Will - inheritance, is this fair?

[clingycassandra]

I will start by saying I firmly believe a will should be what the will maker wants to happen to their estate when they die.
My worry is the arrangements being made by an elderly relative will make waves for the family.
Elderly relative has told me they intend to leave their estate equally to their grandchildren and great grandchildren.
All good so far, except some of the grandchildren have yet to have children. I am worried (knowing the family dynamic) that the childless grandchildren will have issue that their unborn children 'will miss out'.
The elderly relative does not see grandchildren or great grandchildren due to location, they have met GC but not GGC.
Relative has adult children but they are financially secure and are not included in the will.
In my family parents have left their estate to their children and them to theirs, down the generations, so this feels odd to me.
Surely better to leave the estate equally to the children or skip 1 generation and share it between the grandchildren (there will be no more)?
My direct family is not involved so I will not benefit either way but I will have to help deal with the fallout, which I know will happen.

So to make OPs life easier after this person has died they should change their will? I still don’t feel you have a valid point, the person making the will decides.

Presumably because it would be really obvious if your brother has the money to buy a house at 22-23 without loads of saving and you don't?

Even if you didn't discuss it when they were children it would become apparent as adults at which point it might be even more difficult to manage.

We’ve had this- DS was 3 and DD was 5 months when a close relative died but they’d been too unwell really to change their will, not that I’d have asked. But it meant DS inherited £32k, DD- nothing. We haven’t really decided what to do, we might share it between them as that’s what relative would have wanted I think. But main aim is to save enough to even it out so they both have £32k as adults

It always gets complicated when grandchildren are mentioned. It doesnt account for those yet to be born

It shoudl always just be left to the children. Whi will them leave to theor children in due course

Yes, the person making the will decides .

But they discussed it with the OP who is discussing it here as she feels the arrangements won't be fair to GGC born after the GGM dies.

I am the wife of the brother of the elderly relative.
No-one in our direct family benefits at all.
I am not an executor, but I am very close to my husband's nieces, nephews, great nieces and nephews and great great nieces and nephews, some who have not yet been born, but there are hopes for the future.
The elderly relative has not met any of their great grandchildren but has seen photos/videos etc.

As I said in my original post I know this will cause friction that I WILL get embroiled in, I don't want to be but that is the nature of the family.

It is really interesting to hear other peoples thoughts on this.

I asked the question as in our family, parents have always left their estate to their children equally and those children leave it to their children, no account is taken on the wealth of anyone, the divide is equal. Always has been this way and certainly how we have worded our wills. I get the estate if my husband dies first, I then leave it to our children with a small monetary give to our grandchildren, of which there will be no more. Our great grandchildren get nothing.
The will has been drawn up on-line and not by their family solicitor, which I think has not helped as when we did our will our solicitor explained very carefully the 'whys and wherefores' of all of our actions.

OP - If your IL has spoken to you about the will - an they must have done for you to know these details, then it is entirely legitimate to give your opinion. They aren't obliged to go along with your opinion, but you would be doing the right thing to raise legitimate concerns.

After all, it isn't as if you benefit from any changes.

The biggest problem is that they didn't do the will with a solicitor.

By the sounds of it the estate could be quite big. Would it be worth your DH chatting to his sibling about the possibility of how best to manage IHT etc, and also raise the issue that leaving money to an actively expanding brood of GGC is potentially going to cause upset to their GGC and also to their GC who they do seem to have a closer relationship with? And that a solicitor might help ensure that all is as they wish. And that the wording is as exact as they need it to be. i.e generally encourage use of a solicitor.

Small amounts to existing GGC , that the parents would have a chance to balance for the as yet unborn, might be the way to go.

So actually you don't believe your first sentence at all.

My grandad wanted similar to this but in such a way that any GGC got the GC's share.

So there were 5 grandchildren at the time of his death, 2 of us had a child, the estate should have been split 5 ways between the 3 childless GC and 2 GGC with the parents of the GGC having their share pass directly to their child.

Unfortunately 2 of my mums siblings objected to this, one because they had an only child and felt he should have double since a sibling group of 2 each having 1/5th share meant more was going to one branch of the family, the other was childfree so felt excluded entirely.

In his frail older years the child free sibling convinced him it would be a good idea to put all his money in a bank account in their name so they could 'manage it' for him, with assurances they would honour his wishes after death.
Of course they did not.
GGC got nothing, GC got a nominal amount, the size of the estate was kept a secret and chidfree relative kept the rest which they felt they '' deserved ".

Unfortunately people get greedy when inheritance is involved. The sums involved with my late grandad were small but it still caused a rift which has never healed due to the behaviour of certain relations.

Your relative is not unreasonable to not include unborn children, it seems to me it would be very difficult to have a clause to include every possible permutation of who has how many children and when after she passes.

I think fairest to leave just to grandchildren, especially as no real relationship with the GGC.

a will should be what the will maker wants to happen to their estate when they die.

this is the only part that matters

You don’t have to be drawn into it AT ALL OP. “This is what elderly relative wanted, please don’t try to get me involved any further, this is not my business, I will not enter into discussions”. SIMPLE 🤷‍♀️
Making a will to include babies not even conceived yet is just ridiculous. Where would it end? Oh well actually elderly relative, we’re going to have 4 more babies in the future so you should provide for them in your will 😵‍💫🤨

I have mixed feelings on this.

