Inheritance in a blended family

[iwanttoholdyourhand]

I want to start off by saying that inheritance is never a given and should never be expected or relied on. I find myself in a blenders family unit.

I have one adult child (25) from my previous relationship and 2 children aged (11)and 13) from my current husband.

Here lies the problem. My DS25 father was an alcoholic and a drug addict and died by the time my son was 18 in 2017. He never really gave any money towards DS25 upbringing. He ran his own business so fudged the accounts. From age 7-16 he paid around. £32 per week in maintenance. He in reality earned around £7000 per week at the time.

My other 2 children grandmother is extremely wealthy and my children will eventually inherit around £1 million each. My DS 25 has asked if he is getting anything from MIL and I have told him no.

My DS 25 is extremely resentful about this and feels it's unfair and that his 2 younger siblings have an unfair advantage on him. I have a BTL property that I will give to my DS25 ( £180k equity) but he still feels cheated.

I don't even know what I'm asking l. Am I being fair with all my children . I cannot never compete with the amount of money my MIL has ??

You cannot make someone love their siblings/half-siblings, no matter the circumstances

Easy to say that when it's not you that's going to be inheriting a,large sum of money.

Will your husband inherit a lot from his mum or is it skipping his generation?

It's easy for him to say your son should get 1/3 of your property when his children will get 1/3 plus a lot of money from his mum and an aunt.

The thing is that inheritance is extremely unfair and your DS is right that it gives an unfair advantage. Before anyone attacks me, I don't have a proposal for a workable better system, but it's wild that economic inequality is so bad in the UK that inheritance is the main way most people reach financial stability.
For your DS and others in blended families it's even starker, but the best thing you can do is support your DS to work through the challenges in their own life and ensure they have all the tools to build up their own financial security. If your DS will get a house (indeed, if he will get anything), he's in a far better financial position than many!
It is a challenge to come to terms with that reality - like lots of people, I never have and am unlikely to ever receive inheritance and I've found it hard to work on accepting that this leaves me at a disadvantage - and your posts say your DS is feeling a lot of anger and resentment, so some sort of therapy is likely to help, if he's open to it. I'd be hugely surprised if it's actually the case that he doesn't understand how inheritance works.

I guess it depends how much you value your relationships with your siblings. I only have full siblings but there is no way I would accept £1 million pounds from our grandmother and not share it because it would cause a huge disparity in lifestyle. There is no way it could not cause division between us.

In my mind, if you think of your half siblings as 'proper' siblings, it should be the same. You don't want a division between you. Again, it's different you are not really like proper siblings because your half sibling has another family. But doesn't sound like that's the case here.

OP, this whole thing has probably just brought home to him that he's not really a full part of the family. I think that's a hard thing to swallow if you thought you were the same as your siblings.

Just seen the post that DS is likely to be on £100k by 30... To be quite honest, if I had a child who was acting petty about potential future inheritance, despite their own extreme financial privilege, I'd be extremely disappointed in their values. It does sound like your DS had a tough start in life and he's still relatively young, plus it's not totally clear if any of this has come from him or is just your worry. But if he is bringing this up, evening out wills would not be my first priority - that's not going to be the way you get the siblings to support each other

this. I know there is a school of thought that says "tell everyone what is in the will" but assuming that what he knows is fact and not assumption, this is the kind of problem it can cause.

I think it's really harsh to criticise him, he's realised after 23 of his 25 years that he's not a real part of the proper family.

A lot of her money may go on care ..my mum's house was sold and every penny has gone on a care home ..she's currently up to 4 years in a care home and still going strong
So a fair chunk may go on that
I'm also surprised she's not leaving her money to her son ,as he could share it equally
I think see what happens when mil dies,and whatever she gives the children,,you try to Match or as near as from you and your husbands money , instead of it going 3 ways ,all your money and husband money goes to your son ,to try to even things up
But your husband won't want to do that I expect

I'm another who wonders how/why he knows. I can see why he's hurt if your DH has been in his life since he was 2. When and why did the relationship between your DS and MIL become not so great?

