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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Grandparents leaving money to grandchildren?

454 replies

Honeysucklelane · 21/05/2025 20:56

I read an article recently about the rise in grandparents leaving their will to their grandchildren instead of their children.

I believe my in-laws may be doing this and I’m not sure how I feel about it. On one hand thrilled for my children, but on the other worried they may come into a ton of money at a young age.

How do other people feel about this?

OP posts:
Popsicle1981 · 23/02/2026 06:28

Pepperpotladles · 21/05/2025 21:11

I hate threads like this.
My DC will inherit nothing from grandparents. Nothing. Nor will I.
Of 4 grandparents, 3 are dead and left no inheritance to anybody.
1 remaining grandparent rents a council house.
My DC are teenagers and neither are academically thriving so not projected to get great GCSE grades which means high earning professions will be ruled out.
We have no savings. We're spending every penny we've got on our monthly outgoings, crippled by the recent rise in our mortgage interest rate.
I don't know how the fuck either of my DC are ever going to get on the housing ladder with no inheritance.
I hate inheritance wealth.
It's so bloody unfair.
My DC are going to feel like very, very poor comparisons to all their friends who have got grandparents leaving houses to them in their wills.
Not to mention the stress and worry this removes from the parents, my friends, who don't have any financial worries about their DC's future because they know they will be inheriting a house in their 20s when GP die.
Compared to the likes of me who is worried sick daily about my DC's financial future.

Edited

We must be twins. I feel the same. Husband and I actually earn a decent salary, but just cannot save the amount needed for multiple house deposits for our children. We have to subsidise their rent. Possibly forever.

PinkHairbrushClub · 23/02/2026 06:56

My mum and MIL are both doing this. Not their full estate but large shares. I know my MIL also has savings accounts for the kids. Both wills are written that if the worst happened the funds would be held in trust until their early 20s. I’m just grateful that they care about my kids financial future as much as we do.

HoppityBun · 23/02/2026 06:57

It causes unnecessary problems unless there’s lots of money in the first place.

I have seen this go wrong so many times.

One woman, a great mother who worked hard to bring up her children and looked after her parents and grandfather as they became frail, was left almost destitute because she’d never earned enough to buy her own home. Her grandparents left money to this mother’s children and her own mother left her house to the grandchildren. It wasn’t that those people thought that the mother wouldn’t look after her children or wouldn’t leave what she had to them: they just were very sentimental about the grandchildren and didn’t think how the mother would manage. So she was overlooked by the people that meant most to her. That was hurtful and put her in difficulties.

Another case, the grandfather left a life interest in a house to his daughter with the grandchildren to inherit when she died. This became a massive inconvenience when she became old and frail and had to live with one of her children. There’s absolutely no way that she wouldn’t have left everything she had to her children. She adored them. There wasn’t a lot of money and everyone’s life would have been far simpler if she’d just inherited the house.

Another one, though a bit different: a reasonably well off couple, only asset a house, made lots of bequests to friends in their wills. They had little to do with their children because they moved away to their “dream retirement” in the countryside and weren’t interested in their children. Yes, the children visited but it was only ever one way: the parents didn’t want to visit in return: travel for holidays, yes, but to visit children; not interested. So their named new friends in the retirement area got generous bequests. When the widow became frail she had to go into a care home. Their children had to travel hundreds of miles to sort things out, which to their credit they did, despite their parents not having been much interested in them. The house was used in care home fees. The “close friends” did nothing when the widow became ill, nothing, not even visits. They got their bequests and the children got nothing.

I could go on. If you’ve got plenty of money then possibly, but otherwise it causes sadness and problems.

LBFseBrom · 23/02/2026 07:20

If the children are OK financially, i think it is a good thing for the grandchildren to inherit. It's so difficult to get on the housing ladder, it will give them a leg up when they need it.

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