😂😂 you cannot tell someone what to do with the own will. My god!

Inheritance threads make me laugh and pissed off in equal measure. If someone wants their dying wish to be x gets xxxx then it's literally nothing to do with ANYONE else and being grumpy about it if either the kids or parents of the kids, is soo grabby!

Actually Diana left her godchildren 1/4 of the value of her belongings (except for jewellery) to be divided amongst them.
Her mother and sister gave one momento to each godchild instead.
Absolutely disgraceful imo.

I think you are overthinking it OP, once they are adults one of them might have a partner with money that means they are much better off than the other. It can cause resentment, but it’s just one of those things. It’s not a problem for you to solve.

As PPs say the godparents may be intending to leave the bulk of their cash to nieces and nephews, or they might loose touch with your child over the years, or get a lot more godchildren, so it may never happen.

I would assume this would be the best option.

Yes, that would be my default assumption unless the godparent actually specified a large sum of money.

Agree I doubt it will be a huge sum of money. I’ve never heard of godparents leaving money like that so I wouldn’t worry about it until it happens. If it does, maybe your dc would share it anyway x

Remember that the average age at which people receive an inheritance is 61, by which time they have made their way in the world and a windfall may not be nearly as significant as if it had happened at 21. Also, the godparents may need nursing home care which would eat up all their reserves before death, or they may change their wills; or one could die and the other remarry, changing the inheritance. There are many things that could change before your child inherits - if, indeed, they do - so there's no point in worrying about it right now.

There might be a bit of envy, but do you really think they'll inherit that much? £I've left £500 to my godchildren, my husband left £2000 to his, and I never got anything (awkwardly my uncle was my godfather and at a family dinner we were discussing godparents and he asked me who mine were)!
As mentioned upthread people have different financial journeys. One sibling might have a higher paying job, or married a wealthy spouse etc. My stepsons have experienced this. One married into a very wealthy family and consequently were able to buy a lovely house in Zone 2, travel extensively and no doubt will send their child to private school (that's where they met). The brother could just about afford a house in a not a great part of Zone 6 and no way could afford private schooling. I'm sure he has pangs of envy but it hadn't affected their relationship with each other.

There might be a bit of envy, but do you really think they'll inherit that much?

That really is the biggest question. Do the Godparents not have neices and nephews who they'd like to share their money with?

But no matter what family or paper relationships people have, those who are writing wills especially in the later years should be looking around at who is actually looking out for them, who visits, who does the small jobs they can no longer manage, like changing light bulbs, putting fresh duvet covers on.

I think you need to forget about it.

You don't know what the will says, when they will die, whether they will change their will or lose their money or what position your children will be in.

The chances are they are leaving a token gift, or a specific sum to any godchildren and not their whole estate.

Even if they were planning to leave the whole of the estate to their godchild the fastest way to damage the relationship and prompt them to reconsider their plans is to tell them they should consider your other children too!