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!!

@Josette77 my siblings have a different father to me. Their father and my mother is still very much alive, so no they haven't inherited anything from my biological father.

Well, that's your point of view, many others would see it differently. At the end of the day, giving your half to who you want to, and DH giving his half to who he wants to is fair. He choses to give his half to his brother. That's his right.

@budgiegirl we're going around in circles. I've stated from the beginning, and several times after that, I am happy to do a 50:50 split. I have never debated doing this. I am entitled to feel that this is generous considering the backstorey and context. You are entitled to feel however you want. But I have already stated several times, I am not begrudging my husband from doing whatever he wants with his 50%, I just don't want him thinking he can take 30% more and give it to his brother.

Ugh, why did you put your huge inheritance into a marital asset; now it's half his no matter what.

Of course half the estate should go to your family of origin. If he objects to that, you urgently need to speak with a marital counselor.

@LaurieStrode because my husband and I are usually on the same page when it comes to finances and since we have children together I feel like whatever money we have is a shared pot. I just don't like my husbands rose tinted ideals when it comes to his brother in the event of all our deaths. My husband is usually very sensible with money so I'm totally shocked with him dragging his heels on this one.

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.

That's a very strange way of looking at it. Most people would consider how many more years of life somebody likely had left and thus how much the money could help them to improve it, rather than somebody who is already old, which means, not wanting to be too blunt, that their death may well not be too far away.

Anyway, if such a tragedy did ever happen, it could just as easily happen in 25 years time as imminently - still long before you are likely to have grandchildren who would be old enough not to automatically be with their parents at the time of the tragedy and thus die as well.

Therefore, the brother would be 91 by then, if still alive, so his most productive and enjoyable retirement years would very probably have long passed. Meanwhile, your own siblings would then also be in the same age-range as his brother is now, so why wouldn't the money equally give them good approaching retirements?

Has your DH considered not just that this extremely unlikely event could theoretically occur, but also the long time-span when it could happen?

Intestacy laws would treat all surviving uncles and aunts equally, so the division would still not be what the DH wants

@FatherJackHackettsUnderpantsHamper I'm actually going to screenshot your last post and show this to my husband because it sums up exactly how I feel what I think is reasonable. I don't think my husband is thinking about if a tragedy of any sort happened in 10/15/20 years from now, it's like he's thinking about if it happened tomorrow.

@Spomsored you're exactly right in this! I am trying to save our family the hassle and stress of having to deal with this but if my husband continues to drag his heels, I feel we may just have to leave it up to the courts to decide.

OP I would just say to your DH that you will not be signing a will that leaves 80% of your joint estate to his brother and that’s that.

I’d also say that you’d like to stop having to think about the tragic deaths of your husband and children mid pregnancy and concentrate on your small child and new baby. Tell him you’ll agree a 50:50 split and you both specify who should get their half in the extremely unlikely scenario that you all die at the same time and that you’d like this sorted asap as it’s now bothering you.

I think your DH should leave his half to who he wants to and you should do the same with your half.

You have separate wills and you leave your estate to your family and he leaves his to his own family. He cannot claim your part of the estate to give to his side.

When my step mother died, she left her half of the house to my half sister and stipulated that the house had to be sold when my sister was 25 for her to realise the asset. There was nothing that could be done. My dad lost his home.

Wow! More than a few people need a remedial reading comprehension class!

OP, what you have described seems fair. Your DH is right that his brother would have a ‘good retirement’ on your money and your siblings have time to accrue their own money. But that doesn’t mean that is the way it should be divided.

Write your own will. In the unlikely event of a freak meteor hit to your home, you can leave all of your estate to your siblings and the executor of your will can deal with deciding what is yours and what is your husband’s (it is likely that anything in both names will be 50/50 and anything in your name, such your insurance policy or separate bank accounts, will be 100% part of your estate).

Remember that this is worst case scenario stuff that you will almost certainly never need. (But it is still important so don’t procrastinate!).

Not really, it’s a bit depressing 😁 Reminds me of all the people I have to deal with on a regular basis at work who can’t answer a simple question on a form!

Our wills leave everything to our children. If that fails, divided among surviving parents. If that fails, to our children in law.

It can be amusing in an 'upturned hands in the air and wide eyes' way, but it is also annoying at the same time.

Maybe we should petition MN to start a new 'Lucky Dip' topic where people just post whatever they think might do, regardless of what the OP or anybody else has written. A bit like the old 'consequences' game that we used to play at school, where each person would write a line of a story, fold the paper over and then pass it to the next person to continue.

That's not OP's situation, though. Her DC are nowhere near old enough to be married for probably two decades or more; one of them hasn't yet even been born!

I can't believe you wouldn't leave it all to your children.

I'm kidding! I can read.

I'd be surprised if the solicitor doesn't say something about the unfairness of this as it opens up the potential for the will to be challenged by your family. It also shows your husband's arrogance/entitlement (?) in thinking his siblings are more important than yours. In other words - he is more important than you.

As in a partnership all things should be equal so I would split the entire estate 50/50

So 50% goes to your side of the family, whoever you chose to give it to and the other 50% to your partners side.

Or if your dh isn’t happy with that extremely generous offer
Leave all of your estate ie anything in your sole name and half of anything in joint names to your family and your partner does the same with his estate. I doubt he’d be happy with that as clearly at the moment your estate is far larger.

Given your update you should ring fence your assets in your estate and designate that to your family members.

I'd go 50/50 between families - if the siblings what to pass it directly to their kids they can do deeds of variation
or as a PP said
Leave all of your estate ie anything in your sole name and half of anything in joint names to your family and your partner does the same with his estate. How much of your estate will be joint assets though and how much will be your own?

You don’t have to leave it to the courts, because you write a will with a 30 day clause that says if your husband dies within 30 days your children get it, if they too die within 30 days of you then you wish your entire estate to be divided amongst your siblings. Tell your dh if he wants to give 80% to his brother you’ve never met that is totally unfair to you and your love for your family , he won’t compromise or recognise this so your will gives your estate entirely to your siblings. Or, you could agree something your both happy with, but it’s that or you both put something that makes the other miserable.

its just so self-centred of him that he thinks he gets to decide to hand just about all your joint assets off to his side of the family, I’d be really put off by this. Id say petty things like my sister is coming to tea, I guess since I’m still alive you don’t begrudge her a sandwich?

I think you would also have to write in something to protect the money for your siblings in the event that you predecease your husband and your children don't survive you.

Well those charity bosses will be happy, in this most unhappy event.
Id rather my family might benefit, even if they were remote relatives, if I had no close family.

I don’t agree with most charities existing though.
Fat cats paying themselves huge salaries from your donations

Sorry, but in the 1/100M chance that you all die together, the will should give 50% to your siblings and 50% to his siblings. It is your siblings who can give money to their children as they wish. It is ludicrous to even entertain the notion that the brother should get a higher percentage. Your DH is trying to play BMOC by "showing" his brother how important and well-off he is, to the detriment of your family.
Whatever you do, be sure to update the will as needed, as old outdated wills can also be troublesome.
As you are already doing, I am sure, is that if you and your DH die, since your sister would raise the children, the money would go into trust for the children, with an amount to be used for their care by the sister each year, a certain amount for the children to use for university and then they can inherit the remainder at whatever age you think they are most likely ready to be in charge of that amount of money.