My aunts inheritance choices seem to have destroyed my family

[Afana]

A little context, my aunt passed away at the start of last year, her husband had passed 10 years prior, she never had children. They were well off. Massive large house worth more than 2 million and some other assets, including a holiday home etc.

My DD is 24, lives in London where my aunt was and was "named after" her. She is the only girl, my brother has two boys and I have a boy, my dad was her only sibling.

My aunt really treated my kids like her own grandkids but more so my daughter, she spoiled her, had her over in the holidays etc. Even got her a job!

Now when my aunt passed everything was left to my daughter. This was unexpected. After inheritance tax and giving the donations to charity she had arranged. There was around 1.9 million left, the house was sold to cover the inheritance tax.

My daughter used a deed of variation I believe to give £50,000 to myself, my son, my brother and my brother's two sons. £25,000 to my parents, which is all they wanted, she did offer them more.

My aunt wrote a letter explaining her reasons and it was effectively she's my favourite.

Now recently my daughter bought a lovely 2 bed flat worth over a million in a lovely part of London near Hyde Park. She's reduced her work to 4 days, she got rid of basically every item of clothing she owned and bought all new, has been on endless holidays.

Now my son and both her cousins, not to mention myself and my brother are somewhat resentful. We aren't a rich family, we live modest lives in the midlands and everyone thinks her choice screams of greed. She's mortgage free in a flat while her cousins are still struggling to buy.

Yesterday was Easter, everything was tense, my daughter ended up leaving early with her boyfriend to go home. We haven't heard from her since!

AIBU to think my aunt going about everything like this has irreparably damaged our family and it will probably never be the same again. I do think my daughter was greedy and should have shared more equally!

I don't think the aunt sounds terribly nice. Let's face it, the things the aunt enjoyed doing were always more likely to appeal to a girl than a boy – how many 9-year-old boys enjoy being paraded round a tennis club, getting dressed up, and going on picnics and to museums?

I'm pretty sure that the tone of this thread would be markedly different if there had been 1 boy and 3 girl cousins and the boy had been left all the money because he and his uncle spent holidays together going to sports matches in which the girls had no interest… And then uncle left a letter explaining that girls were always welcome to come to watch football, rugby and cricket with him but chose not to. Come on, posters would be saying 'unfair' and 'sexism' left, right and centre.

However, none of this is the fault of OP's DD. She sounds lovely actually, giving hand-outs to her relatives. She's also very sensibly invested a large amount in a London property, ensuring she is mortgage free, and then used some to improve her work-life balance. I don't think we need to be concerned about the DD in the slightest!

! Aren't going to be extinct if you don't use lots. You don't need to use them every sentence.

I understand that inheritance leaves a sour taste if you end up counting other people's money. It wasn't yours ever and it was generous to give large cash gifts out of it.

My aunt was very rich with 2 London properties bought in the 70s and 80s. She left very small (like £2k) gifts to my family and split the rest between the 2 brothers she got on with, which has one one side of the family resulted in one aunt going on lots of holidays and her dc getting a boost on the property ladder. We got not much. I think good on them. It's not my money. My aunt loved me but not my dad.

On DHs side there's a very rich aunt who left all her money to a chancer she was friends with at the end of her life. Again, not my money. Not my problem. I look after myself in life. I'm not relying on inheritance. She managed to get all DH's family money and give it away. We'd be millionaires if she'd given it to us! I don't mind. There was a time when I dreamed briefly of a big house mortgage free but never mind.

In your case the deceased probably wanted one person's life to be changed and drastically improved rather than whittled away improving lots of people's lives in small ways. Either option is a valid choice. When it comes to making a will most people leave few beneficiaries.

Let's look at this a different way.

Let's say your DD earned her wealth through her work.

She earned sufficient amounts to buy her flat in London outright, has money invested and some in the bank-enough to reduce her hours to 4 days a week and has good scatter cash to enjoy her life with-AND she gives £300k of her money to family (including a DB she doesn't like).

Would you all moan then because, after all, she still has money sat in the bank that totals more than what she gave you all?