I'm not sure whether you can do much now other than make your own wills according to your morals and see how things pan out with your MIL.

I don’t know why you have shared all this with the children??? Therein lies your problem.

I didn't realise your son had been in your mil life since he was 2
That's actually awful,really awful that she's excluding him
She was the adult in the relationship,and it was up to her to put the effort in when he was small.and that is bad she didn't.
Your husband needs to talk to his mum ,and tell her she has to treat the children all the same

This is all very sad. My adult son has been part of my DH family lives since he was 4. Whilst there was a difference in dealings with their biological grandchildren it was never obvious to him. He is treated as part of the family, the inheritance issue hasnt been raised but my other children have already said they would share it with their brother in the event he got nothing.

Your poor DS was 2 and had no other family so I feel sad for him

I disagree with everyone saying it shouldn't be spoken about. Obviously conversations should be respectful and should be taking place with the understanding that everything could change as a result of care needs etc, but I think wills that throw massive curve balls after death can be extremely challenging and disruptive to families. People shouldn't be dangling potential inheritances as a means of control, but it's not really clear that this is happening here as not much detail has been given about how the conversation actually came about.

Money is the root of all evil.

I understand your DS's jealousy, I think most would feel hard done by in this situation, but that's not your fault or your problem.

He'll still inherit well. He just has to accept it. It's a shame if it affects his relationship with his siblings, that's very immature IMO.

I was/am your DS. I expected to be treated differently to the biological grandchildren (my 2 half siblings) of my grandparent. It wasn’t a shock when my step grandfather died and he left around £2m to each of his biological grandchildren. We (sister and I) got an amount of £5k which was very much appreciated! I think it helped that I have a full sibling who was in the same position so I didn’t feel ‘different’. I’d also quickly figured out that I wasn’t going to be treated the same and accepted it long ago.
I know on here, some people think blended families should treat equally but in real life, I knew it wouldn’t happen.

Lol, yeah, she’ll totally nod her head and do what he says.

She doesn’t ‘have’ to do anything of the sort - the bottom line is that they’re not the same, and all the bleating in the world about what she, and anyone else in the same situation, ‘should’ think/feel/act like doesn’t mean that they’re going to. His stepfather isn’t his father, and his stepfather’s mother isn’t his grandmother. It’s not his fault his father was shit, but it’s not their fault either. They weren’t and aren’t somehow obliged to step into those roles.

I don't agree with this. I think if you marry a woman with a 2 year old child, who doesn't have his own father, you are obliged to be a father to him. IMO you have no business getting involved if you can't do that.

You don’t have to agree. Whether you agree or not isn’t going to change what people choose to do 🤷🏻‍♀️

He had a father until he was 18, by all accounts, a useless one.
Plus the DH cannot force his mother to treat the non biological children the same. He just cannot.

A PP raises a good point about why exactly the MIL is telling everyone now what they will get. I’m not sure it’s actually that usual to pass your estate directly to grandchildren, it usually goes to your offspring who then pass it on to theirs…. Unless of course you want to make absolutely sure no step children or step grandchildren inherit anything. She’s putting him in his place, make no mistake.

Your MIL has been in your DS's life for 23 years, since he was a little toddler.
Did you DS ever call her 'granny' and was it seen as a step-grandparent relationship?

What happened when his two siblings came along - were the three children treated the same, or were differences already made?
Why is your DS not seen as a non-bio, adopted, grandchild by your MIL?

I think the hard path ahead for you, OP, is to have honest conversations with your MIL and your DH. Not to expect, tell, or even ask - just so you can be clear on exactly what the plan is - to take out the guess-work so you can better guide and support your children's relationships through the inevitable bad feeling that will arise due to these fundamental inequalities. Good luck. 💐

If she’s that wealthy , it’ll probably be invested, earning lots of interest, so there will still be a lot left!

I think you have missed the purpose of what a discussion board is. That poster was just giving their opinion to your post, it is what happens every day on here 🤷‍♀️