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?

Completely normal to leave to your dc and not name their spouses. I did get a specific bequest in my exh’s grandparents will but only because it was me who sorted out all the elder care, carried on after we split up and was me who called him weekly (again after I’d split from their grandson), was very nominal, a painting worth nothing, but you should have heard the moans!

Well obviously you can't take it with you. It's got to go somewhere. The "me-me-me" aspect when you're dead is MY children. Even worse for OP is that her ILs would rather it went to the cat charity than her! Are you really not even a tiny bit shocked by that?

I had a conversation with my DM recently about how she hasn't thought to leave even a token item to any of her children's spouses. They will all inherit from their parents; all the grandchildren will benefit ultimately, they'll share in their spouses' bonanza - that's all fine. But we all know that wills are about sentimentality as well as financial prudence. It didn't even occur to her that she might want to recognize in her will the mother/father of 2/3 of her grandchildren! After all these years, she would be happy to depart God's green earth without a thought left behind from these people who have known her for decades, are members of her family, have raised her grandchildren? When challenged, she said "well it's not necessary, is it?". I just didn't know what to say. She has sewn tapestries in her retirement that my SIL admires and enjoys enormously. Would it really pain her to leave those to my SIL? Apparently so. She wants everything to go to HER children, HER grandchildren - that's who she sees are HER family.

Maybe they worked their arses off and don’t want to see it wasted/end up in another family?
My parents never stopped working, spent as little as possible (ancient car, no house refurbishments, second hand clothes, no eating out etc) just so they could pass something down. They were privileged in the sense that they had the opportunity to work and save, but by today’s standards their married life was pretty basic.

This

Feel free to scale back. They can’t have it both ways

When my MIL discussed her will with DH & me, she said she’d stipulated that if any of her DC died before her, the estate would simply be divided between the remaining DC and not go to the GC.
She did this because she thought my SILs DH was a w@nker (he is) and she didn’t want the possibility of him getting hold of her money. (The GC were v young at the time.) It felt a bit odd/unfair that because of this awful BIL, my DC would lose out if my DH died before MIL but I did understand her reasoning. It wasn’t personal against me.

If he wasn’t crap OP wouldn’t be doing all the heavy lifting though surely ?

I haven’t but I do trust them.

My aunt and uncle are both very decent people and I would be shocked to my core if even one of them would do anything untoward let alone both of them.

They were puzzled by it but ultimately it wasn’t anything they could do. She was of an older generation and clearly felt like it only passed to the generation below not the grandchildren 🤷🏻‍♀️
I thought all the money had been used for care etc at the time and didn’t think too much about it if im honest.

I think even if I did challenge it I would damage the relationship with them so catastrophically it wouldn’t recover properly and as I’m an only child with no living parents, annexing my only living family isn’t a route i want to go down even for money.

But is he named in your parents will? Or is it just you @NepoInlaw ?

I'd try not to take your exclusion personally, since it's a blanket decision and no other DIL or SIL is included. Realistically, with your in-laws in their 80s, they'll most likely die while their children are all still alive, so it shouldn't matter. Naming only blood relatives is typical, I'd have thought, and then you'll benefit through your husband's inheritance.

If this changes how you feel, you can always choose to alter your level of involvement in their care, going forward—but as long as your children will receive their share of the inheritance regardless of whether or not your husband is alive when your PILs die, I don't see it as a problem, honestly. None of us is guaranteed any inheritance at all, particularly not from anyone who isn't our parent or grandparent.

I find it utterly bizarre that you expect to get an equal share of your husband’s parent’s estate when they die. Its absolutely normal for only their “blood” descendants to inherit.

I’d say that after all these years you’re still not seen as family. I presume your children will inherit.
In which case, let them, act as they see you, a stranger.

This is normal though. When my grandparents died only my parents inherited. Same for my DH.

I understand many will also leave something to their grandkids but in my experience only the children inheriting is the most common way as it mirrors inheritance laws.

No, that’s not the case. The trust structure means the dhs inheritance is not owned by him- the trust is a legal entity in its own right and nothing that goes into the trust for her dh is inherited by the op, she only benefits during his life from what the trustees agree to distribute to dh out of the trust. There are usually rules about how much is allowed to be distributed, whether capital can be etc. The whole purpose of it is that it be a different entity so if he went bankrupt the trust would be affected, similarly if he divorced the op wouldn’t have a claim on it (except perhaps with highly paid lawyers who only work with private wealth type families)

I think it's what I imagine as old school straight forward. Split between me and my brother. Then to my kids with DH over seeing till they hit 18 or 25.