Ultimately-the only thing in the real scenario and the imagined one is how the money came about-other than that-the material reality is the same.

It's her money and she can do what she likes with it. She can buy herself new clothes. She can go on fancy holidays and enjoy her flat in London.

The "jokes" and nasty comments about greed and money got so much for her that she left. But rather than check up on her and try and repair the damage you've all done-you're justifying your resentment and greed by pretending that she's the greedy one.

That poor girl. She did a good, kind thing giving you all a tidy sum of money, and rather than be grateful and happy that she's been set up for a good future-you're bitter, nasty and resentful towards her. Horrible people.

Maybe we’d be sore, maybe we wouldn’t - what is being recognized is that said soreness would be our problem to deal with. It wouldn’t be the beneficiaries fault, or their problem to solve. Nor would it be the fault of the person who bequeathed the money as they saw fit, which they were fully entitled to do.

Being sore about something, and in this case being sore about money that was never theirs to have designs on, doesn’t mean you have a valid complaint.

Gandhi? Give over.
Nobody is policing the family members' feelings. They can be jealous, resentful, whatever.
The problem here is them actively taking it out on the daughter. Making remarks about how mean and greedy she is.

I would be delighted if my DD had been given such an opportunity. I do understand to some extent why her brother isn't too happy but you? She is your DD. In any case, she gave away a few hundred thousand Pound and she is treated like that? What a vile bunch you are and you behaved awful as a mother. You should be ashamed. I hope you have apologised by now and get your DS to grow a pair and apologise as well.

As a parent, I want my DC to be financially better off than I am. I would be delighted if one of my children had a windfall like this. I would understand their sibling being jealous. But I would explain to them, kindly, that their Dsis did not ask to inherit and that she has not done anything wrong. I would also remind them that she was under no obligation to give them money, that she chose to do so and they should not have accepted it if they couldn't bring themselves to be pleasant towards her. I certainly would not allow them to hound her out of a family gathering.

It may not seem fair, but the fact is the Aunt has a right to leave her money to whoever she wanted. Life isn't always fair unfortunately.

You’re destroying your family, you and your jealousy.

You should be pleased for your daughter. She’s got a good job and has a huge step up. Your son has also been given £50k which should sort
out a home for him too. Unless he’s rubbish with money and hasn’t saved anymore or got a decent paying job. But that’s his fault, not dds and not your aunts.

It's not holier than thou to think that everyone telling the daughter she's greedy and making fun of her during a family Easter gathering is awful. I can understand them feeling envious of the money, but I can’t understand them feeling like they have a right to it. Or that they can give voice to that resentment by treating the daughter badly and expecting her to still want a relationship with them (or expecting that this treatment will make her give them more money!).

The money was never theirs. Envy destroys people from inside if they let it.

There was an unequal inheritance situation in my family, and I wasn't on the favoured side. I would never, ever breathe a word to the beneficiary or expect anything of them. I'd never let it eat me up either. The idea of looking at that person's new clothes or laughing at them over an Easter roast for being greedy is just beyond imagining.

Your post screams of greed but your own greed.
You made jokes and it made her so uncomfortable she left. She deserves an apology from you all.
At the end of the day your DD was in her life more than you. You can’t blame her, she was a child, your child, when she started staying. It doesn’t matter the reasons, what’s done is done.
Yes she could have given more but she didn’t have to give any of you anything, she did that of her own back but you are still not satisfied.
Don’t ruin your relationship with your daughter over something that she didn’t ask for in the first place.

Your dd gave £50k to you, her brother and her cousins. That's incredibly generous. You all sound grabby.

You let people do that to her? Did you join in? How bloody awful, and you blame the aunt...

