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

Eldest son can’t travel that much, he wants his kids to have it as they can sell it on his behalf. Because they’re much younger.

Okay.
Well, a quarter each, as we've all said.
Your kids get your husband's share, until they're old enough/fit enough/broke enough or wise enough to do the admin legwork like their (presumably older) cousins.
And hoping BIL4's wife copes with MIL as, toxic or not, it sounds like pass-the-parcel and all that land is actually morally/rightly hers in the first place, unless separated from her husband.
If she wanted eldest to have it because he will actually get the money for it and would have done right by her(?) then I do not blame her for calling you/wanting them to do right by her.
A risk though if eldest/DS3 has already thrown her out and LC.
Patriarchy sucks.

Okay, thanks. The land belong to great grandfathers who have passed it down, its her husbands but she did have a right to say how it was shared but never consulted. I agree, patriarchy sucks.

It sounds like decades later so much has changed - the father and son 1 reconciled, the family attitudes to love marriages, changed, divorces of, I assume, arranged marriages have happened.

So whether the eldest said he didn't want the land seems irrelevant in so many ways.

The whole thing sounds so toxic - it's way beyond greedy.

The younger three brothers sound awful.

Eldest son should stand his ground!

Yeah, you've got it right! DS3 recently copied DS1 and had a love marriage, but didn't tell anyone. His son told his Mum in an argument what his Dad has done, then he admitted it.

It's all so toxic and stupid. If it were up to me, I'd leave it all to charity.

I agree, DS3 recently had a love marriage which was happily accepted. But, DS1 did it and it was a problem...

Is everyone apart from DS1 in India?

Is the will in India or England?

@SequinTheDay the land is in India? Realistically, will your DH keep it or sell it?
Have the other brothers also got pockets of land as well?

No one lives in India. Each son has received equal shares. The will is in UK but made in India so it was notarised and made legal.

With his health, it’s looking more likely he will transfer it to his kids because he can’t travel back and forth to India.

@SequinTheDay is it known what the actual beneficial value of this land is? Does it produce a yield income from rents or sale of crops grown by tenant farmers? If it were sold, what would the actual profit be if you subtract the amount of time and money you would have to spend to make it happen vs the amount recieved from the sale? Because if the real answers to these are "nothing at all" then the "ownership" being passed down through the generations is purely about honor and favouritism with no actual material consequences to anyone's wellbeing.

I’m not sure to be honest, I’ve never took an interest in it. I know from passing his Dad had some factories and ancestral land which was very rewarding and worth quite a chunk. The ancestral land has been passed down in family for generations now. Selling in India is so much headache, there’s a lot of scams happen too - better to transfer it and wait till laws are better.