Who seems to be unreasonable and greedy? Looking for unbiased opinions and perspectives.

[SequinTheDay]

Indian family of 4 sons; father passed away leaving a will (registered and valid) splitting inheritance equally (25% each). Family migrated to the UK when kids were young.

• 1st son: Rebellious, estranged from parents for years, had a love marriage parents didn’t support. Claims to have signed a document 4 decades ago renouncing inheritance (no copy exists). Wants his 25%, plans to pass it to his kids.
• 2nd son: No contact with parents, divorced twice, parents still cared and loved him.
• 3rd son: Family favourite, expected to inherit everything or at least exclude eldest brother. Divorced once, remarried recently.
• 4th son: Follows 3rd son’s lead, divorced once, remarried recently.

Conflict: Eldest son’s brothers call him greedy/selfish for claiming his 25%. They thought inheritance would exclude him due to that old signed paper. Eldest wants to keep his share for his kids, not sell.

Question: Is the eldest son selfish for wanting the 25% left to him in the will?

YABU: Yes
YANBU: No

Yeah 4 ways is the fairest, but it's not that simple when greed comes in to it. If the will is all legal and above board and already processed, all you can do is block, ignore and get on with your lives, doesn't sound like any love lost. What's confusing me (unless I've got the wrong end of the stick) if son 1 was estranged because of his love marriage, how is it that the wife has been left land?

If there is no documentation, he gets a share. It is what it is.

It strikes me that this shouldn't be the only conflict though. Bro 2, due to estrangement, also hasn't 'earned' his inheritance. If you have one rule, it surely has to be for all?

Unfair? Probably.

“father passed away leaving a will (registered and valid) splitting inheritance equally (25% each)”

Surely that should be an end of the matter. Irrespective of what the other brothers want, the father (whose money/land it was) has left it equally to all children. End of story. I can’t think any court would over-rule this, and indeed, the civil courts take a dim view of family squabbles and tend to bill accordingly. The person in all this who actually has cause to be put out is your father’s disinherited wife. As to the third son wanting the eldest son to sign over his share so he can leave it to his children, if I were the eldest son, I’d tell him to do one. And if I were the mother, I’d have nothing to do with the horrid son who threw her out, and I’m not sure why she’s taking the third son’s side when he and first son refused to have her either. My advice to you, OP, is to stop answering your phone to them - they can shout and swear all they like, but legally, they can do nothing.

Sons 2,3,4 have all been divorced and sound like morons if they're fighting and swearing at each other over money, so none of them are squeaky clean from a traditional Indian perspective... Son 1 sounds the most sensible, ignoring wishes for arranged marriage, good for him. What do you mean by him being "rebellious"?! Will should be followed.

Ahhhhhh. This is where the conflict comes in. Mummy is backing up favourite boy. OR is she working the relationship of the son who presumably looks after her? How old is she? In her 80s? Poor lady.

It strikes me, that due to the amount of divorce in the family, son one is looking like the responsible, dependable one, which is possibly why Dad has mentioned DS1's wife in the will, despite officially not approving of love marriage.

There is a will, the executors have no choice but to split it as stated.

It's natural and understandable that son 1 is thinking about his own children at this point and even if he did renounce the will verbally when younger, now he is older & more mature he is thinking about this from the point of view of his children's best interests.

Anyway, the will is the will and the father made his decision about how things should be split when he made the will. So if I were son 1 then I would be ignoring siblings and just sticking to the terms of the actual legal will.

Son 1 has changed his mind re renouncing, now he sees the farce of arranged marriages in his family all leading to divorce. Whole family sounds awful, given the poor wife has no control over money following her husband's death.

Your husband renounced his inheritance on marrying you. He decided any inheritance wasn’t worth it for the family he wanted to create with you. I can see how that is annoying to other siblings that this family, your children, now gets to inherit. Especially as all the others have presumably not had love marriages and arranged marriages. They’ve not had a choice in who they start a family with and have all been divorced at least once as a result. Don’t underestimate what seeing your older brother fall in love and choose between his love and his parents has done to make the younger brothers not consider falling in love and taking the arranged marriage.

That being said, your FIL obviously saw this as a making amends to you and your husband. You are both named in his will after he had 40 years to file the paperwork for disinheriting. Former wives aren’t included so presumably the will was made relatively recently or updated as divorces happened. It’s legally your husband’s inheritance and he can do what he likes with it. The will should be respected as that this your FIL’s last wish.

I don’t really think any of you, including your MIL and FIL, have behaved particularly well. All the sons are being greedy, just because your husband is passing it to your children, it doesn’t mean he isn’t greedy for keeping something he renounced 40 years ago. It’s a very sorry affair all round.

If your husband wants to keep a relationship with his family, he should apologise for making rash decisions about the inheritance when he was younger that he isn’t planning on keeping now he’s older. He should acknowledge the effect his choosing you over his parents had on his younger siblings and their likely marriage troubles. Say he feels that his dad was reaching out to make amends and he’s keeping it, end of. If he doesn’t want to keep the relationship going, block all their, change your numbers and go about your lives.

