Who's being unreasonable regarding Will

[Freshpinkroses]

Name changed as this could be outing and I'd rather avoid extra tension while trying to figure out what's fair.

So, bit of a background: my husband is 18 years older than me (54) and he has just one older sibling which is brother (66), his brother has 6 children. My husband barely knows his brothers kids and he sees his brother very infrequently (about once every 5 years or so on average).

I'm 36, we have a 4 year old daughter and I'm currently pregnant and due to give birth in September. I have 2 sisters and 2 brothers who my husband and I see every single week, so we're really close (we did have a little fallout this year but everything is good now). Also my sisters each have one child.

The reason for the background is that my husband and I need to write a will, we haven't got one and since we're about to have another child we just feel it's really irresponsible that we don't have this stuff sorted out. We agreed on everything in the Will in the event of either of our deaths as in who we'd make the children's guardian and who would be the trustees etc. What we can't agree on is in the event us and our children died, who our estate would be left to. Even though my husband is older than me, we each bring an almost equal amount to the table (he brings about 20% more than me right now but my earnings are increasing each year so this will level off). The total value of estate is about £3m. He believes most of this should go to his brother and his brothers children??? I can't understand his logic for this and it's really infuriating me as he said himself he wants my sister to be our children's guardian if we were to die, yet he'd want to give his brother almost everything if us and our children were to pass. I personally believe our estate should be divided equally amongst all our brothers and sisters at very least and I'm even willing to flex and let him give his brother 20% more than my siblings. What are your thoughts on this?

YABU- his brother should get majority (roughly 80%)
YANBU - it should be divided close to equally amongst all of the siblings

I welcome any other ideas/thoughts on this.

Thank you in advance!!

A solicitor can draw up the arrangement you've said you prefer

my DH and I have mirror wills. So if we all died at the same time, our estate is split between our siblings. I have 2 siblings. DH has 1. They get a third each.

My side obviously get 2/3rds of the estate. But that works for us. And being honest, a) I have contributed more to our joint assets, b) I have more in personal savings because I earn more and I'm a good saver, and c) we won't be here so we won't care!

In this scenario our wills state that everything goes to our niece and nothing to our siblings. She would benefit from the inheritance more than her parents.
We're an odd family though because we are sisters married to brothers with no other siblings so in reality, our niece is the only logical choice!

@TedWilson thats really helpful! I didn't want to do tit for tat with him because I actually don't mind his side of the family having an even share, but if I were to do tit for tat then my family would get more if I wrote my own will. I am thinking it will take me pointing this out to him for him to wake up now though.

Take 50% each and decide how you want your half split between your family

OP, given your latest post, then I think this is good advice. You leave your 50% to your siblings and their children, he can leave his 50% just to his brother if he chooses, or split it between his brother and his brothers children. The 80% thing is just odd.

@GreenWalls22 see that's exactly what my absolute ideal scenario is! I think everyone should just get an even share. It will help each of our siblings in different ways. I wish my husband would see it this way.

*I am in the US… so this may not apply but should be similar

if one of you dies… then the assets would transfer to the remaining spouse, right? The when that spouse dies it goes to the heirs mentioned by the remaining spouse’s will. Unless the first decedent willed something to another party …let’s say Brother Bob in addition to the spouse.

So this really only comes in to play if you both die together… in that case it goes to your children. (Provided you both name your children 100%) As usually there is a clause if a named party in the will dies w/in 30 days of the decedent that instruction is ignored. So essentially your half goes to your children and your DH’s goes to your children.

So let’s say you and the children all die together… so then at that point your situation would be complicated… and I suspect that the courts would just decide who from your respective wills gets what in the way they think matches your wishes within the law.

OK, but even so, if you're retired and (hopefully) already established, with your own mortgage-free home, regular pension and most non-consumable things that you need, £250K is still a massive windfall.

He's 66 now, so neither young nor especially old; but in this unlikely scenario - which could presumably only kick in up to the point when your children had at least one of their own children between them, that could well mean that the brother is then 86 or even into his 90s, or more likely, already deceased. He could well be in a council-funded care home by then, and your money would go straight to the council instead.

Obviously, it's up to you, but if I were in your position, I'd be inclined to do what PP suggested and leave it to the intestacy laws to sort it with whoever in your families was still alive.

For all the stress and disagreement it's causing you, if you are both gone and your children are both gone - before you've had any grandchildren, so nobody left whom you would ever expect to need to provide for - it's pretty much academic what happens to your family money after that, isn't it? Worst-case scenario, they would all stand to receive a very significant unexpected sum of money.

Has your DH spoken to his brother about it? If so, what does the brother say? At 66, I hope he has more robust retirement plans already in place than relying on outliving all four members of a family, one of whom is 30 years and two of whom are more than 60 years younger than he is.

Yeah exactly. The only "explaination" in the opening post was about what they bring to the table earnings wise. Since explained anyway, but still 🤷‍♀️

@GreenWalls22 see that's exactly what my absolute ideal scenario is! I think everyone should just get an even share. It will help each of our siblings in different ways. I wish my husband would see it this way

It's easy to see it this way though, when it's your side of the family that would benefit the most. For what it's worth, in the same scenario, all our estate would pass to my siblings, at my DH's suggestion, as DH has no contact with his sibling. If he wanted to leave his 50% to his sibling or siblings children, then that would be only fair, as far as I am concerned.

