Inheritance

[Anotherpotentialinhertiance1]

J is the mum of A,B,C she is 96
C died four years ago, B and A still alive.
J is 96 and has moved in with A and his wife and son who is still a little boy. Band Cs children are all grown adults.
A and his wife have provided many years (15 +) with hands on care, shopping, all appointments, house maintenance, washing, social visits, holidays, life admin as well as A and E visits when needed take unpaid leave to care for her when ill and have cancelled holidays to provide emergency care. Essentially they have enabled J to stay in her own home and have completely placed their lives on hold. They work around J and her needs, provide hands on care, food, appointments and social outings.
B and his family (children and great granchildren) have not visited J for several years and generally just make a quick phone call and send flowers occasionally. There has been no rift just as J has needed more care they have backed away from any involvement.
It was six weeks before they realised that J was no longer living at her home. A and his brother have drifted over the years and don't particularly speak.
J is selling her house, this is going for 200k and she has other savings to about 60k. Her intention is that she will have the cash ready to pay for additional care if she needs it, saving A all the hassle of having to sort out money from her estate after she dies.
J recently requested a solicitor to change her will, she has full capacity. She is changing her will to give A and his wife all of any money that she has left , although A and his wife are providing everything she needs care wise and are not paid to do this so are gaining nothing financially while she is alive.
The most recent will before this was
1/3 of any money left to A
1/3 left to B
1/3 of money left to Cs two adult children.
A is concerned about the potential backlash from the rest of the family on discovery that they now stand to inherit nothing. He is worried more about legal action rather than the moral one because he feels like they have had it easy and not showed J any compassion. If you were the rest of the family how would you react to find that you now stand to inherit nothing?
I'm not standing to inherit anything I'm a friend of J but not as old as her, she looked after my kids when they were younger. I live next door to J and visit her often at As.

They can complain all they like. If J has capacity and has a will drawn up by a solicitor, which she signs in the presence of independent witnesses, and they sign too, that's a valid will and nothing the B and C branches of the family can do about it. Any competent solicitor will tell them that the cost of challenging a will is enormous and in this case the estate would vanish just on legal costs.

I think what J is doing is very sensible in the circumstances. There may well be very little left anyway if she needs nursing care in the near future.

Where do they live as in Scotland you can’t disinherit a child.

@Bettyscakes not sure where you got that live in Scotland from? They don't hey live in England.

I have heard in social media stories about this kind of thing that leaving the disinherited a small amount rather than nothing reduces the likelihood of legal action - especially when accompanied by a letter explaining why. I think that C’s children in particular should hear why and not be treated the same as B in the will.

I'm A in this situation with three sibling, two of which don't see my Mum much and one who is downright awful. I have encouraged my Mum to leave everything equally. I think it's really shitty to divide families by punishing and rewarding people's behaviour with money.

I wouldn't dream of expecting my Mum to compensate me for providing care to her. What a revolting thought. Is that really how some people think.

Maybe B had some clue as to how unkind and manipulative his mother and sibling both were and decided it wasn't worth the bother.

Even if the grandmother didn't like B it's callous of her to cut out her grandchildren. Imagine how they will remember her.

'A' needs to let everyone know what the grandmother has done so they can not bother morning her and can skip going to the funeral.

The fact the grandmother is also cutting her deceased child's children out the will is particularly nasty.

If 'A' had any morals they would not have helped the grandmother change her will.

Dynamics like this always muddy the water a bit. Presumably the siblings have always had a very different relationship with their mum and with A than with each other. Perhaps the older siblings and grandchildren feel that they had to sacrifice that relationship as she was focused on A?
I am personally of the opinion that changing wills at 96 is questionable. If the relationships have been minimal for decades, why change it now? If it is not about the money for A, why does her parting gift need to be a family rift?

I didn’t say they did I was asking where they live incase it was Scotland.

J recently requested a solicitor to change her will, she has full capacity. She is changing her will to give A and his wife all of any money that she has left , although A and his wife are providing everything she needs care wise and are not paid to do this so are gaining nothing financially while she is alive.

If A had any morals they would not simply tell J not to worry and that she should leave the will as it is.

What would Js husband (if she had one) have wanted? Would he have wanted to disinherit his two older kids?