If your family has been destroyed, it’s your jealousy that’s destroyed it! For the love of all of the gods, can’t you
see that? You say clearly that your Aunt adored your DD and was much closer to her than any other relative. So she wanted to give her favourite person a good life with the money that was hers to do with whatsoever she pleased. Your DD has handed out a large amount to other family members - 50k each is huge and a massive deposit on a property. She doesn’t even like her DB but still gave him 50k, but not good enough for any of you,
so you make digs and accuse her of being greedy at a family gathering? Nice. Way to go on destroying your own relationship with DD due to your green-eyed-monster. I can’t imagine being jealous of my own DD’s luck and financial security.

It isn’t the fault of the others family members that they didn’t live in London, so didn’t have the same opportunities to visit the aunt as regularly. I’d hate to think my family members would essentially “award” the nieces and nephews who for various reasons visited them the most, in their will.

I take your point about visiting. But did the others ever phone her? Facetime? Send birthday and Christmas cards? ie did they ever remember that she existed in terms other than her money?

I am a bit amazed that she managed to buy a two bedroom flat near Hyde Park for a million. Has it got a very short lease, or dry rot?

?????

😶

Would I feel jealous in the OP's situation? No, I would be happy for my dd. I can't imagine ever begrudging my dd her good fortune.

Would I feel jealous if I was the dd's sibling? Quite possibly. But I hope that I would recognise that jealousy as being my own problem and nothing to do with my sister in the slightest. And I hope that I would recognise that I never had any entitlement to that money anyway and that I would recognise the generosity of my sister in sharing any of it when our aunt had chosen to leave it to her.

I disagree. Suppose a parent has a favourite child out of four. Suppose the parent happens to prefer girly girls to boys. Suppose the parent and child happen to share hobbies and live closer together so they happen to spend more time together. Does that make it Ok to leave everything to that one child? I don't think so, and I don't think the niece/nephew scenario is much different.

Again, I think it can be OK if one child is significantly more in need, or made significant sacrifices to act as a carer, but I don't think this is the case here.

I don't think the OP's DD has done anything wrong and nobody should take it out on her. Nor do I think the OP is being greedy thinking the inheritance should have been shared (more) equally between the four nieces and nephews. But I do think the aunt was unfair to play favourites after her death as well as before and I can understand that it will cause some unhappiness from her brother and cousins.

And FWIW I also think it would be fine to leave the whole lot to charity!

Why? The DD was closet to her aunt, and the aunt wanted it all left to DD?

The sense of entitlement on this thread is astonishing. People leave money to who they want to..🙄

Everything seems to be the aunt's fault in the OP's eyes.

Her DS had no relationship with the aunt-aunt's fault-despite having made open invitations to him.

None of the family, other than the DD, had close relationship to the aunt-aunt's fault and choice.

Aunt bequeathes whole estate to DD causing a rift of jealousy and resentment towards DD-aunt's fault for not giving it all to them instead.

None of it, in OP's mind, is their fault. It's not the DS's fault (when he's older) that he didn't forge a relationship or make an attempt to. It's not OP's fault that she didn't discourage the alleged favouritism she claims went on.

It's not OP's or any of the other family members fault that they weren't close to the aunt.

Nope. The aunt is the apparent problem-despite showing willing and openness to spend significant amounts of time with the DD and extending open invitations to the other children in the family, too.

But of course, the greed and resentment isn't their fault-it's the aunt that made them that way! Honestly-the OP is going to lose her DD and it will be all her own damn fault.

Wow. Your aunt can leave it to who she wants, all to charity if she wanted. Would you have preferred that?

Your daughter will go NC if you keep treating her like this. She didn’t have to give money but she did. Your son is expecting handouts even though he doesn’t get on with his sister……. All smacks of entitlement. Why can’t any of you be happy for her and not jealous.

OP . . . what was your motive for naming your DD after your aunt?

Is your DS named after a relative too?

Just intrigued with the family dynamics here . . . .

It was left to her for reasons outlined in the letter. You should wish her well. It could’ve all gone to charity and you would not have benefitted from any of it at all.

I don't think so, and I don't think the niece/nephew scenario is much different.

It is absolutely different.

Aunts/uncles/extended family members have zero obligation to split their estates equally. They can do as they wish.

It is not the same as parents having to divide their estates fairly between their children. Not the same at all.