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!

It’s only fair/ unfair if any of you are actually entitled to the money. No one is entitled to someone else’s money (unless a legal situation) .

DD had a great relationship with her, she got the inheritance as that was aunt’s choice. The family are jealous but they didn’t spend all that time with the aunt. I wonder how DD feels, would she rather have her aunt than the money, probably.

Another classic MN thread where the OP doesn't receive the responses she expected or would like and so never responds.

If this is a continual thing, and from what you have posted I suspect that it is, you need to put a stop to it.
Its bullying and if it continues with the rest of what you and the family are doing to her you will lose her completely.

I don't see the issue sorry.
It was your aunts choice who she left her money too. She chose.

The aunt can leave it to whoever she wants. Of course it’s her money, but your daughter also can do what she wants with it and what she wanted Wasn’t fair to her family. It’s a high price to pay.

Especially when the DD lives in London where £271k doesn't buy a great deal and the rest live in the Midlands where (having lived there until recently myself) £271k buys quite a nice house

So the DD would be expected to put herself in a significantly worse financial position comparatively in the pursuit of "fairness"

This reflects badly on everyone but your daughter OP. Have you tbought of giving your £50,000 to your son?

It's her money her choice, the fact she had such a good relationship with her great aunt is testament to her character, your nephew's and son also I imagine had the chance to develop this relationship but chose not too. Your daughter's also been generous giving away a chunk of her inheritance to you all which she didn't need to do. She can spend it how she wants, buying property is a good investment. You all need to move on if you want to salvage your relationship with her.

Great Flat! Shame they sub divided the sitting room to make it a 2 bed though. For a million squid I'd want three windows.

This reflects badly on everyone but your daughter OP. Have you tbought of giving your £50,000 to your son?

Good thinking.

If you carry on making comments and whining to your daughter, you will push her away. No one wants to be made to feel like shit by their own family and she will just avoid being with you in the end.
Stop blaming your daughter for her Aunt's choices, she was a grown woman and chose to leave her money to your DD. The one person she had a close relationship with. You all need to accept and respect that choice.
Your DD gave you all a good amount when she didn't have to.
Life isn't fair.

Yes. I posted above that my brother split a large inheritance three ways between himself, my sister and I but my sister has inherited a lot over the years from relatives and shared godparents who she was much closer to than I was and did far more for them than I ever did, especially in their old age. It's never occurred to me to think I should have had a penny. Each situation needs to be judge on its merits.

In the case of this DD, she was clearly far closer - but to the tune of so much? I would say no - others clearly think differently.

I would rewrite your will to leave everything to your son. That’s all you can do. Give him as much as you can throughout your life so it’s tax free.

Just try and do what you can to repair the relationship- but yes I can see why it feels quite tense.

Dont blame your daughter though - she is young and probably will feel awful when she realises her family are alienated from her. Your aunt created this mess for her in an attempt to show love.

But just see each person in this as separate entities. The OP’s DD had a good relationship with her great niece and no doubt enjoyed her companionship. She may have seen her as the daughter she never had. She did not have a similar relationship with her great nephews, neither side appeared interested or kept in touch with one another. So why would the Aunt want to leave any of her Estate to people she had no relationship with?

The Aunt may have felt the OP’s mother had enough and didn’t need any more, etc,

It’s easy for someone to say the OP’s DD should have split her inheritance equally but in reality not many would. No doubt her DD was guided by the letter her Aunt left, as well as the Will itself.

The rest of the family may feel bitter but should acknowledge the generosity of the OP’s DD. The should think critically about it and realise that they themselves made no effort to keep in any contact with their grand-Aunt.

Chances are if a poster came one here and said she was on a low income, had a mortgage and five kids and had just inherited a large sum of money from a relative while other members of the family received nothing and asked what she should do - the majority of the advice would be to accept the inheritance as it was the wishes of the relative and tough luck to the others.

