What does fairness look like to you in this scenario?

[JonahAndTheMinnow]

Parent 1 and parent 2 have been married for a long time and have four adult children. They’ve recently sold an asset and want to share £300k amongst their children.

All children are aged between 35 and 48.

Child A - Eldest child. Married with grown-up children who live independently. Mortgage cleared recently. Household income isn’t very high and they don’t have much of a pension pot so will likely rely on state pension and likely work to full retirement age.

Child B - Was a very young single parent. Their child is now grown up and B has a partner. They live together in B’s house (bought by B’s parents) and B has no mortgage. B is a very low earner with no personal pension and will rely on state pension and work until full retirement age. Their job is tough and very physically demanding and working to 65+ will be a challenge.

Child C - Has two children (teens) in full time education, one with severe physical disabilities who will never live independently. C can’t work due to caring needs. Her husband works and he has a pension which should see them both live a modest but comfortable retirement. Child is in receipt of disability benefits. C and her husband have about 4 years left on their mortgage. Monthly payment is low on a house worth over £500k, thanks to generous gifts from parents, but they’ll never be able to downsize as it’s custom built to meet needs of disabled child. They have a lot of additional costs linked to their child- physio, need for a vehicle that can meet their needs rather than a cheap run-around etc.

Child D - Youngest child. Vey high earner married to a very high earner. No children. High mortgage costs on a large home but will clear in next five years. Own several investment properties and an holiday home outright. D and spouse will retire early with significant pensions. Current unmortgaged assets valued in the millions and had an inheritance from spouse’s parents of £600k in 2020.

Parent 1 wants to split the money between children A, B, and C so they’ll each have £100k. 1 thinks they need the money more than D and it’s a life changing opportunity for them whereas it’s not for D. 1 thinks that treating people fairly doesn’t always mean treating people equally and circumstances have to be taken into account.

Parent 2 wants to split the money equally between all 4 giving them £75k each. 2 believes that all children in the family should be treated equally, regardless of their current position.

What do you think?

Oh - not least because, if my parents gave me money, I'd pay way more tax on it than if they give it to one of my lower earning sibs! It's literally throwing money down the drain to give it to me.

I get the idea of fairness not just being about treating people exactly the same, but they've already given those who needed it more extra to meet specific needs, so if in this case it is more about distributing part of the inheritance early rather than giving someone money to help with a specific need, I think it has to be shared equally between the 4.

DH and I are by far the least well off of our siblings and we would never expect either parents to leave or give us more money than our siblings. I'd tell them no if they tried, unless it was for a specific need (so I think fair enough that the sibling with a disabled child gets more help, but they already are!).

Also, although I can't quite articulate it, I find it really off that Ds partners inheritance is even being considered / mentioned as a factor in this. I think I'd be very unhappy if I knew i left / gifted my child money and their partners family took that as a sign not to give them their share, or if I was the one whose family gave us money and that essentially led to my partner's siblings bring given his / our share of their inheritance. And what if they split up?

Equal split. D has powered their way through uni and probably very demanding jobs to get to where they are. That shouldn’t mean they then get written off. You could say that A and D get more as B and c have already had very substantial financial help.
But I think in this case, just go for an equal split. If D decides (with no influence) that they don’t need the money and would rather gift it to their siblings that’s their decision.

Parent 2 is right, equal shares for all.

Parent 2. Sibling D doesn’t have to accept and could decline or donate their share if they wish leaving the split as per parent 1. There is no right to inheritance mind so it really is what the parents want / feel is right. There are some assumptions here that fortunes won’t change as well.

Split equally, it's the only fair way to go tbh.

it’s manipulative because you have already decided what each ‘needs’ and have totally moralised the situation. You approach in it in a way designed to make your child feel like a bad person for not doing what you want. Intentionally.

Even in your imagined scenario, the two people might not agree with your assessment of the situation. 1 might have put all the effort in to batch cooking and freezing nice meals. They may have plans for how they’re going to use those meals. 2 may simply just not bother - spending their time and money on fun stuff. 1 may think 2 is a lazy chancer who always takes advantage of their effort.

You coming in and being all emotionally manipulative going on about ‘needs’ and ‘love’ to make 1 give 2 the lasagne is going to feel like guilt tripping favouritism to 1.

It sounds like the family in general is privileged to have had a lot of parental help. Good for you all!

C has been dealt a rougher hand just as D has been dealt an easier one. Is it not possible to sit all the children down and ask, without revealing why, how much money would change their lives and what would they spend it on?

Give it to them for their individual purposes, not "75k just because". This isn't an inheritance question (which should absolutely be an even split 4 ways), its a gift question.

Child D doesn’t ‘need’ the money but she does need to know that she is as valued as her siblings. It is about treating treating them all equally regardless of individual merit.

Nothing but an equal split is fair imo.
We have a situation where friends of ours worked v hard with no financial help from the husbands family at all. Wife's parents helped a little towards the deposit for their house many years ago which they have repaid.

They both work full time & live too far from either of their parents to have had much help with dc etc in the younger years. They got through it & made financial decisions accordingly over the years.
They both continued study to endure promotions & salary increases. It was not always easy.

