Grandparents leaving money to grandchildren?

[Honeysucklelane]

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?

It wasn't too onerous, initially I just found a fixed interest savings account until I worked out what to do with it.

If the middle agers are already wealthy, one would presume they already have nice holidays and luxuries. In any event, if people have the spends available, why shouldn't they if they can afford it.

In any event, I don't really understand this thread at all. Out mothers are very late 80s. Our DC are 27/30. DH and I will inherit from our mothers and within two years of death we can make a deed of variation which is a tax efficient way to pass money to the children should we wish. We have no need of any more money.

I told my mother about our intentions and her only comment was "well make sure you spend some of on yourself and have a proper spend up".

I'd be quite upset if this happened. I think it's reasonable if you are in your 50s and still have a sizeable mortgage and are having to fund dc through university to feel a bit resentful if at that point dc come into money which is locked away leaving you to keep struggling away everything even once they have the money. It's not about wanting to retire early as such, but I can imagine paying off the mortgage and then taking a lower-paid, less stressful job. That might have the benefit of keeping you well and involved/active in your dc's life as a source of support for your dc in their early adulthood rather than working yourself into the ground, which might benefit them more than some cash. Nothing to stop you gifting them some money as well if there's enough.

However, my ex is an absolute waster and I would like to think mil might skip him, or at least share her money between him and our dc. I doubt she will though and her money will probably be pissed away by him, leaving nothing for the dc. If I inherited from my side I would not be a martyr but not piss it up the wall either.

But there is, all of our taxation, on everything you eat, buy , use.
Billions, and we pay this to other countries, for illegal immigration etc, benefits, often to wealthy individuals if Mumsnet is to be believed

It's just a part of life, though, and it makes sense to plan ahead.

If you're salivating over the money and crossing the days off a calendar, waiting for the person to die, that's seriously messed up; but the fact is that your older loved one is going to die at some point, so you can either make provisional plans for when you lose them, or you can be clueless and still lose them eventually.

I see it as similar to wills and funerals: you aren't wishing to die, but making plans in the knowledge that you eventually will.

My DGM was hesitant to make a will (at 82), as she was of the opinion that, if you make a will, you will die. Well, she wasn't wrong, as she did indeed die - 15 years later - exactly the same as she would have done if she hadn't made a will!

Not sure why you've qouted me.
Of course people can do as they please, doesn't change my thoughts on it.

It's their money they can leave it to whoever they want to 😊

I think it's interesting that people are sometimes concerned about leaving money to adult children who are already of an age where the money could end up paying for their care homes before too long, rather than getting it funded by the state - or indeed going to pay inheritance tax with fears that "The government will go after the money"...

So an alternative solution is to leave it to your young-adult GC, so that it can pay their way through university - however, until less than 30 years ago, that too would have been largely funded by the government, instead of family money having to pay for it.

Basically, the message seems to be that, whatever age or generation you are, if you acquire money, the government will be after it from you, one way or another, regardless!!

My parents didn’t do it to me and I won’t do it to my son . But I think for all the folks that go NC with their parents well that’s going to happen . That would surely be anticipated.

I don't think anybody is disputing that; but they can't necessarily prevent loved ones from feeling aggrieved and upset if their decisions go against what most people would consider to be 'fair'.

Of course, they may well not care; but I think most of us would not want to inadvertently leave a legacy of bitterness along with the legacy of our worldly possessions.

In my case it's my money. I can leave it to whoever I want, but a discussion like this brings up a few points that are useful for me to think about when I decide who to leave it to. So it's a useful discussion.

My grandparents left all assets and money to be split equally between their two children and 4 grandchildren. One of their children only has one child and the other has three. The family all knew about this plan and were all happy with it. The money I inherited has gone straight in to an isa and a savings account and I plan to give it all to my own children for house deposits when they are older.

That sounds heartbreaking. I believe that something similar happened after Lynda Bellingham died.

However, I think that it makes a big difference in families where there's been no 'blending' or children from other relationships involved, as to whether you would personally value that law or not.

We both have only one child each - the same child. Once the second of us is gone, he will get everything without a moment's hesitation or quibble from either of us; but I would hate to think that, once the first of us has died, the survivor wouldn't automatically get control of all of the marital assets until their time comes.

I would personally have felt really uneasy if I had inherited from my parents (other than small personal possessions etc.) whilst one of them was still alive. Even worse if the survivor had been made to potentially feel like, having been widowed, they were now effectively 'squatting' in their own home for the rest of their life.

My DM's will does this and I will be honest it does annoy me. Not because of the money but because of the knotty mess she is leaving behind.

She is leaving the bulk of her estate in trust to her GCs with DBs and I as trustees. Sounds fine except that her GCs are all adults. They dont need a trust fund which will at best be £200k split 5 ways.

So on her death DBs and I will have to waste trust fund money getting advice on how to undo the trust so that we can pass the money to our DCs.

I think DM has done this because she had a fantasy in her head that this trust fund was worth more than it actually is worth. Once a year we would all get together and toast DB1 (golden child) on his wise management of the fund and DM for her generosity. A little maundy money would be distributed to the DGCs with DB1 giving stern warnings to not fritter it on sweets!