The OP sounds like the grabby one here. All the pearl clutching with the “swearing” 🤣 We get it, you want your children to get the money - but actually he made a big song and dance about renouncing it for his love match, but when it comes down to it, he just wants the cash, exactly the same as his brothers. And yet they are the embarrassing ones?

I do actually think son 1 sounds greedy coming out of the woodwork after 40 years to claim money from his estranged family. Is he seeing it as some kind of compensation for his parents behaviour many years ago? He’s made his bed (presumably with you? So why shouldn’t he lie in it?)
Yes he’s in the will so it’s legally his but I don’t think he has some moral high ground here, he wants the money just as the others do and he’s conveniently ignoring the fact about denouncing the money as this doesn’t suit him now. At least son 3 has had some kind of relationship with his father the past 40 years not just popping up to get his money. I don’t think one is good and the other is bad, there is a lot of self-serving behaviour from both sides.

The will is clear, 25% each. What I can’t understand is why you would want to expose your children to this nastiness by passing the inheritance to them.

Does the Will leave the mother destitute and dependent on her sons (and presumably only on sons 3&4 as 1&2 are so out of favour)? Although in general it is right for the Will to be respected, the mother's support fot son 3's claim mightbe more about this. She could have potentially challenged this distribution under the Inheritance (Provision For Family and Dependants) Act 1975 by making a claim to the court if she felt the will fails to make reasonable financial provision for her, but it's probably too late for that now (IANAL and I don't know what the time limits are) - best for sons1&2 that this didn't happen as a variation would have allowed her to favour her golden child in her own Will. Son 1 has every right to keep his inheritance for his children but if his mother has been left destitute then it woukd be the morally right thing to do to for all 4 brothers to assign a reasonable proportion of the income of the estate to the mother for her lifetime, while retaining its actual ownership. (Unnecessary if the mother has adequate assets in her name and isn't dependent on her sons)

The father sounds like a good man. He knew that the hotheaded denouncement of a 20yo was no good reason to actually cut off his son. He loved all his sons and didn't play favourites. That should be respected.

I don’t think you can renounce inheritance in advance - only after the person whose will it is has died. At that point, inheritance can be declined. So the missing ‘renouncement document’ that you already acknowledge was not notarised anyway is not relevant.
Block them all, don’t sign anything they ask about, get the transfer to the children sorted and leave them to rage.

There is a legal will setting out how the estate will be split. The prevailing law is UK (I assume England). The father made a legitimate decision in relation to his estate and I assume there is a solicitor/executors.

The law is the law and the will mist be observed.

What is the relevance of the family's ethnicity and/or origin. It is the law that matters and they need to respect it.

So he says thats why he wants it.

It doesn’t really matter who any of the characters are or however unsavoury or not. Under British law the will can’t be changed or changes made based on what the recipients want to do. It has to be executed as specified

The will is quite clear. Whatever eldest son chooses to do with his 25% is his business alone. The next - and any further shouty sweary phone call should be answered very simply "Fuck off" and put the phone down. Every time.

Eldest should get the 25 for his kids. Forget the what the others say. He’s estranged anyway so the bad blood doesn’t matter.

Third son is just going to have to get over himself, isn't he? Wild that he expected to get it all, even fourth son's share. But the will is what it is and first son can do whatever he wants with his share.

The "renouncement" of his inheritance which happened FORTY years ago and was never legally binding is irrelevant. If the dad had wanted to follow it through he would have done so in the will (the only document that actually matters).

She used to live with 2nd son but he kicked her out, 1st and 3rd son refused to have her so the 4th one took her in. She’s been kicked out by her 3 sons multiple times.

There's definitely a "nightmare MIL" back story here, isn't there...

What someone said 40 years ago, maybe before they had children etc is not always relevant today.

The dad wanted it split 4 ways and also had 40 years to think about it and change things if he wanted to.

Maybe having children himself the 1st son sees things differently and wants to pass it on to his children so he’s doing so. Makes sense. Maybe the dad wanted this too which is why he left the 25%!

No more greedy that the rest of his brothers who want him to give it up so they can have it. Personally I think that everyone who circles and moithers about the contents of a will is coming at it from a position of greed, because its always about getting their mitts on someone else's cash that they've not earned themselves. In this case the deceased was clear, so there isn't anything to fight about.

Is the land in the UK or in India?
Your MIL now lives with her fourth son and his new wife?
Culturally, is new wife expected to be her carer?
What date was FIL's will written, how long ago?
Who were they living with when he was alive?
Who took care of him?
Why is there no provision for his wife? Who was expected to take care of her?
What are the long term plans for her?

I would be selling the land and, depending on how old your children are, passing the money to them or putting it into a trust.
Depending on how much £ there is, I would be potentially giving half (or your own share) to BIL4 (or his new wife) for the ongoing upkeep of your MIL which, cultural or not, is a massive undertaking.
If the land and extended family are all in the UK then I am amazed your MIL has not contested the will tbf. It should have all gone to her if a dependent. If she has to go into care, will it not be seen as deprivation of assets just passing down the whole inheritance to the next generation?

I agree.

It's so toxic and neglectful, that's why eldest son went non contact and was estranged. His children don't even recognise who their grandparents were!