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.

Yes I mean mirror wills, not reciprocal.
They both agreed to this. They rewrote their wills in their late 70s when my mum got cancer and didn’t have long. She wanted us completely protected as she was worried my df would be conned into selling up and moving back to Ireland and giving everything to his sisters kids.

Oo the family drama !

Tbf to the uncle, we don't know why or how it was worded, and I'm not convinced we'll get an honest response from the Op here.

She says "Younger son and partner’s nephew and we think 2 or 3 others." so shared between his two nephews, that he may have had a special relationship and they only think 2 or 3 others, who may have also had a similar relationship.

It could be worded "I leave x amount to Timmy and Tommy who have visited me often and brought me much joy".
Or "I leave my estate to be divided amount the Rabbit Keeper Troupe, headed by Timmy and Tommy who made me an honorary member".
"Or I leave my estate to be divided between Timmy, Tommy, Tolly and Theo, my nephews, who all found time to visit me in my last years".

Those are very different from the impression "I leave my estate to my male relatives" gives.

But no, she shouldn't be pressurising her younger ds to share, nor dividing hers unequally. She especially shouldn't be pressurising her dh to share his unequally.

The OP has posted on their situation on an earlier thread (link above from a pp)

It would appear that they are likely tenants in common. The DH has apparently already said that he wishes to leave his own 50% of assets to their joint child and believes that OP should leave her 50% share of the assets to her two children equally.

Having done a quick advanced search, it seems this has been a constant issue for you, with you hating your in laws and refusing to have anything to do with them. Your eldest thinks you forced him onto them, making him feel awkward, embarrassed, and disappointed all the time, and would have preferred you just accepting and acknowledging that he wasn’t their relative in the same way your youngest was.

There is no magic bullet piece of advice that people can give that will make you come to terms with this, but maybe try taking the lead from your son and working on accepting reality for what it is, rather than what you think it should be. Why has this impacted you so much? Is it entirely to do with your son, or is at least some of it to do with your own feelings about having children with different fathers? Is that something you feel badly about, because despite having one you feel blended families are lesser and a source of shame? Because you feel looked down upon and rejected by your in laws for having already had a child? I’m not saying any of the above is true btw, or that you think those things, what I’m saying is it’s worth examining your own thinking, and why your triggers are your triggers.

Only to the male grandchildren? Revolting.

I would speak with my partner, and all my children, and advise them I am choosing to leave my inheritance to X to balance out the financial situation.

I’d make my views on this well known and give all the kids time to discuss it with me, time for them to change my view if they wanted to, time for me to reason with them.

My will would be written with a solicitor but I’d try and write compassionately. Id make sure to even out sentimental items etc.

And when necessary throughout the time I was alive I’d give a foot up to the one who did not receive an inheritance when I could.

You can’t make your partner do what you think is fair with his will.

No, wrong, assuming you're talking about the UK. A spouse's Will has to state that everything is to pass to their spouse on their death. Alternatively, it could state that a proportion of their estate passes to their spouse and other amounts pass to other beneficiaries. If a spouse or civil partner dies intestate (i.e. without leaving a Will) the rules of intestacy apply and spouses/civil partners with children will inherit all the deceased's personal property, the first £322,000 of the estate and half the remaining estate – the other half goes to their children.
The advantage of being married is that you can inherit your spouse/civil partner's estate free of Inheritance Tax (which unmarried partners can't).

😥

I’m from a step family myself and this isn’t what my step-parent chose. Once my parent married - they became a family unit and all their children became equal together.

i wouldn’t be happy if my partner - who I shared property etc with wished to exclude one of my children. You’re either a family, or not, together, or not.

bloody hell modern life is tough.

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.

This is just silly, and illogical, as someone else pointed out. The money was not left to the adult children, it was left to the next generation down, to the GRANDCHILDREN, and therefore it was right that it was split equally between all of the members of that same generation. Why should your younger child get a larger amount than each of his cousins? It makes absolutely no sense. One grandchild would only get more (eventually, potentially) if the money had been left to the generation above, but this didn't happen so....

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.

That's a lot of years. If that HAD happened, in my mind that inheritance money would by that time definitely have become solely your partner's to decide what to do with. In those 40-50 years while he was in possession of that share of the money he may even have spent it all, gifted large amounts for property deposits for all his children etc, could have gambled it all away, moved house with you, split up from you and bought his own house etc etc. Any of the members of the family could be dead. It is a loooong time when anything could happen to change the status quo, and therefore to what makes most sense in any will that your partner wrote.

Her child will inherit from his bio father. Why should her husband give his step child money when he will inherit more.