My mil mentioned to me at one point that her mother (so great gm to my dc) wanted to add the great-grandchildren to her will, and she'd said not to because of the potential of having (her words) "one grandchild far richer than the others might cause friction".
At the time the only great-grandchild was my first, but others in the family were at similar stage to us. Edited to say: By similar stage I mean similar life stage, so could be having dc soon.
Turned out the amount she was talking about was £1k.
I did feel that for that amount, it really wasn't going to send any grandchildren who got that into the realm of "far richer" and the pleasure it would have given great gm-il (she absolutely doted on dd) to put that would have been considerable.

I did wonder if either mil's siblings had objected or possibly one of dh's siblings, who did seem to be making "of course you'll give your favourite grandchild me more" noises round great gm-il had said something and she thought that was easier rather than dealing with the potential fallout.

But if we'd been talking about £50k, levels then I think I'd agree.

So could you suggest a compromise. Say somewhere between £1k and £5k to the great-grandchildren who are alive currently and the rest split between the grandchildren.
That way the great-grandchildren are remembered, but the amount they are getting is not going to elevate them above the others.

Well you are clearly utterly DETERMINED to put yourself front and centre to this situation, regardless of the fact it’s absolutely none of your concern 😂

Thank you for all your comments. It's been enlightening.

For those of you saying it's none of my business, to a degree I agree, however due to my close relationship with the beneficiaries I will be involved in the fall out.

@Jagoda I do not wish to be front and centre, I just want everyone to feel they have been treated fairly.

Those that have said putting unborn GGC in a will is odd, this may be true, but in my mind the elderly relative could eliminate this by not putting GGC in at all. There will be no more GC so name those instead? Maybe leave a small named amount for the current GGC that could be easily matched by their parents should they have more children or any children, for the current childless GC.
None of the GC could match the sums that are involved.

The great grandchildren are people in their own right. They are not their parent's property so the childless grandchildren aren't getting less money. Everyone is getting a similar amount. Your husband's relative is being fair. This is nothing to do with you.

I agree the GGC are people in their right.
The grand children were always getting the same amount in this case, the issue I am worried about is the some of the grandchildren have children others do not. Each of the GREAT grandchildren that are born at the time of their elderly relatives death will receive a sum of money in excess of £50k, none of these Great GC have met this relative. Any brothers, sisters or cousins of the Great GC born after their relatives death will receive nothing. Therefore there will be a HUGE disparity of inheritance between brothers, sisters and cousins.
I believe this will cause big problems going forward, how would YOU explain to one sibling they have a £50k+ nest egg but the other/s has/have nothing?

But these future children may never exist, you never know. They will never have known their relative and vice versa. You can't tell someone who their money goes to. I'm guessing your child is the grandchild and doesn't have a child of their own yet? The money is going to people who actually exist.

May I ask how your children would feel if the sums were very large? £50k+? If 2 out of 3 or 4 of your children got that sum on their 25th birthday but the youngest one/s got nothing? How would YOU explain it? Would your children think this was fair? Not looking for a fight, just curious.

If you look back at my previous posts you will see that NONE of the great grandchildren have met this relative.
My branch of the family is completely irrelevant as we were NEVER in the will.
My branch of the family does inheritance differently, parents to children down the generations.
If the estate was to be divided between the grandchildren (there will be no more of that generation), they could 'share' their inheritance with however many children they eventually have or don't have.
My concern is that the great grandchildren in the here and now get something and those born after their relatives death get nothing, the sums are substantial.
I can only see trouble ahead.
I have received lots of opinions, suggestions and examples which is helpful to me.

I’m just leaving evenly to my two children - unless one or both dies before me then each child’s half share will go directly to be split across that child’s children.

Wills can blow families apart. If one of my DCs has children/more children than the other then that’s part of their own familial decision making. After that, what their children will inherit (or not) will be part and parcel of the each families wealth which will influenced by many things but there is absolutely no way I’m going to lob a grenade into the mix by addressing my will in any other way than an even split to my direct children. Utterly bemused at posters wondering why this might come up in conversation with siblings and am completely unsurprised that those on this thread who have DCs impacted by wills like this are trying to save to even it up or preparing to ask the DC who inherited to share.

Grandchildren could save their money (and the inherited money too) for their future children if they have any? This generous relative clearly wants to ensure their great grandchildren receive some money because their parents might keep it for themselves.

This is how my branch of the family does it.
Parents to children, on down the line, equally, which is why I think I am struggling to understand why the elderly relative can not see the grenade they are preparing to lob!
The fact that no solicitor has been involved to explain the pitfalls may explain it.

My family does not do parent-to-child inheritance, they divide it up as they see fit. It’s not our business to second guess their choices. Their money is theirs to do with what they wish.

Planning for potential but currently imaginary great grandchildren is ridiculous. Dividing the estate between those great grandchildren who exist at the point the benefactor dies is straightforward and reasonable.

May I ask how you would explain to any younger children who were not born when their relative died that they have nothing but their older siblings had an inheritance of £50k+ each? Again not looking for a fight just curious.