If one of your adult kids won the lottery

[Hedgeoffressian]

If you have two grown children. One of them wins a substantial sum on the lottery. Your other child is very poor living from one pay day to the next and has to budget to make sure they can pay for life’s essentials. Would this affect what you leave your children in your will and would you leave the majority of your assets to the child who needs it most? Or would you split it between them evenly?

I personally would leave the majority to the child who has nothing. Would you do the same?

Disclaimer to add this hasn’t affected me in real life. It’s something I have wondered about though.

It would depend what the lottery-winner did.

If I won the lottery I would dustribute up to a third of the win amoung my siblings to e.g. pay off their mortgage and ensure they were ok (though not sharing equally as it is my winnings) so if a child did that I would feel I should leave to them equally.

If the winner kept it all for themselves and didn't have a problem with being fantastically wealthy with a sibling in poverty then I would leave 99% to the poor sibling and 1% to the rich one.

It's unwise to leave it 100% to one and 0% to the other as these wills are much more easily contested than ones which leave a small sum to the otherwise-not-inheriting one.

@OligoN I already said I misread the thread.
Careful you don't fall off your high horse 😂😂

If they’re earning millions! Probably yes!
But earning is not the same as winning through complete luck.
I can only look at my family. There is no way on earth I’d be sat there with millions of spare cash while my sister grinds herself into the dust earning minimum wage. I could not live with that.

Me too and I'd tell the lottery winner that I was very disappointed that their very first action wasn't to share the win equally between immediate family members.

Depends on why the poor one is poor. If it was poor financial decisions then I would split equally, but if it was more hard luck then I’d leave them the majority. I would definitely tell them my plans early on though, sit lotto winner down and explain my reasoning. I also like to think the one who won would be inclined to help their struggling sibling. I can’t imagine if I won the lottery not helping pay off the mortgages and cars of my siblings.
This is a good question I’m definitely going to be putting it to my parents when I see them.

Yes, absolutely

In my case it would depend on the situation as to what I would hope for.

My sister is well off by virtue of marrying into a family that has received generations of inheritances (among other things, such as her hard work) But the majority of their wealth is family wealth on her husband's side.

Day to day I would not expect nor hope for any financial help from her.

However, if (God forbid) my DH became unwell, could not work, our insurances didn't pay out for whatever reason and we'd used all our savings, then yes I'd approach her for help to keep our house.

The reason I would do this is because I would help her if she was ever in a precarious financial situation, so I would hope she'd do the same for me.

However, it is unlikely that either of us would be in that sort of predicament because we have safety nets in place (insurances/savings) and parents with enough money to help us if needs be. And id approach my parents and in laws for financial help before my sister.

If one of my children won the lottery they’d share it with their siblings, as would I.

No equal share.
It's lucky for one and unfortunate for the other.
Thats life.

I think I would have to leave everything split equally because my will is more than just a financial sum, it's a sort of gesture as well, I would love my children equally (don't actually have any) so I'd want to treat them equally.

FWIW, this situation has actually happened in my family, though with a twist.

I am one of three siblings. As children, we were all given some premium bonds as a gift. During childhood, I won a significantly big prize on my premium bonds - lucky me! But my parents took control and decided, to "make things fair", that my winnings would be split equally between the three of us. I wasn't really old enough to argue a case against this.

Some years later we are all in our early 20s, my brother won a similarly significant prize on the lottery, and treated us to a meal out but kept the bulk of it and bought a house.

I should live and let live/let it go/etc, but it's actually really affected my relationship with my family, because he was able to live his entire adult life very comfortably, whereas I lived in poverty and only managed to buy my first home in my 40s. I'm still resentful of the decision my parents made too.

That said, I'd still expect my parents' will to be split equally.

I think that’s an insane situation!

I dunno, i do agree it all comes down to need and dynamics. For me, as a daughter with 6 siblings I l've often thought if I had won the lottery:
Keep half for me and husband and kids
Send a massive chunk for my dad and stepnum, as they raised me, they struggle financially, - i have frequently sent them money from my paycheck, to pay for shopping, get through the pandemic etc.
I would give an equal split to my younger child-free siblings.
I'd give a sightly bigger one to my older sister who would share it with my neice and nephew.
For my birth mum, Id give a smaller split. She is very frugal and enjoys a simple quiet life, doesnt want for much, doesnt wish to travel or own possessions. Also she would definitely give 90% of it to her "church". Its not a regular church but I think pretty all-consuming for her. So, yeh, I guess its such a personal thing! Hopefully everyone would be happy with that!

Wouldn’t siblings with a good relationship help each other out anyway?

I’d leave equal shares, I think.

I've rethought! No, i wouldn't interfere but if they didn't share I'd leave 99% to the poorer one.

And I'd give zero to my own sibling.

@Hedgeoffressian the children should always be left equal shares. from personal experience, it makes any children not being treated equally, feel unloved, and that is not a good feeling!

Not if they can comprehend their parents actions. Your post makes it sound like a parents love is purely equatable with the money they leave their children

Not necessarily. When my mum died she left 60% to my youngest brother and 20% each to myself and next brother. I didn't feel unloved because of it. I know and accepted her valid reason for doing so

Realise this doesn't work in all families but I'd probably get everyone together and have an open discussion about it well ahead of time.

I think people who are saying they'd expect them to share anyway are seeing them as children.
I'd assume if they won the lottery that they're all adults, with jobs and families. So if they shared within your family, they'd also have to share within their partner's family, and maybe that cousin their partner was closer than their brother etc.
A "substantial sum" split maybe 6 ways; maybe not so substantial now.
If they've got children too, then they may want to make sure they've got some to fall back on, so now it's an 8 way split...

Perhaps put it another way. You ds2 wins the lottery. He's doing okay currently, as are ds1 and dd, not luxurious, but getting by okay by working hard and being careful.
Ds2's SIL is a lone parent to three small ones, and can't work after a traffic accident. She's on the council housing waiting list, but has been told she's unlikely to get one within the next 5 years. The partner uses half the money to buy her a house, and they invest the rest of the money for their own children. I suspect that most of the people here are going to say they'd think how lovely and kind and thoroughly good idea.
I suspect in reality they'd be muttering about it and thinking how unfair it was to their dc and how hard they worked.

People are much more generous with theoretical money than the reality. Real money is harder to give away.

Things could well change for the poorer sibling, before you pop your clogs.

I think it best to leave both kids equal amounts. That will prevent any arguments. However, there is nothing to stop you helping the less fortunate one financially, when you can and if it can be done discreetly.

shrewd financial decisions

Buying a lottery ticket? 🙄🙄🙄

I wouldn't expect this in my family! I don't know if some of them would even tell us.

RTFT 🙄

Winning the lottery isn’t a shrewd financial decision! It’s literally blind luck.

I would split between them regardless.
I'm fairly sure that my two would be generous with one another and us, as we would with them, in circumstances such as a substantial win.
My older son has already expressed that he appreciates the help we gave him and DIL and assumed we'd give his brother more help getting on the housing ladder as he doesn't earn as much and is perpetually single. I don't think either would see the other suffer re inheritance and they will both have received help getting on the property ladder earlier in life.