J has been happy to let A and his wife provide 'many years of hands on care'?!
I hope I don't do that to my adult DC. Any money should have been spent on buying in help or a care home and letting them live their own lives with their own young family.
Equal split to all DC.
Anything else smacks of rewarding preferred behaviour which is distasteful.

The other children are just grifters if they never visits and still expect an inheritance

Way too complicated to follow. Basically, nobody should ever feel they have any right to an inheritance. The older person in this scenario should blow it all on a cruise, or give it to charity.

J should be contributing a decent amount to the household finances for A, then 1/3 1/3 1/3 on death.

Its not entirely fair on A, but it’ll destroy the family otherwise

@BeaRF75 I don't think A feels that he has a right to anything in particular. He is fully aware that he has taken on his mums care. I thinks he problem is that he has had to pick up all of the fallout of everything and hey haven't made a token effort to even stay in touch. This is not As decision, is very kuchen his mum's. I know her well so certainly don't doubt her ability to make he decision.

An alternative to changing the will is for J to put sufficient from the proceeds of the sale into a joint account with A to cover any likely future care costs. This could be a substantial sum and any left when J dies will automatically pass to A. Only the remainder of the assets will then be split 3 ways. This would avoid changing a will at 96 which could be challenged.

As long as a nominal amount is left to the others then it can’t be contested, so I would suggest that.

Gosh, I feel quite the opposite. I can't see how you've got 'unkind and manipulative' out of what the OP has said. On the contrary, when J's husband was ill both J and A put him first and were his carers. Now A and his wife are carers for J. How is that unkind? There is no suggestion anywhere in the OP's narrative that A is manipulating his mother into changing her will. The OP, who knows J well, believes it's all coming from J, who has capacity.

As for 'Imagine how her grandchildren will remember her' - given that they never put themselves out to see her, they won't remember her at all from recent years.

I would leave something to B and C’s children - maybe £1000 shared between them, plus a ‘thing’ then write an accompanying letter along the lines of I’ve thought very hard about this change, I love you but you haven’t bothered with me, but here’s something for you to remember me by - I know you used to like this picture/vase/disg/coat etc and you can buy something in my memory with this money too. (Having made sure that the things she is leaving them are not wanted by any of A’s family obviously! Assuming the solicitor will cover the proof of her being of sound mind and not influenced by A, then this sort of letter would make it very difficult to challenge the will.

Perfect. So I think a letter explaining her wishes to be read at the same time as the will. And perhaps a token to the others ie B and C kids. Just a gesture

Edit to add: I don't think she needs to worry about the will being challenged if she takes this approach. None of these others are dependent on her or have any reasonable claim to her will. She is independent and getting it done through a solicitor who can attest to her sound mind and if she leaves a token and explanation then really there's nowhere to go. Any solicitor will tell B and C kids this

Him claiming to be worried about the fallout is disingenuous. He could simply divide the estate equally into thirds then there would be no fallout.

I think J should transfer the value of the house to A now and keep the £60K back for care needs. She can trust A to keep the money safe and use it if the £60K runs out. They way, when she dies, there may or may not be money left they is split according to the current will. They would need to keep it incase she dies within 7 years anyway.

Alternatively, she splits it 50:25:25 so they are not completely disinherited, but A’s commitment is recognised.

@Anotherpotentialinhertiance1 it might be best for her to write a letter to B and C’s children where she explains why she has done it whatever way she decides. Take the focus off A. Also, it might be better to leave something to all grandchildren so that it can be shown C being dead didn’t mean C’s kids lost out. For example, 50% to A, 10% for A’s kids in total, 20% to B, 10% to B’s kids in total and 10% to C’s kids. Those figures are just an example. The extra for A is in recognition of the care etc they have provided.

There’s another thread active at the minute re siblings and inheritance in which it’s obvious that due to the deceased actions and decisions the siblings relationship is in turmoil
if J is competent enough to make this decision then she should be competent enough to explain to B and Cs children the reasons why, wether that is in person or letters left to be given when she dies

@INeedAMumMoan inspired by the very one!

Agree with this, it’s very hurtful, particularly to Cs children. I would maybe leave A extra as a token (£20k / £30k??) but split the rest equally as per the original will.