Giving grandchildren different amounts of inheritance

[Darinki]

Good evening all,
I am posting on behalf of a friend who isn’t massively tech literate but is seeking advice, obviously she will get professional advice but it is causing a lot of worry and I want to give her some opinions to help in decision making, she knows I am posting and has encouraged it.

My friend is in her 70s, she’s recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer, her husband passed away in 2022.
She had two children, one passed away many years ago the other is in his mid 50s. She has 3 grandchildren, 2 are her sons and 1 is her late daughters. They are all between 18-22.

When it comes to assets all she really has is her house, she got a valuation done recently and it was was around 1.2 mil. She also has some cash savings but she suspects these will be spent on care as her condition worsens.
She has already spoke to her son and he has suggested when she re-writes her will they just skip a generation and go straight to the 3 grandchildren.
Her daughters daughter got inheritance from her mum, she owns property in London worth around 700k at 22 so not doing badly at all, she also has no student debt.
Her sons children will have student debt and other than small savings from their parents no house deposit etc.
Her son thinks because of this the inheritance should be split 10/45/45 or similar. This would still be say £100,000 if not a little more to the cousin who owns property already, but it would also give his 2 children the opportunity to buy a better property. They all live in the London/SE area so housing is expensive!
My friend however is worried that this is unfair on her granddaughter, and is getting herself very stressed trying to decide. She sees merit in both arguments.
so
YABU - It should be equal they all deserve the same
YANBU - It makes sense to give those who have less now more

Thoughts?

Neither of your options. her daughter‘s daughter gets 50%

her son gets 50% and he can decide what to do about it. She can ask him now how he wants her will writing to reflect this. if he still wants to skip a generation his children get 25% each.

he is being devious.

This. And see the solicitor and make it water tight. He will likely be a problem after her death too for his niece.

Your friend should not discuss anything with her son or dgc!!
It's not a negotiation process!!
She decides and gets a solicitor to put it in a will.

Anything other than an equal 3 way split will cause pain and heartache, and affect the relationship between the cousins and uncle in the future.

Truly shocking that the son is weighing in and campaigning for his kids to get more at a time like this.

This is an appalling betrayal of his sister's memory, apart from anything else. The only way this would be fair would be if it were like our position: our DGM sadly outlived both of her children, our DU dying when he was just a baby.

Therefore, when our DGM died, all of her money came to us - her only two GC - as there was nobody else living who would have any use for money (apart from our own DC, one step down the line).

Even so, we still remember our lovely Uncle's memory (even though we never got to meet him) and realise that our inheritance from her would have been half his money/due to his DC if he'd lived long enough to have any.

I think splitting it fairly is very generous to her sons kids - they'd ordinarily only have seen 25% each of the inheritance if their aunt hadn't have died.

This is a great idea.

Obviously, I don't know the people involved, but I would fear that, if your friend does do the fair thing and leave her DD's 50% to her DGD, he might not accept this and try to put a lot of pressure on her to 'do the right thing' (i.e. the wrong thing, but what HE wants). Even if she does get her rightful inheritance, I'd still hope she wouldn't be targeted to be cheated out of it, once her DGM has died.

However, taking all emotion out of this and purely, bluntly looking at the facts, I would use the following analogy to explain it for anybody having difficulty comprehending:

Bob and Laura are acquaintances and they each do exactly the same job and each earn £4,000 a month for it; and each of them has regular bills totalling £1,000 and is left with £3,000 discretionary spending.

The only difference is that Bob's employer pays him his full monthly wage on the 28th of each month, whereas Laura gets half of hers on the 14th and half on the 28th.

What this man is doing is the equivalent of Bob going to Laura on the 14th and eyeing up her £2,000 that she's just received. He says "Hey, I have the same bills as well, you know! You've just been paid twice as much as you need to pay your bills, whilst I've got nothing at all. It's only fair that you give me your 'spare' £1,000 that you don't need, as your bills are already covered, so you don't need it, and mine are still outstanding whilst I don't have a penny to pay them with."

