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.

For me it would depend on how the lottery winner behaved after they had won. If they shared a little of it then I would split inheritance equally. If they kept it all for themselves then I would leave the most to the poorer child.

We're all adults, working class, single income households due to circs rather than luxury. I couldn't sit on 100M in my lovely new home, driving my lovely new car, with trust funds set up for the kids and then watch my sisters penny pinch for everything, saying no to school trips and experiences because they can't afford it. Maybe that makes mean idiot, but I just couldn't. It doesn't mean they have to have an equal split, for many half a million would be life changing altho I appreciate on MN it's usually the joint income before bonuses 🙄

Split equally.

100 M I'd share yes, because that is an enormous amount and I would struggle to wonder what I'd be able to spend that amount on. But thats extremely rare. Most lottery wins I've seen on here and in real life and people I've actually heard about are far more likely to be like 200-500k or at most, 2-3 million and no, I wouldnt share that.

Treating your children fairly doesn't necessarily mean treating them the same. Children have different needs be that financial, emotional etc. Some of my siblings have required more financial support from my parents than I have. My parent shave always been there when I needed them and I'm lucky that I haven't needed too much financial support from them as an adult. I'd never begrudge a sibling getting financial support if they needed it.

Also if I won the lottery none of my siblings would be struggling financially.

Winning the lottery is not a shrewd financial decision.

Lottery winnings are tax free so yes you can gift millions to a sibling tax free.

The only clause is if you die within 7 years of gifting it (inheritance tax)

Its all pie in the sky really considering your chances of winning the jackpot are 45 million to 1.
You’re probably more likely to be hit by a comet. 🫤

This is the 38th time someone has pointed this out. It’s getting boring now. 😂

The thing is say a sibling wins the lottery and he/she has a spouse and children, the dc will want the whole lot left to them, the spouse will have plans for the money too, it could all be accounted for and they do not want o give a chunk away. Say they won 1m, that’s not that much. 10m definitely they could bung the sibling a million.

This happened in my family but we arent from the UK and this happened back home. Not lottery but big amounts of money around £5mil. My nother have 2 siblings. My mother sister (my aunt) sold her company abroad for that amount in early 2000’s. And my aunt shared all her fortunes to her siblings also my grandparents. My aunt bought all of us houses and put all of her niece and nephew through university without student loans. I’m so grateful forever for her.

At least buying a lottery ticket is a proactive decision, but for them buying it, they could not win. Plenty of windfalls happen in life with no decision made. What if one sibling unexpectedly inherited millions from a childless friend, or their house unexpectedly went up in price by millions due to a tube station being built nearby? What if they were digging their patio and found buried treasure? What if they moved in to their house and in their attic was an antique clock and sells at Sotheby’s?

I'd leave them equal amounts.

Having said that if I were to win a reasonable amount on the lottery I'd tell DM to split my share of her will between the siblings who won't be inheriting the family business. I'm not sure if I'd give them anything other than a token amount myself, they have good jobs but no children whereas I do have DC so would prioritise the DC over my siblings.

All this depends on the amount I won of course, if I won over 10 million I'd give my siblings enough to give them secure retirement.

@SmileyClare

Lottery winnings are tax free so yes you can gift millions to a sibling tax free.
There is a limit in cash gifts of £3000 before there is a tax liability.

It's nothing a lottery win if you gift it to someone else. You got the lottery win. Once you gift any it is just a regular money gift which is not tax free once it's over the threshold

You can gift as much money as you like.
There is no tax implication on the recipient so long as you survive 7 further years. If you don't live 7 years, the money will be considered part of your estate and will potentially be taxable under inheritance tax

The £3,000 exemption is only for inheritance tax, ie £3,000 per year will not be considered in an IHT calculation regardless of when the benefactor dies.

Separate to this you can give whatever you like and there is no tax liability for the beneficiary.

Any tax will be paid by the benefactor’s estate if they die within 7 years of the gift being given.

I just don’t get this call people have on other peoples money. So let’s say you had the win, would you no matter what (ie your outgoings) just hand a chunk to family member? Lottery win sums of money can go surprisingly quickly if you have school fees, high house maintenance costs etc… and what about work salaries? Or inheritance from in-laws? Is that different?

The reason I ask is because there is an expectation level like this from my in-laws. Due to a combination of forward thinking from my parents enabling me to have a strong property portfolio before I married, plus an extremely healthy business I built but DH now helps to run we can have a very nice life style with public school education for 3, decent holidays etc. This is all great and obviously easier with the platform I had but still means we have to take what would be seen as huge sums of money out of the business to do it.

However all my in-laws see is huge sums of money (by what we do, not what we say). So I have been told many times that my DH’s brother is in a creative field but is apparently shy so that is why he lives on the breadline as opposed to being more successful. Except it’s more that he expects for someone to just offer him an opportunity as he’s walking down the street as it happened to Kate Moss 🙄, he puts in little effort to very much and is just a lazy git.

I know my MIL would like us to help him
out. She has said so. I know she celebrated with my SIL when Labour announced school fees were going up as it could have put pressure on our budgets and made our kids opportunities more equal to SIL’s kids as we might have had to change their schooling. Sorry MIL. Nothing changes here. It’s toxic when people have an expectation like that.

And for the record my DB has ten times what we have and my only thought is well done him. He would never expect me to ask him a dime and I would never do so. And my parents have discussed their future plans and anything that has been passed down so far to me ahead of the tax man taking a slice I have insisted gets given to him to and that anything in the will is equal. Nothing else is worth it. At any level of monetary value.

Absolutely would be treating my kids fairly and equally. In death they would get 50/50 irrespective of their own wealth. In life i might choose to give a little more to the poorer one through things such as helping with childcare, groceries, clothing etc.

Funnily enough I had this conversation with my adult son the other day. Both my sons had premium bonds and I often fretted about what would happen if one son won a million. I would have liked it to be shared.
Fast forward and my son has two daughters with premium bonds. He thinks winner keeps it all!
Whether I would try to even things up in my will depends on so many things, not just who has won money.

I have experienced a similar scenario. My older brother inherited a couple of million and was gifted for example a new car and phenomenal diamond jewellery. I never expected him to share and indeed he didn’t. My father left his small estate divided between 3 siblings equally. The only time I felt it was when he sold the car and someone said they couldn’t believe he wouldn’t think to gift it to me as I was unable to afford a car. I borrowed a rucksack from him once and it got damaged accidentally. He sent me the receipt for the ruck sack for my birthday even though I replaced his with a better new one. C’est la vie.

^ This and I hope the sibling would share! I’d leave 50/50 if they did. If they chose not to fine, but I’d leave my estate to the ones who didn’t. Leaving only some sentimental jewellery to money bags 🤣

No equal share it would be heart breaking for the other one even if he doesn't need the money I would want to leave a nice memory and not doubt that my mum didn't care about me as much , unless you discuss it with the one that one the lottery see how he feels or maybe indirectly try and see how he would feel .

My brother is very wealthy indeed (married into it), we are not on the breadline but can't afford holidays/loads of meals out etc. I know my parents will split everything equally as they always have done.

(Which I'm very happy with by the way.)

I'd absolutely leave equal. It's no-ones 'fault' they are rich or poor so that shouldn't come into the decision. If you leave it all to one, the one who didn't get anything will always be hurt & wonder if they did something to be excluded & you won't be around to clarify. So no, definitely share equally.

The idea that an adult couldn't comprehend why their parent may provide more for a sibling in financial hardship is mind blowing. If they can't comprehend it, I think that says a lot about the kind of person they've become.