The husband's younger sister left school with no plans to study or work. She lived at home with the mum (who is young & able - she had her kids v young). Then she became pregnant at 19 or 20 & stayed living with the mum. Her kid is now a teen & they still live in the family home. The sister has never worked.

The family home is in a much sought after beauty spot - it was bought by the grandparents & the mum lived there with them till they died. Now she & daughter & grandchild live there. Mortgage free.

It is simply accepted that the daughter will inherit the house & the married son will receive nothing. His wife is pissed off but can't do anything about it.

It's a tough one but I think the right thing is to leave the house equally between the brother & sister. Then eventually the house would be sold & the proceeds split. The non earning sister would not have the means to buy out the brother but would have enough to buy a smaller house with half the money from the larger family home.

The bother is effectively being punished for getting himself to u university (without help from the mother) & working to build a career. The sister stayed at home & will inherit it all.

I don't consider this to be fair.

I think it should be split between all 4.
One of my parents gave us each some money recently, nothing like above amount, then told me I was given less as I’m managing and my sisters skint. I’m treading water and making sure I manage, she’s spending like there’s no tomorrow. No mention of my brother, perhaps he got more too. Definitely treat them all the same, especially as B has already had a house bought by parents, already looking like favouritism.

@PrincessNoteSpelling

"Why did the parents ask if there was only one right answer?" - actually the parents didn't "ask" - the surviving parent made an announcement to D1 and D2 that their intention was to split inheritance equally across the five. D1 knew that the surviving parent worried a lot about A, B and C, so spontaneously volunteered to forego their share...

It could be argued that the 5-way split announcement was actually the surviving parent's way of fishing for the response D1 gave, to answer your first question.

After saying they did not need money, D1 assumed D2 would make the same offer but has no direct information about this. Things then went a little frosty between D2 and D1. Meanwhile, surviving parent called A, B and C to tell them the inheritance would be split between the three and that D1 and D2 were happy with this. This suggests that at least initially, D2 made the same offer as D1.

Did D2 know it was a trick question? I don't know but I guess they must have felt pressured, especially after D1's offer to forego the money.

Some months later, D2 called D1 and said "I have spoken to surviving parent and the inheritance is going back to the 5-way split". No discussion, quite a tense phone call. D2 lives very close to surviving parent and looks after their financial affairs when needed. Surviving parent is now very frail and A, B and C were not made aware that the split had gone back to 5 ways - they only found out recently when an unguarded remark alerted them.

I don't know if D2 knows they are being judged... A, B and C have been told by D1 that they will be getting D1's share split between them. They have of course had no similar assurances from D2. They are pretty sure that D2 is being influenced by their partner who is quite money-oriented.

I think it needs to be split evenly so there's no resentment between the siblings.

What you could do it split £200k between the four siblings, then the remaining split £100k between the grandchildren. That would give the older ones a great start, and put something away for the grandchild with disabilities.

my parents got a small inheritance recently and largely kept it all but decided to give £10000 to each of their 3 adult children.

2 of us are really quite high earners and £10 000 wasn’t really a life changing amount of money, whereas the 3rd child was in a very different scenario, working 3 jobs, single parent etc etc. They gave us all £10k but both my brother and I refused it and told them to give our share to the 3rd sibling. We all pretended that we’d got £30k each so that 3rd sibling wasn’t embarrassed.

That said, it was nice to be offered. Wealth isn’t guaranteed forever, and also, you never REALLY know what someone’s financial situation is!

Parent B is correct!

Parent 2, anything else would surely be unfair and possibly breed resentment.

Without wishing to be clinical, imagine it's a company with 4 shareholders holding 25% each. Imagine how the profits would be distributed...no other conditions taken into account.
What each "shareholder" then does is up to them!

Regardless of their choices and life position. You need to split it equally. Any other option will have your children grow to resent each other and escalate the feelings of favouritism. Potentially damaging your children’s relationships with each other.
Spoken as one of three with a mother than very clearly played favourites. ♥️

So the siblings moaning amongst themselves about not getting as much money as they want are calling someone else money orientated? 🤔

Are you in UK? Just wondering re having to pay medical bills. If so are you getting appropriate benefits? Would your parents not leave you the rental property?

It's fair and equal. But it's not equitable.
Equitable means to provide people with something based on their situation. Parent A is going for equitable. Parent B is going for equal.

Parent 2 unless you want the offspring to be forever divided

It is equitable because they all had the same level of support from parents.

I don't agree, their current level of challenges are very different.

Interesting thread. Unlike most ppl here, my gut reaction is that giving 75,000 to people who really don't need it when there are other recipients to whom the extra 25,000 would mean a lot would be a waste.

But I think a lot depends on relationships and communication within the family. Would the wealthy child accept this reasoning? Is there some gesture that could be made to show them appreciation in a non- monetary way?

OP gope you get this sorted without damaging relationships. Doing good is so complicated sometimes.

Giving a gift to someone isn't about how much they already have, its giving a gift because you want to gift them something - if you then leave one child out and don't give them a gift - its sending a message that you don't want to give them a gift.