One child has inherited AGAIN

[EWAB]

A decade ago my younger son benefited from a massive inheritance.

Essentially my MiL bypassed her three children and left everything to her 6 grandchildren.

The grandchildren: 2 siblings, 3 siblings and my younger child.

SHE WAS ENTITLED TO DO AS SHE PLEASED. IT WAS HER MONEY.

The fallout was quite seismic for lots of reasons. My partner felt that as he only had one child the family of the brother with 3 children benefitted disproportionately.

It was said at the time and I believe this to be the case that the will was designed like this. to stop my elder child from a previous relationship from benefiting as he might have done 40/50 years later if the money had gone directly to my partner.

As for my relationship, my partner refused to consider changing our wills leaving more to elder child who was at the time very unlikely to inherit from his own father. He is now on property ladder but any inheritance will pale into insignificance compared with younger child’s

Well it’s happened again!

Late MiL’s half brother has left his entire estate to the MALE grandchildren of his siblings. Younger son and partner’s nephew and we think 2 or 3 others.

HE WAS ENTITLED TO DO WHAT HE WANTED WITH HIS OWN MONEY.

I genuinely can’t contemplate my two sons having such vastly different lives.

I want advice to come to terms with it . I have disabled voting. I can’t talk to anyone.

As for my relationship, my partner refused to consider changing our wills leaving more to elder child who was at the time very unlikely to inherit from his own father. He is now on property ladder but any inheritance will pale into insignificance compared with younger child’s

You are trying to compensate for what your older son didn't get and your husband wants to share the estate equally. Money is the root of all evil and can tear families apart. Do your children have a good relationship and do you want to preserve that?

This. It’s weird - like they are seeing the children’s money as theirs.

I know my parents wills and it leaves some money to their kids AND their grandkids.

As I have no children by this logic I miss out but I don’t. The grandchildren’s money is for them.m
Agree re: only male relatives. It is his money but he clearly thinks men hold greater value than women.

This has happened in my family (and will happen again). It's not uncommon and it's quite logical.

This is the risk you take if you choose to have children with different fathers and therefore different extended families. Completely reasonable for MIL and her brother to only leave money to their grandchildren. Leaving only to the males does seem awful but that doesn’t seem to be your issues as you have 2 sons, your issue seems to be they didn’t leave to your elder child despite being no relation. How many non-relations are you leaving your money to?

Did I read it right that you wanted your partner to amend your wills to benefit his step child and not his biological child? That not fair or reasonable.

I am afraid comig to terms with it is all you can do. If your children are close and your son has inherited more than he needs, perhaps he will give his stepbrother some of his inheritance? But that would be quite unusual and would have to be his idea.

Ooooooh ha ha ha!

So OP is a bit of a hypocrite…

The only will and inheritance you can control is your own. And that is how it should be. You are unreasonable to expect your partner's family to leave inheritance to someone not related to them. Are you actually married? Your 'MiL' obviously wanted to leave her estate equally to her grandchildren and your partner took umbrage at that, wanting the estate split between himself and siblings (if she had followed this your younger DC would have got even more).

(I agree the males only inheriting sounds Dickensian!)

Really interesting to see how categorical this thread is. Not long before Christmas there was a 1000-post thread of an older step-daughter being left out of a pantomime invitation from her younger sister's aunt. Tbf, that was a particularly glaring and gross and unnecessary boundary drawn (the SD was 9yo, and it was pantomime tickets at Christmas, terrible way to treat a young girl) but the point was repeatedly made that the younger DD's family aren't obliged to bring the older SD into their family for the very reasons outlined on this thread wrt inheritance. The point was also made on that thread as it has been on this one once or twice, that it might actually be kinder to the step-child to draw the line early on and raise the siblings from the outset with the baseline understanding that they have different wider families. This thread is what that other thread would be in a decade or so.

The bottom line is that the burden is on the common parent - who, let's face it, created the problem in the first place - to make good this dilemma. None of the hurt the step-child feels would exist if it weren't for the common parent choosing to have children with two different partners. The extended families are red herrings. The issue is just brought to the fore by their actions (which are completely valid imo). I understand that it must be awful seeing one of your children so widely discriminated against: but that child is carrying the consequences of the parent's actions. It's massively unfair and there are many, many widowed and divorced parents who don't enter into new relationships for this very reason.

Late MiL’s half brother has left his entire estate to the MALE grandchildren of his siblings. Younger son and partner’s nephew and we think 2 or 3 others.

It would probably have led to merry hell had a male UNRELATED child inherited where the FEMALE related children did not.

There may be ructions anyway resulting from MIL's bro's weird, sexist decision making but at least you and your fam won't bear any of the brunt of it.