So Laura feels emotionally bullied/guilted into handing Bob half of her £2,000 and is left with no spare money. Two weeks pass by and Bob gets his £4,000 wages. He doesn't see any reason whatsoever why he should give any of it to Laura - even repaying her the £1,000 that she gave him - as she was lucky and was already able to pay her bills a fortnight previous, without even having to ask or rely on anybody else.

Meanwhile, Bob now has a spare £4,000 which is all his to use exactly as he likes. He enjoys spending it all on lots of lovely treats, which go some way towards making him feel a bit less sad about how very much luckier and far more privileged in life Laura is than he is.

Outrageous though it seems to me, I've heard of several cases whereby people who have a child (with children of their own) who predeceases them have immediately changed their will, following the child's death, so that only their surviving children inherit - thus blocking off their deceased child's line from ever inheriting from them.

I do wonder whether the son is one of these people who genuinely believes that, once a child has died before their parent(s), they and their line then forfeit all rights to any inheritance.

Incredible as it may seem, there could potentially be a chance that he really believes his niece's inheritance should have been wiped out with the death of her mother - only he thinks he is being kind by still 'allowing' her a fifth of her mother's share; or more likely, he'd suspect that his mother might not see things the way he does and he reckons he's got a lot more chance of getting away with 90% for his kids than pressing for the whole lot.

Jesus christ, she has lost her mother! Give her her mothers 50%. Wow her uncle is a prize asshole. Trying to profit for his own children because his sister died. That poor girl has inherited from her mother who died before her life had barely started and then he wants to give her 120k and his two kids 540k each from his mother's estate. And then his children will also inherit from him and poor niece at 22 has no family support. Wow. What an utter dick. At least an even 3 way split but realistically 50/50 the same way it would be if her daughter were alive.

Conversely she could split it equally between all her descendants. Ie 4 ways so son, granddaughter and each grandson get 25%. Then the dad could decide to forego his portion to help his sons.

I agree she shouldn’t be picking random percentages to assign as this leans towards favouritism and could cause discontent and family arguments which she wants to avoid. No amount of money can make up for granddaughter losing her mum but this means she cannot claim she is out at a disasvantage and therefore loved less. But at the same time does help the grandsons potentially with a deposit which they may not otherwise get for another 40 years from their dad.

50% to son, and 50% to daughter's child. If your friend's daughter hadn't died, she'd have likely given them half each. Her children would then likely have passed their own inheritance on to their own children. It was her son's choice to have 2 kids, so they should only end up with 1/4 of the inheritance each, and the daughter's child would have ultimately ended up with 1/2 of her grandmother's estate, assuming that both son and daughter didn't have any further children.

Her son is being greedy. If his sister had lived, surely the woman would have given her son and her daughter 50% each. Even if she now splits between the 3 grandkids, his side of the family have an additional (unfair) share.

I do understand that it is hard to compare his niece's financial situation to his kids' financial situation as she's a lot better off, but she lost her mum, which is enormous. I'm sure she'd rather be poorer and have her mum alive. It's very unfair on the grandaughter to deprive her of an inheritance from grandma.

As someone else up thread said, the fairest thing to do would be to split 50/50 between son and granddaughter. The next fairest thing to do is split equally three ways between the grandkids. The least fair thing to do is deny the grandaughter her share and give loads more to the sons DC.

Your friend needs to split the money either 1/3
for each grandchild at(33% wash) or 50: 50 between her son and daughters descendants (grandson 1 25%, grandson 2 25% and granddaughter 50%).

Your son needs to stop thinking about what your granddaughter has got. Her money came from tragedy. I'm sure she would prefer to have her mum rather than cash. She shouldn't be penalised because her mum provided for her. After all your grandsons still have their dads time, love and support and your son still has the ability to provide for them in his death should he chose to.

I personally wouldn't discuss the will further. Your friend doesn't need to justify her decision. It's her money and it's her choice. I suggest that she gets doesn't have her son as the executor of her will. I also wouldn't give him power of attorney over her health or money.

No way is splitting 4 ways fair. The means the son effectively gets 75 /25

It needs to be 5 (including the decised daughter) or 3 (just the grandchildren) or 2 (just the DC)

Absolute minimum the DGD should get is 33%, if its split by 5 she gets 40% split by 2 she gets 50%.