I think that’s unfair. It’s possible to know someone is entitled to do something AND be worried about the impact on the children.

OP has asked for advice to come to terms with it because she can’t contemplate her two sons having such vastly different lives.

This has the potential to create a rift between two siblings. A mother wants the best for both her children.

It’s possible one day if the two siblings are close then the younger sibling would want to share his good fortune with his brother, but he should never feel expected to.

It’s also possible that the older sibling becomes more successful in his choice of career and health. Luck can play tricks on us all. Money is not the be all and end all, we can’t take it to our graves.

"I'm far more shocked about your partner's relative leaving his money to the boys and not the girls. That's appalling."

I made a comment about this earlier. There was a case in the High Court two years ago where exactly this happened.

Everything left to the sons and the wife and daughters had nothing. The wife was kicked out of the family home and only had a state pension (or it might even have been pension credit).

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

The wife was awarded 50% of the estate (the whole estate was well upwards of £1 million).

They have different families thats why!!!

Of course they will have different experiences and outcomes (generally speaking), they dont have the same paternal family

Nope, my husband doesn't think he can tell me what I have in my will (& same for me and his will) unlike OPs 'partner' who refused to let her change her will.

Vast financial disparity could have happened anyway, look at celebrity siblings.

You have to live the hand you are dealt and make the most of it.

As long as your son is happy and content in his life with enough money to meet his needs he is in a better situation than many in the world.

If your husband dies first you can change the will.

Money shows the true nature of a persons inner most souls. Your husband’s family and your husband are all money ghouls, be glad your other DS is free of their grasp.

I am in a lot of pain. I am asking for advice and words of comfort in coming to terms with my sons having different lives.

I accept that people can leave money to whomsoever they wish.

I am not suggesting that they should have left my elder son an inheritance.

What I want is advice how to move forward.

My elder did not know about the younger’s inheritance but asked about it about three years ago when he found out that DP’s niece owned a house thanks to Grandma. I was honest but I said that I didn’t know how much as it’s nobody’s business I also don’t know how much it has ‘grown’ as it’s in trust.

DP’s oldest brother knows nothing about the inheritance and DP’s other brother was told by his son with the instruction not to tell his sisters.

My younger child has not mentioned my elder child at all.

Elder son is not on the property ladder (his own father got on at 45).

My partner feels that a will is the last message to our children and while obviously he can’t tell me what to put in my will he is against any changes. He feels that I should treat my children equally.

The original inheritance can’t be touched for another 6 years. This one can be accessed as soon as he gets it but I don’t have any concerns about that.

I would never put pressure on him to share as another poster did.

I feel dreadful.

Clearly I'm in the minority here but this seems shitty, especially as it sounds as if there is loads of money to go round. When my grandad died he left an equal amount to 8 grandchildren, including my cousin who was not a blood relative (his mum had him before marrying my uncle, he came into the family at 12 years old).
I don't get why she would have wanted her blood grandchild's half brother to be so disadvantaged.

There is nothing you can do, it's done. However you can make a will, surely?

Oh the irony the elder one was the only one who met the half-uncle. I can’t recall younger one ever meeting him.

@EWAB Do you recall that you didn't want your ex to adopt his step child, as it would affect your eldests inheritance? Do you still feel the same about that?

sometimes thats the way things happen, at a guess its upto the brothers if they want to share but other than that is down to the individuals themselves to do what they perceive is their moral compass,

Completely irrelevant. Elder child is not related to the deceased. Therefore, elder child has no rights to estate. Leave your younger child to do with the money as he pleases. Don’t force DH to change his will.

OP, you are asking about how to move forward but your life hasn’t stopped because one child has got some money. My brother has loads more money than me as he worked as a c-suite in a major national company. I chose to work in social work. Ours lives are financially very different.

It's also terrible advice because if the OP dies first, and, as is more usual with married couples, the house is held as joint tenants, her DH will automatically get that, so her estate to pass to her older DS will be fairly small. Her DH, as the surviving spouse, knows what she did and now feels justified in changing his will to only benefit his child. His estate, which will likely include the house, will be substantially larger ( unless it goes on care costs: always a risk) so the younger son could end up with a third stroke of inheritance luck.

There's a lot of focus here on inheritance, isn't there.

omelettenipples

Yes I feel exactly the same way. I thought it was dreadful that ex thought that was a good idea. He didn’t in the end because of pressure from his sister not me even though he asked for my advice.

My elder son was devastated. I think he would have felt differently if his dad had had another child naturally. As it stands he will inherit half of my property and half of his dad’s. It wouldn’t touch the sides of what younger one will come into almost immediately.