@Jaigh omg I said we each bring an almost equal amount to the estate. When I said he earns 20% more than me but that will be leveled off soon, it was to explain that what we bring to the estate will be completely equal very soon. I didn't have to go into detail of how each component of our estate was funded, I had already stated it was funded equally.

For all the stress and disagreement it's causing you, if you are both gone and your children are both gone - before you've had any grandchildren, so nobody left whom you would ever expect to need to provide for - it's pretty much academic what happens to your family money after that, isn't it? Worst-case scenario, they would all stand to receive a very significant unexpected sum of money.

That is kind of what I was thinking.

Me and DH, don’t have kids. We’re currently pondering our wills and have essentially decided that our God Children get whatever we we have. We have a niece, who is not really in our lives for handwave reasons. He wants to leave her something. I’m mostly ambivalent. But it makes sense to name the niece in my will just in case he goes first. Our wills will be written more or less that the surviving spouse gets 100% and then each of us will name the god kids (and niece I guess) as alternates. We’ll probably do a trust to take the guesswork out.

ETA: at the end of the day I don’t really care because I’ll be dead.

@budgiegirl I have already said I'm happy to divide it 50:50, but my absolute ideal would be to divide it completely equally amongst each of the siblings. I don't know his brother, and my husband and I don't know his brothers children, so I'm actually being extremely generous to give his brother the amount he's getting.

I would leave it to the younger generation.. ie
50% divided between his nieces and nephews and
50% divided amongst your nieces and nephews is how I'd go.

or
50% to his brother and
50% divided between your siblings

One or the other.

It is a remote chance that you will all die.

If your spouse is stubborn about leaving 80% to his brother then I would start to separate your finances to reflect more accurately what each of you is worth. Then you can each have your own Will.

I know this isn't the main question at all, and it isn't really any of my business, but am I the only one wondering how you would be so close to a family member that you would be adamant in wanting them to inherit all/most of your considerable amount of money - but only see them once every five years?

Question… do you all have the provision that if a named heir dies within 30 days of the will writer they are basically ignored?

"we each bring an almost equal amount to the table (he brings about 20% more than me right now but my earnings are increasing each year so this will level off)"

Nah you definitely said table, talking in the context of right now which totally looked like wages considering you said earnings. The words estate vs table gives it a different meaning. But anyway not to worry, I was only asking a genuine question at the start because of the above confusion but I'll leave you to your answers from other people.

I don't know his brother, and my husband and I don't know his brothers children, so I'm actually being extremely generous to give his brother the amount he's getting

I appreciate that you don't know his brother, but I don't know that I would call it extremely generous to agree that your DH can leave his own 50% share of your joint estate to his brother. Surely he can leave his 50% to whoever he wants? It seems quite unfair of you to expect him to give up some of his share for you siblings, unless he offers to do so. But at the same time, the 80% thing is quite bonkers.

Hopefully this is all academic anyway, as the chances of you all dying together are negligibly small.

@FatherJackHackettsUnderpantsHamper no you're not wrong at all for wondering that and that's exactly my issue with my husband wanting to leave him so much!! His brother went completely rogue from the age of about 30, got really addicted to the party scene, became an alcoholic and addicted to cocaine. He turned his life around when he was in his late 50s. He lives overseas now so my husband sees him very infrequently (as I've said about once every 5 years) and I've only ever seen him on facetime because he was still off the rails when my husband and 1 got married so he never came to our wedding. His kids also don't have much to do with him and subsequently don't really have anything to do with his family (or us because of that). My husband was close to him when they were younger and I think he looks back at those times with rose tinted glasses and just wants to reward his brother for turning his life around. Whereas my siblings have worked their asses off from the minute they left home, never got involved in any party life/culture. Its just frustrating.

I'm very much not a lawyer, but building on what a couple of PPs have said, it is the case in law that, when multiple members of a family die all at once, it's 'assumed' that the youngest person died last.

Therefore, in such a tragic scenario, would it not be taken that everything was bequeathed by your as-yet-unborn child, so your own wills would be effectively moot - other than to have 'instantly' bequeathed that money to your youngest in the first place, that is now considered his/hers to bequeath?

How would this play out if the youngest child had not yet made a will? And if he/she had made a will, would they have wanted to leave all/most/any of it to an uncle they may never have actually met (indeed may never meet)?

@budgiegirl my husband wants to leave him 80%. So who's really being unreasonable here? I have already said I'd do a 50:50 split but my husband is dragging his heels about it saying my siblings are still young and can accrue wealth, but his brother is old and would make his retirement good etc.

Personally… I think you both just need to name who you want in your own wills and let the court decide in the unlikely event that it’s an issue.

Again, you and your own children are out of the picture in this scenario. They’ll take both wills into consideration (likely) and go go from there.

I agree with you that it's unreasonable of your DH to want to leave 80% to his brother (and I can't really understand his logic on this). But I don't think it's what I'd call 'generous' to agree that he can leave 50% to his side of the family. It's surely just fair?

While I can see an argument for it, you would really like to leave 80% to your side of the family. Not sure that's particularly fair either, but I can at least see your reasoning behind it.

You inherited 750,000. Did your siblings inherit anything too?

Old adults can sort their retirement out.
If the older brother had not fallen off the rails he would have helped his kid out more so he would surely like his kids to receive a windfall rather than him.

I like the idea of leaving money to young adults who can buy houses, really reduce the amount they pay in interest to banks, educate their kids well and help their parent out if need be at their own discretion.
So I would leave all to the nieces and nephews.

@budgiegirl he wants to leave 80% to one person though, that's a very different proposition then dividing it equally amongst all the siblings.