Inheritance - has something shifted?

[NepoInlaw]

My 80 something in-laws have over the years inherited quite a few times. From parents, friend bequests, siblings.
As far as I'm aware these were all straight forward, no conditions, nothing complicated, straight in the family pot. Inherited from both sides.
Sometimes these sums were enough for a holiday, sometimes more significant.
They've just redone their wills and gone down a Complicated trust route, so that only 'blood' relatives benefit.

Having bought Xmas presents, hosted and done heavy lifting for 30 years when their son is crap I am a little miffed.

I figured I'd be the one picking out their care home for them, so what's caused their loss of confidence or trust. Has there been a generational shift?

My DGM, a widow of many years, left her estate to her 5 children. One of her son’s had died before her so his share went to his widow. I thought that was the norm.

Invoice dh for any running around you have done for HIS family.

My parents left everything to my sister and I. I didn’t expect anything else. As my husband and I are happily married it will be spent on our family. We will leave everything to our two sons - what they then do with it is up to them. I wouldn’t consider anything else to be honest. I assume if they are happily married with their own children it will be used for their family. It’s not saying other people are not important just that I would expect it is used in a manner that works best in each person’s circumstances. Happily married, single or divorced, the money is split evenly amongst the children and more than likely used very differently in each scenario.

That sort of scenario would be quite unusual as it would normally have gone to any children of the son, or back to be shared amongst the other 4 children.

@NepoInlaw The love of money is the root of all evil. And people get cruel when others die.
20 odd years ago, my beloved grandparents died. The will was in favour of the grandchildren: four of us plus one who was no blood relation to them (cousins' half sibling).
Mum and her SIL were executors (Mum's DB died aged 26).
SIL and her children fought every single thing about it. Tried to bankrupt my parents, ran up huge legal bills against the estate. Worse than that:

• offered to help clear the house as DM was struggling. Their agenda was to collect anything of value. Did not help clear the house of anything apart from the "prime pieces". They had a list.
• took all the photo albums. DM asked them to mark with sticky notes the pictures to copy. They destroyed them and kept a ton of photos which were the only pictures DM had of her brother. Gave them back in tatters.
• "Banked" on their inheritance and then screamed and shouted that it wasn't what they were expecting. DGPs left £125k, to them that was a fortune. It did not stretch to the new house in Sussex, the dream wedding etc. Quite where they thought my very working class GPs were going to be worth millions I don't know (admittedly Grandad was a big fan of Arhtur Daley and Del Boy and gave off that vibe)

A such I have not spoken to them in decades. I no longer care. It has taken a lot of work to get to this point.

My in laws have given their LPA to a cousin who lives in another country that dh has never met. If you want to dissect it, it's got to be that's what they choose with all their facilities about them. Maybe my in laws don't trust their kids? Surely it comes down to that. They trust someone else more. Surprisingly we actually feel relieved any one has been set up at all. Whatever choices made on the LPA are not our business so that's that. The sooner we accept it, the faster we can park it. Yes there's a nervousness because the relative does not understand the nhs or socail care, but someone has thought this through. We have 0.00000 say. That's final. Which can be comforting. Just got to have faith they aren't stupid and it will be fine.

You won't and can't choose their home. It comes down to that. So let go of that stress. I hate this saying but "it's no longer your problem". Your relived from duty I guess? But appreciate LPA and will is different but still maybe it's all down to that trust

When setting up a trust, solicitors/lawyers/experts advise 'blood relatives' only, it is nothing to do with the relationship they have with you, they will have been told/advised to do this, and if they said 'no' would have been talked out of setting up a trust, amazed they weren't talked out of it regardless!

I'm divorced and on my second marriage. First husband was emotionally horribly abusive and absolutely rinsed me financially. Never in my wildest nightmares did I think I would be in that position. And ex MIL, who loved me and treated me as a daughter, cut me off and never spoke to me again after the day I moved out and filed for divorce.

I have a son now and honestly, no matter what happens, whoever he marries will not be my daughter. If things go sour between them, I'd be concerned for my son, not her.

People get divorced a lot more often than they did in the 80s. Your in laws are wise. It's not a slight on you.

I was once told, only slightly tongue in cheek, that lawyers love trusts because they are nearly always possible to challenge, don’t cover every eventuality or become out of date as tax changes. All of this means work and fees for them.

Inheritance normally goes to blood relatives ( or nuclear family). I wouldn't expect to inherit from anyone unless I am their closest blood relatives so other than my parents, siblings or aunt/ uncles with no kids if their own.

My mum is leaving everything to me and my sister. What we give her grandkids off our inheritance is up to us. None of the money will be left to my brother in law and I'm single but if I was married my husband wouldn't be left anything. I think that's normal.

I think we as women fall into the caretaking role but if u are fed up with it tell your husband to step up.

That would be quite unusual as it normally follows the blood line, unless it was explicitly stated otherwise in the will. So if the son or daughter died and had no children it would it would go any siblings and not to a spouse. Much inline with rules of dying intestate.

I meant that if the Son or Daughter inherits and then dies, their surviving spouse would be likely to inherit.

