Brother has found parents’ wills

[ChorltonCreamery]

My mother tripped over a few days ago. Initially all seemed fine. Friend brought her home but the next day she went to a walk in. It was felt that she might need a procedure on her wrist.

What I only found out yesterday was that Dad rang one of my brothers to go through his desk to find this policy they have, a medical insurance that kicks in if NHS waiting list is too long. In the process of doing this he found their wills and read them.

Yesterday Brother asked if I could go round to his but I couldn’t as we are away. This afternoon sister texts me to call her back, it turns our parents have divided their estate into four. Three quarters between brother, sister and me with a quarter going to other brother’s child(ren) with us three acting as trustees.

Brother 2 is not included, we think because sister in law has two children from previous marriage and there has been drama from them.

Brother wants me and sister to meet for a chat about everything.

He says that the wills were not in a marked file and he had to go through lots of stuff in order to find the insurance.

I don’t know what to think, or what I am meant to think. Sisters annoyed with brother for even telling us.

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Difficult to really comment without understanding why the grandparents have gone down this route. I wholly agree that this would have been a nasty surprise for the children required to act as trustees. My Dad stuck with the route of passing inheritance only to DCs (me and my brother). However my brother was ill when my father died and died shortly afterwards. My SIL was very self interested and has never and will never do anything for her DCs. She used the proceeds to buy a massive house on the South Coast with a new boyfriend who appeared suspiciously quickly. I do understand why GPs might be interested in leaving a good inheritance directly to GCs- otherwise they might never see it.

I hate this being in AIBU when the OP hasn’t posed an AIBU question but I have sympathy with disinherited brother. I have 2 sibs. One is on their first marriage and has offspring, one is on their second marriage no offspring involved. I am in my second marriage with children from my first marriage and stepchildren from my second.
if I got disinherited in favour of my children from my first marriage I would think this was unfair if my other sibs got money. My parents would have shown it’s nothing to do with remarriage and more to do with not wanting my stepchildren to get anything.
if it was wanting grandchildren to inherit and genes to be passed on then the money should just go to those of us fortunate to have had children and my sibling with several would get most of the money. That would be crap for my sibling who would have liked to have children but couldn’t. Thankfully our parents are just splitting things 3 ways and have discussed this. If I found out that my parents intended to disinherit me I would discuss this with them regardless of what my sibs think

It is not illegal to have a will which excludes children. A solicitor would explain that a disgruntled child might challenge it. If the estate consists only of heritable property there is no claim and no basis to challenge it.

I meant more that the brother would be challenging and more likely to try and fight it. If someone’s will is very specific about excluding someone and why or acknowledges them in only a token way, there isn’t any room for arguing. It short circuits any attempt he might make to argue it’s was unintentional/unreasonable etc.

But that was before I realised his DC were specifically included. I got the ‘him’s and the ‘brother’s confused.

I think the same!

They just want make sure the grandkids ( of sin 2) don't lose out. They obviously don't trust his wife.

Nothing to do with anyone but your dad.

Of course beneficiaries can be trustees. I wish clueless people would not post nonsense on issues they know nothing about 🙄

I wouldn't have a problem with it if I was the SIL. And I wouldn't have a problem with it if I was the BIL.

I have money and am capable of making more. I am not dependent on an inheritance.

If my parents left money to my kids in trust instead of me or my husband, no issue. If they cut me / my kids out in totality I would be upset.

I say this as someone whose MIL set up a trust for inheritance and told me specifically that if I divorced my husband, I'd get nothing. She did the same for SIL and her husband getting nothing. Weird. But whatever.

This is why everyone should keep working and maintain financial independence.

Why is it weird that your mother in law wouldn't leave you money if you weren't married to her son any more?

When I made a new will disinheriting one of my children in favour of their children, so the same as in the OP, the solicitor said it was perfectly fine, but I should write a "to whom it may concern" letter to be kept with the will explaining the reasons why I had made that decision. He said that should stop any issues arising.

What if DB2 knows or even asked for it to be this way?
If he inherits and dies, it all goes to his DW, if she remarries and dies, it all goes to her new husband.

Their child is only guaranteed an inheritance this way.

Could be they're not in a good place and he doesn't trust her, she isn't good with money or they may have their own reasons.

A bit weird to be running around and meeting secretly over a will when your parents are still alive.

You and me both!

The will is fine and the request clear.

If the brother asked for it this way, surely somebody would have asked the other siblings if they were happy to take on the trusteeship. They should have been asked anyway, but the only possible reason for the parents not doing it is they don't want anyone to know about it until they're dead.

This is exactly what I was referring to in my own long winded reply.

When one sibling has a blended family, the issue of death/divorce appears with that person and their spouse, more so if there’s been discontent with the grandparents.