DHs family is different. It's between the siblings but in a trust. The siblings can draw on it and if someone dies the other siblings decide if the grand children can draw in it, when and what for. So it's all about the relationship between the siblings and their nieces and nephews.

We're not talking crazy amounts of money here, nice amounts but house deposit when split between six grand children rather than retire from work.

This is totally normal in my experience - it’s quite unusual to have a will that leaves pockets of assets to different unrelated people. This is because most people don’t want to waste money setting up new and complex wills every time their extended family changes slightly, which obviously does happen over time. I will inherit from my DM along with my siblings and my DH will inherit from his parents, I’d be shocked if there was any provision made outside of that (mainly because I know that there isn’t). One of my grandmothers excluded the descendants of one dc from her will when she was predeceased - it wasn’t taken very well but I think due to some family fall out. The standard will will just include direct children and then their descendants if they die before.

i have a will and I don’t really expect to ever need to change it - everything to my DH and if he dies before me then equally shared between my DC. Who they marry and whether or not they do more admin in the family won’t change that!

OP I think it’s because so many people get divorced. It used to be that a daughter in law married into the family and that was that they were now related. Now, well for 50% of marriages the daughter in law leaves the family again. So lots of older folk don’t want her (or him) leaving with half of ‘their’ wealth as well.

Families are no longer permanent

Fear drives decisions like this.

And as a society in general we are becoming much more fearful.

This. I love picking out gifts because I like them, regardless that DH is actually quite good as well.

I may get their wine glasses as DH isn’t interested and they have a lovely vintage collection.

All jewellery will most likely go to DD.

Assuming that there will be actual money left, care home prices are high.

That still seems odd. Most Clauses I've seen just have the share of the child who passed go to their children, the will-writer's grandchildren, with a simple 'bare' trust created if underage or a more complicated trust if their surviving parent is considered a 'risk' so they need protecting after the age of 18. No need to skip a side of the family and disinherit those grand children completely. Their uncles/aunts can be the trustees, again if the parent is untrustworthy. Odd to risk disinheriting any groups of grandchildren if their relevant parent predeceases the will writer,

I do think solicitors are more likely to try to persuade people to set up trusts these days. The reason is that they will make money when the person dies as they will have to sort out the trust. Having dealt with a trust from a relative, there is no way in a million years that I would set up one. There are things solicitors do not tell you for example a will trust might have to complete a tax form every year. Solicitors are not accountants and while they may give you good legal advice, you should not take financial advice from them. I think trusts are only useful if you have someone who will always need to be looked after or if you have many millions to leave.
We have left our money to our children, or in the event or their death to our grandchildren. I think this is perfectly normal. I don’t think many people leave money to their DILs or SILs.

That's understandable. Terribly sad for you though and would have been nice had your aunt and uncle wished to share some of the inheritance with you. You've obviously been dealt a harsh hand with the loss of your mother so early in life.

It's good that you have an otherwise positive relationship with your family though, I suppose that's worth its weight in gold.

That would really upset me too OP, and in the case of my in-laws I would question if that's what they really meant to happen. Because that is shit, especially after a near 30 year long marriage for goodness sake!

And not that it should be a transactional relationship, but, if that was truly how they felt i would find that very hard to come back from and I certainly wouldn't be clearing any drainpipes.

My in-laws did this. I never expect anything from them, but I think I was put out that they felt the need to put safeguards in place against me almost. There might have been other reasons why they set it up too, but I don’t really know the ins and outs. I think I had to witness the signatures too, which was quite annoying. However, this was a while back so I’d actually forgotten about it until I saw this thread.

I can kind of see what you mean, but it is standard to leave your assets just to you children.

The only time I've seen that not happen were 2 family friends of my DH who left assets to a long list of people from neighbours, friends, charities, friends children etc. Mind you neither of these people had any children and they both had assets of a few million to share around.

WRT your SIL and the tapestries. It's really unusual for people to detail all their individual possessions in a will, unless it's something really rare and valuable. In my experience when someone dies the family pick and choose from the house so your SIL just needs to get in there.

To be fair most people leave money goes to their kids and in the awful event they predecease them then the grandchildren. The son/daughter in law could remarry and then the money would be being spent by a stranger.