@EWAB YABU.

Your two sons don't have the same dads and the younger one has inherited from his dad's family.

It's not your husbands fault that this has happened. Nor is it your younger sons fault.

That's life.

That’s not sensible it’s a shocking abuse of state power. It is not for the government to tell me who I leave MY money to.

@SometimesCalmPerson

"Leaving money only to males is horrible"

@EveryoneKnowsJuanita

"The half brother thing with the male heirs is very peculiar though!"

There was a case in 2022 that involved just this thing. It was about "reasonable provision" for a widow.

The couple had been married for a very long time and had two sons and four daughters (this is relevant).

Everything was in the husband's name and, when he died, his will left everything to the two sons. The wife and daughters were excluded. The total estate was worth upwards of £1 million.

The widow was left with just a state pension and nothing else, not even a lifetime trust in the property.

One of the sons wanted to share with the mother but the other didn't so it ended up going to court.

The mother was awarded 50% of the total estate. The daughters, who also had been left nothing were not awarded anything but I think that they didn't make any applications anyway.

Kaur v Estate of Karnail Singh & Ors [2023] EWHC 304 (Fam)

I can't think of any GPs who've left bequests to their DS's partner's DC, let alone someone who might (if you're married) be a step great nephew. Surely you can see how mad that is.

She likes money and her older son does have a relationship with his father. Daily fail at it again tun out of stories.

They’ll have vastly different lives because they have vastly different fathers i’m afraid.
It seems so insane to you because of the juxtaposition of them being placed side to side by your situation but in reality this is often the case between those sitting beside each other in classrooms/offices/public transport…etc. Arguably the biggest financial denominator for today’s youth is inherited wealth.

I grew up very working class and both my parents and sibling are still very working class. My DH grew up very comfortably middle class and his parents have been very generous. Our lives now are so different my sibling and I and on paper I did nothing to ‘deserve’ it other than marry someone who had much more than me. It’s the way life goes.

Your eldest isn’t blood, therefore they get nothing. This is what happens all the time in blended families. I also can’t believe you asked your DP to leave more to a non-biological step-child over his own blood child. Utter nonsense.

Why should she leave a sizeable sum to a child who isn't even related to her? It's not her grandchild.

I don't have a negative view of families at all. I love mine to bits, and value the close bonds between us all. I am fortunate enough to have never experienced toxic relationships nor estrangement.

It was a good decision for the grandchildren to inherit in my own family's case as it was the only likely was any of them would make it onto the property ladder. My sibling and I had our own homes by our late twenties; the younger generation would not be able buy somewhere at a similar age. Giving them a leg up is a wonderful thing for their grandparents to have done.

I do have a strong belief in personal responsibility and decision-making. I am not entitled to to inherit from anyone, nor is anyone else. Inheritance is a gift (with the exception of providing for any dependents, as a PP mentioned). The person making the will is giving the gift, and it's not up to legislation to challenge that.

Look at the Gates family who are super-rich... they are not leaving their estate to their children as they believe it would be damaging to do so. Under an "offspring inherit" legal rquirement, they wouldn't be able to make that choice.

It's not holding "a negative view of family" to believe members of the family should be able to give their stuff away according to their own choices.

Probably because the two kids live in the same home and the aunt was taking one out.

How that is comparable to the stories of what ADULT men inherit is weird.

If the aunt had arranged with her adult niece to see a show and the OP had written to complain that she had not called the other daughter to invite her then the situations would actually be comparable.

The only thing you can do is leave what is yours to your eldest , so you need a will that states 50% to husband 50% to eldest son , so if you pre decease your husband your eldest gets his share . Be under no illusion that if you die first it’s very unlikely that your eldest will get anything if you don’t write your own will as your husband will likely just leave it all to his child .

Gazing into my crystal ball, I predict OP won't be back to this thread.

🔮

Sounds like their dad was sexist trash. It makes sense that the wife would still receive a share but not the daughters though.

I understand why you’re sad your children will have different lives and opportunities because of this but unfortunately that’s life.

I would leave a larger chunk of your will to your oldest child and have an open and honest chat with your children about why you are doing it. My parents have told me I will get much much less than my brother when they pass essentially because I am financially secure and he is not. He struggles in life and they worry about him and even more so as they age. I’m absolutely fine with this and would have suggested it if they hadn’t already. I will get lots of sentimental pieces from my parents and this is all I care about. Frankly I don’t need it and he does, everything doesn’t need to be equal just to make it “fair”. I have no doubt they love us both equally.

I assume from the OP that she and her husband have some sort of "mirror" will arrangement. Are you suggesting the OP changes her will unilaterally without telling her husband?!

She is of course entitled to do so but... 😧

So? We all have different things given to us