My aunt remarried and her husband (he has also been married before) made it clear that when he dies, while she will have everything on trust to her, it is for HIS OWN kids and the same for hers. Hate to explain that if he/she does pass away first, while not honouring the wishes of the deceased, my aunt could spend everything she’s left and his kids could get their share of £0, eg £0. Same for her own! Direct inheritance to children/grandchildren makes more sense to me if it’s something you’re passionate about.

Also what exactly is busybody brother planning to do? He has no power here. He can put what he wishes in his own will but your parents wills are for your parents to decide and what your brother thinks is irrelevant.

He could simply be concerned with how to best manage any potential for fallout among the siblings.

Yes, that's fine. It's nonsense to talk about an "illegal will". By that argument every will which left the whole estate to a spouse where are children would be "illegal".

Disgraceful act on your brother's part. Underhand and disrespectful. They're not even dead!!

The person you were responding to used "illegal" in reference to Scottish law, which generally doesnt permit the disinheretance of your children. So yes, most wills that attempted to do so, in Scotland, would be "illegal".

Grow up.

Considering brother#2 is an independent adult, there is little or no change of a successful litigation here in England. Scotland would be a different matter.

We are a blended family.

We have wills that specifically protect our assets so that neither of us can disinherit our respective SC following our deaths.

That isn't what is happening here. They are choosing to treat one of their children differently because he has SC. They are by passing him to leave assets to their GC, ensuring it "stays" in the family.

So what if the other 3 kids decide to piss all of the inheritance up the wall, meaning their other GKs get nothing. Become gambling addicts? Bad investments, the list is endless.

Now you have some grandkids treated entirely differently.

If they care so much about keeping it in the family and benefiting the younger ones it should all go into trust for their benefit.

It's messy, fraught with emotional harm and honestly if I found out all my siblings knew and didn't tell me I would never speak to any of them again.

it should have been.

Proprietary estoppel is a very obvious example of where this happens, but I don't think that this is relevant here. Typically this will involve a family farm or business where the parent says "Stay working on the farm and, when I die, all this will be yours" but, that doesn't happen.

To get on to some specific examples that are post Illott v Mitson, there is often an element of ill health or disability or using the money for a specific purpose involved in successful claims.

For example:

In the case of "H Deceased", his entire estate, worth £554k, was left to his spouse who was then in a care home. The son was the executor.

The 50 year old daughter had a complex psychiatric disorder, considerable financial problems and she lived in substandard rented accommodation with two young children. She was awarded £139k

Re H (Deceased) [2020] EWHC 1134 (Fam)
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In the case of Rochford v Rochford in the Peterborough County Court in 2021, the father had mostly disinherited his only daughter. Out of an estate worth £245k he only left £25k to his daughter and everything else to his sister (the daughter's aunt).

The daughter had a severe degenerative disease which prevented her from working. She was awarded a further £85k and also costs against her aunt. The costs are likely as much as the award that was made. These articles from the solicitors that represented the daughter:

https://todayswillsandprobate.co.uk/a-stark-warning-on-costs-in-contentious-probate-matters/

https://www.shoosmiths.com/insights/articles/the-adult-child-strikes-back-rochford-part-36-in-inheritance-act-claims
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Slightly different, as this was a case involving minors, "R Deceased", who were both still at school when their father died but were aged 18 and 17 at the time of the judgment. One had just started university and the other was about to go to university the following year.

The judgment basically said that their costs up until the year after they finished university should be covered. They were awarded £118k and £68k from an estate worth approx £600k after they had been excluded totally.

Re R Deceased [2021] EWHC 936 (Ch)
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Then, more recently, there is the case of Dignam-Thomas v McCourt.

This was rather more complicated. Two daughters made a claim against their father's estate. They both had significant health needs, but they had also been supported financially to some extent by their father before his death. So the claim was made on both bases.

The sisters were awarded £70k and £90k from an estate worth £330k.

Dignam-Thomas & Anor v McCourt & Anor [2023] EWHC 546 (Fam)

I was disinherited by both of my parents for reasons not known by me. It's hurtful, the ultimate rejection

No I agree completely with you.

we don’t and can’t get all the nuance here of - is it the grandparents being spiteful, or the brother being spiteful or are the GKs of the three kids who are getting inheritance 100% likely to get something (despite no direct inheritance?) while the brother2 would squander it and give nothing to GKs without intervention? We just don’t know and neither does op as only her parents do.

my key point is that without speaking with them, OP doesn’t know motive to go careering down one path too angrily. They could explain what they wanted to achieve by doing it and it’s not come across that way. I suspect the best method is to give lump sums to ALL GKs and split the rest with the siblings.

The one thing I did also say (somewhere, sorry it’s a travel day!) and utterly agree with is that it WILL come out that siblings knew and didn’t tell him…. I suggest brother 1 speaks to parents and makes them speak to brother or he will speak to him for them and tell him it’s coming. They can’t make the grandparents change their wills is the only issue so no real good will come of it except avoiding the bad of having 3 siblings in cahoots and knowing this was coming

All seems perfectly logical and above board to me. It’s their money.