Both mine and DH parents all passed away whilst our children were still under 10 they had modest amounts left to them in the wills but the bulk of both parents estates came to us. Despite us both having good careers this situation although caused by sad events did financially benefit the whole family both ourselves and our children.

We took the responsibility of investing funds at this point for our children's future so that once they are ready for purchasing homes they will be able to do this with a good deposit

My DM is leaving one third each to my sibling and I, and the last third is to be split between her three grandchildren. She’s pretty old now so two oldest are already on the property ladder (40ish) and my DD is 25. It won’t be a huge amount, but will provide a decent house deposit for her. This is all assuming that it’s not needed for care home fees of course …

Same with us, except mil has already died so we’re doing a will variation so DH share will go directly to our son instead. He needs it more than use as he’s living in a different city for work and all his wages go on rent, utilities, transport, tax, nic, student loan repayments, etc., with little left over for fun and nothing for saving. It’ll give him a bit of freedom and a decent deposit for his own flat and for furniture etc. Far better use of the money than us hoarding it or letting us retire a year or two early when DS is struggling to juggle stupidly high costs and paying rent to fund someone else’s comfortable retirement!

You can't be 100% sure of this though. You both only have one child (the same child) now, but surely there's a possibility that you and DH will split up in future and may get married to new partners, possibly involving step children or half siblings.

Life interest trusts are primarily to preserve your child’s inheritance if your partner remarries as your child’s share of your house can then be left to the new partner or spread over their children too. So there is a very good and logical reason to use a life interest trust to protect your kids inheritance. You may have mirror wills but your partners current willbecomes invalid the moment they re marry and they can change their will at anytime whilst you’re married without you knowing.

It’s not just age, it’s personality too. Some adults can’t be trusted with money not to drink it, inject it nor gamble it, whether 21 or 51.

Lots of youngsters would actually treat it seriously and not waste it. It’s not really good to tar all youngsters unfairly assuming they’ll spunk it away on rubbish!

Our son still has his entire (smallish) inheritance from one grandma safely in the bank continuing to earn interest. She died when he was 6 and under the will it was put into a trust bank account for him to an access at 18! Five years later, he’s now 23 and it’s still safely in a savings account as he’s ring fenced it himself to go towards a deposit for his own flat! To him, it’s sacrosanct. I’m sure he’s not alone.

MIL died recently leaving her estate between OH and his sibling equally. We’re doing a will variation so that OHs share goes to DS. It’ll set him up for life as he can use it along with his other inheritance to buy his own flat/house on probably only a 50% mortgage, so he’ll save a fortune every month in not paying rent and then he’ll have more of his wage left to actually live a life rather than paying someone else’s retirement or billionaire bankers!

Hes only 23 but has already shown he is responsible with money as he always saved some of his Xmas and birthday monies throughout his childhood years to buy something significant rather than waste it all on crap and sweets, so we have no qualms to trust him to do the right thing.

MIL just wanted everything split equally between her two kids and always said she’d leave it to them how much of their half share they’d give to the grandchildren, but there was the clear intention that the grandchildren should get more than a token/nominal amount, even when the GV were small.

Who is inheriting in their sixties?
Unless you're presuming everyone has children in their teens and early 20s. V odd.

Im confused. If we inherit from our own parents we will likely be in our 60s. Maybe older as my husband’s family tends to live forever. My kids would therefore be in their 30s.

An Aunt thoroughly entertained herself in the last months of her too sick too soon life, rewriting her Will. It changed at least three times depending on who had visited.

Her long term friend, another single woman, who she holidayed with, called every other night, grew up together with, got £20k. She absolutely would have been able to retire, relax in life with a bigger chunk. She grieved properly and sadly it was probably be the longest relationship in her life.

The children of nieces and nephews were between 1 month and ten years old 15k
My then one month old daughter got 15k. We were living in a caravan, I spent it on rent deposit and got us into a grim but better flat.

Her wealthy 60 plus brothers got big chunks 90k. My dad spent all his on cruises over the following two years.
Nieces and nephews got 12k, we ranged from millionaire to absolutely counting every penny.

The whole thing was mind boggling and complicated because of how quickly and how sadly ill she was at the end. My memory of her is very tarnished and my parents caught D&V quite badly on those cruises.

Well, yes. What I was asking the OP is whether it's leaving it to the wrong people at the wrong stage of their life that they have an issue with, or the actual concept of a generation skip. It seems it is the former. Obviously individual circumstances always have to be taken into account - we all know situations where certain things wouldn't work because of the people involved, that goes without saying.

@Willaibu I don’t see giving my money to family as a charity though and choosing the most deserving. One of my DDs earns a lot more than the other but to me they are equal as my daughters.

With very old DM I’d have got most by a long way if doing things and helping trumped everything. As Dsis barely showed up (and one not at all for 6 years) then I could say I earned it more but I’m much richer than them. On the other hand, they didn’t work full time so had time to visit. We got equal %.

Wills just need to reflect what the giver thinks. They should be fair and favourites (in my case the one who did not visit for 6 years) should not be favoured. I cannot see what’s wrong with favouring the next generation if DC have had big inheritances already.