Thank you again everyone.
Yes, I am DH's preferred family subcontractor, even get stitched up with penalties if I miss deadlines. And just like the old firms , my inlaws won't be paying out till the pips squeak.

It's these quite complicated trusts I'm intrigued with on quite modest estates, grazing the IHT threshold rather than billionaires. It appears to be no longer a simple split between the kids.
Quite a lot of scenarios have been catered for, with discretion but total control - time, purpose, amount is with the aunts and uncles as trustees and beneficiaries not the widows.

No one seems to be able to explain this, apparently it all made sense in a meeting. It's all potentially a bit Jandyce Vs Jandyce.

At 50 something, no inheritance would change my living standards, it would mean a loved one had died.
For my kids, this is the busy time, these are uni, car, deposit years. If DH isn't here and his siblings up the age to 30 or only pay out for uni but not housing or mortgage but not rent, that's the level of control I'm disturbed by.
DH does have a cough but is in pretty robust health so I'm hoping he'll cling on.

You should never do anything for elderly relatives with the thought you will inherit or make the decisions- it is very easy to make sure someone is cut out, you can spend a lifetime helping relatives and still finish up with nothing- so assume you will get nothing and only do as much as is commensurate with that, otherwise you will finish up bitter.
In fairness most people would be uncomfortable for a non-blood relation to make decisions like which care home they go to, and that is understandable.

Their money their choice not sure why you as a daughter in law would benefit over their son !!

It’s the change of the will intentionally protecting the money from the OP rather than expecting something.

the OP thinks of them as family. She looks after them and plans their future old age for them yet they have recently chosen to change their will in a manner than makes it clear they don’t value her and think of her as family the way she has them

You’ve misunderstood completely

I always remember when doing accounting exams, we were told that inheritance taxes are predominantly paid by the middle class, very little rich or poor pay them. The middle class/upper middle class don't understand trusts enough to use them or don't think they are rich enough that they can, which nets the government huge amounts of money. Maybe your in laws having received several inheritances have realised this and thought that they will save/make you some money. It is entirely possible I'm sure that the structuring of this was done without malice, likely also though without thinking of feelings for anyone except their children. If I had to create trusts for my children, I wouldn't have a partner in law be a trustee. I am sure that the lawyer setting up the trust has advised them against having anyone except a blood relative as a trustee in case of divorce or other complications. Inheritances always seem to upset someone, though your upset seems to come from a reasonable place. Can see both sides though.

Time to let their “family” do all the heavy lifting from now on.

Your care was nothing to do with money but THEY have changed that now, by going out of their way to ensure you’re not regarded as family / good enough for them.
It’s a tricky one though as reacting to this will be interpreted by many as you making it about money 🤷🏼‍♀️
I was going to say you can’t win sometimes. However, if you’re married then it comes to you as well potentially.

They could just be trying to protect their blood family in case of separation/not divorced yet situations. Perhaps someone the know had this experience and it made them think they were doing the right thing? I’ve certainly read various pots on MN about inheritance when close to divorcing..

I don’t really see what the big deal is. 🤷🏻‍♀️ I’m not named in anything in MIL’s will. I doubt our children are either. If Dh were to die before MIL, I don’t know what would happen, but I wouldn’t expect that inheritance to come to me. Dh definitely isn’t named in my mum’s will. I’m not even sure I am these days tbf! 😂 Any inheritance that Dh and I would receive would be spent as a family.

After someone’s dead, they can’t really stipulate how you spend your money. A trust may be able to make decisions about what money is released for what purpose (paying a mortgage), but 10 years down the line, if you divorce, you and your (ex)Dh can divide your assets however you wish.

Good points! I'd be worried about dodgy advice too. I think trusts are mostly used to leave money to minors. They really don't work for care home fees unless the settlor starts paying rent on their own home. Here are my thoughts
Your crap DH is probably the root of the problems and your resentment.
In a husband and wife will It's pretty usual to leave everything to each other and if you die within a month of the other person, to your children. People sometimes leave a specific sum to their sons/ daughters in law as a mark of affection. Depending on the size of the estate it could be anything from £200 to £20,000. It's a token. It's very unusual to treatment in laws as on the same footing as the actual children. Re the grandchildren it varies depending on what people are trying to achieve. In your shoes I'd have a gentle chat with them as you seem to get on and make sure they've actually done what they intended. As a side issue I hhink I'd be having a looong look at my crap DH.

That is exactly wrong; the entire point of a trust is it’s not your dhs money, he’s only a benificiary. If he dies (after mil) , there’s no beneficiary and you have no access to what was left to him. Neither of you have any legal right to include the trust assets in a divorce- a trust keeps your grubby fingers away from his family money permanently, including if you divorce or after hes dead. That’s the whole point.

I don’t expect to inherit from dhs parents but I would be hurt if they put a lot of conditions and trusts in place to ensure I couldn’t get my hands on any of dhs share. It would say to me they don’t trust me to look after our DCs interests first if anything happened to DH. After 20 years I would expect more trust from them.

When we did our wills we used a solicitor and they sent questions on what is to happen in all sorts of ‘what if’ scenarios. Could this be something your PIL have done?