No way should the son / sons family get more because the daughter died. How calus to try and gain out of the DDs death.

The poor grandmother. I feel so much for the granddaughter. She has lost her mother so young, shortly to lose her gran who could have expected years of healthy life and - from her mothers side of the family - has an uncle who wants to see her shortchanged.

Great advice from some posters about writing a letter to the granddaughter to stress that the money is meant for her to try to prevent any pressure being put on her, or lies about the grandmothers true intentions.

I think its awful that she is dealing with terminal cancer and her sons first thought is a money grab, that should literally be the last thing on his mind, I hope he is also supporting her and helping her with this.

As for the money, she doesnt need to be worrying about it, tell her leave the will as it is (the DDs portion will go to the DGD) and that minimises stress for her so she can focus on doing everything she needs to make herself comfortable.

Anyone that even thinks about money at a time like that, deserves nothing in my opinion. No one needs a terminal diagnosis and then to feel like their estate is being picked apart.

I do hope your friend is able to be made comfortable and I really hope her greedy Son is at least being helpful and supportive in all this.

No way is splitting 4 ways fair. The means the son effectively gets 75 /25

Some people may disagree, but I certainly don't. It's a very old trick that some parents pull, to try to make out that their children are somehow nothing to do with them when it comes to benefiting financially - even though they are very clearly highly likely to be biased in favour of their own kids and will have strong existing supportive financial links - whether paying for everything for them (if they are still children). or helping them out with big life costs and/or eventually leaving them everything in their will.

At my work, nobody is allowed to sign off expenses for anybody in their own family, and everybody sees this as pure common sense - for transparency purposes, if nothing else.

In the real world, of course most people are going to be biased towards a gain for their own children/spouse/immediate family, and plenty of them will quite happily act accordingly if they think they can get away with it.

SirAlfredSpatchcock
"No way is splitting 4 ways fair. The means the son effectively gets 75 /25"

Yes, that would be very unfair : I was quite surprised to see several people suggesting the money should be split four / five ways:
It either needs to be "per child" (50/50) or "per grandchild" (1/3, 1/3, 1/3)

I think that maybe she should go back and say that now she's thought about it she realises that he's such a support to his sons and always there to fight their corner and that's amazing.

It's made her realise that her poor granddaughter doesn't have that priceless support, so he surely will understand that as he thought 90% to one family was fair, it must also be fair the other way, so she's splitting it to be 90% to her granddaughter and 10% to him.
When, as he inevitably will, he starts objecting, play the innocence of "but if it was fair that way round, then surely it's fair the other way". And "don't you realise how hard it is for your poor niece who doesn't have parental support." "You can't possibly be saying that my daughter wasn't worth that".

Once he's gibbered a little, she can then revert to 45% each, with the spare 10% going on financial advice for her granddaughter with a trusted accountant who won't let him pressure her into giving up her inheritance.

Agree with this too!
She doesn't need to discuss anything with her son. Just tell him she has considered his points and has sorted out the will the way she feels most comfortable - that's it.
He doesn't get a say and this behaviour certainly confirms that. She could leave it all to the next door neighbour if she wanted to and would be well within her rights to!
Her son is vile for putting her in this position when she is faced with this.

The two grandsons will eventually inherit off their father.
Your son is being unfair, the inheritance should be split equally between the grand children.

Always equal

The granddaughter receiving an inheritance from her mum should have no bearing on what you give her. My grandma gave differing amounts and my sister and I were in the ‘second tier’ of three. It was so hurtful.

I didn’t even care that 3 of my cousins got 20 times what I did, I more cared that she thought so little of me. My cousin on the ‘third tier’ got nothing as he’d inherited from his dad. Now, when I think of her, I just remember her for that and her meanness.

My decision would be to split equally three ways, there's a real emotional value to the inheritance and the granddaughter (already without a mother) should't be made to feel less important to the grandmother. The son should recognise his self interest and not interfere. It's still (after tax) a hefty some of money which will get the grandsons on the housing ladder