Just because the OP’s DD is a young woman with no commitments, people feel she doesn’t deserve anything and is not old enough to make informed decisions herself, when in fact she has been very mature in what she has done.

You all sound horrible and owe her an apology. Calling her greedy for using her inheritance that she shared with all of you to buy a nice flat. Is she supposed to hide new clothes she’s bought even after giving you all £50k. I’d have walked out too and not speak to you all until you said sorry and thanked me for what I’d generously shared with you all…

It's really never occurred to me that a person could feel entitled to be not only included in a will but included equally in a will-of a person they held no relationship with when they were alive.

It boggles my mind that people walk around with those delusional levels of entitlement.

So, the DS and the cousins, the OP, the brother, get to sit on their arses, do nothing to spend time with or build a bond with the aunt but as they do that-they're ticking down the clock until she kicks the bucket and they can get their grubby mitts on her estate.

Do people really think that a person they never had a relationship with, even if family, should leave them something in their will? No, not just leave them something-split the estate equally with them?

Is that really normal? It's so bizarre.

Gosh OP you've let envy and greed overtake your relationship with your daughter. Get over it/ draw a line. Choose love: love of your dd, love of your life (now £50k better off), and move on.

I would rewrite your will to leave everything to your son. That’s all you can do. Give him as much as you can throughout your life so it’s tax free.

I really wouldn’t do this without speaking to the daughter first. Parents are the one relation who really are meant to treat their children equally. The daughter may well be fine with this - I would be in her situation - but she shouldn’t feel less loved by her parent just because she’s been lucky with inheritance

But the OP’s DD and DS didn’t get on anyway before all this, she probably doesn’t have much of a relationship with her cousins either. She lives in London, the rest live up North. She has been generous to them all.
She has absolutely no reason to feel awful about this, now or in the future.

Your poor, poor daughter.

It can be surprisingly common with parents who have a golden child like this and the other has found themselves in a better position somehow. MIL is like this with DH because it’s him who happened to marry into our family as opposed to his cleverer and better DSis.

MIL and SIL tried to guilt me into paying towards a new kitchen for MIL after coming to the (not wrong) conclusion that DM had used Christmas as a reason to pass something on. After subtle comments MIL finished with ‘I could always ask my children to buy it for me’ when, as usual, has since said (as usual) she obviously wouldn’t allow SIL to pay for something that would be a tenth of the price. So that would be just us she would expect it from then huh.

I agree.

But OP could give her 50k to the DS.

I have to agree with this. Your daughter has been generous with her windfall, and yet all the recipients can do is be jealous they didn't get more from your aunt. If I was your daughter I wouldn't be keeping in close contact with any of you, and I would be making sure no-one in the family was mentioned in my will.

It's not your aunt who has damaged/destroyed your family.

I very much doubt that will happen!😁

, but I think the aunts choice was selfish and immature. Nothing to do w gender- I’d have been equally outraged if it had been my son who was favorited and not my daughter.

But why? The relationship here is great aunt to daughter (the deceased is the aunt of the OP). That's a fairly distant relationship and one where normally you'd have no expectation of inheritance to be honest.

The daughter was in an exceptional position because she'd lived with her during Covid and they had a close relationship.

It makes no sense to be outraged because the proper view should be

• none of my children or I have any claim on this woman's money because she is a distant relation of my children (great aunt isn't normally a close relationship) and I am not close to her.
• oh wow! she thought so much of my daughter she's left her a lot of money. How lovely. Lucky daughter.
• And oh more wow! my lovely daughter has been kind enough to gift family members voluntarily a total of £275k (all the people going £50k was measly which it isn't need to see that in the total of the gifts given).

The daughter and the relatives given money by the daughter are all lucky here. The relatives all the more so as they hadn't really bothered with this poor woman.

I bet if she could read all this she'd be astounded there was any expectation in the wider family that they'd get a penny and probably rewrite the will to make it a condition that the DD couldn't tell a soul to avoid the nasty avaricious family upsetting her.