Different Dads Different Prospects

[DelaneyDonkey]

I have no idea what I even want out of this thread.

When I first met my in-laws not only was I pregnant with their grandson even though I had only known their son for a few months I also had a three year old in tow whose dad was completely uninterested. I was quite a catch as you can imagine.

I thought everything worked out reasonably well. We got married and settled down. Broadly speaking they treated both boys well and my eldest had come into the family at an age where he knew they weren’t his grandparents so subtle differences in their treatment were accepted.

Now 17 years later things are beginning to change massively. Eldest dropped out of uni and in and out of work through no fault of his own, just the way it is with that kind of work. While youngest has had driving lessons given to him by in-laws, a second hand car, a course paid for, enabling him to get a part-time job. He has been told he will be supported at uni.

My in-laws are very ordinary people, who have worked all their lives but in the 1980s FiL had an industrial accident and built up a little property portfolio. Last week, completely casually younger son said that one of these houses la will be transferred to him when he is 18 of months. Apparently the two cousins have had houses given to them as well.

Elder son just became mute.

Husband and I are having to pare everything back at the minute but he won’t approach his dad to ask what is going on.

Youngest has his head screwed on but it is as if he has everything handed him on a plate.

Our mortgaged house is worth about £300,000 but husband will not hear of adjusting our wills.

If you had asked me 18 years ago if I expected in-laws to treat them the same I would have said no, it wasn’t their duty but I am just beside myself at the inequality, I didn’t expect it.

The eldest does see his father. OP updated us with that nugget of info a little later on in the thread.

Hugely different. The OPs eldest son has two parents in his life and presumably his father’s extended family too.

The OPs husbands parents don’t need to take on the eldest child as their own Grandchild because the child already has two sets of biological grandparents.

She means

She wants the grandparents to only give cash to their kids.

So her DH will have a bigger estate to gift to her kid.

She doesn't want them giving anything to grandkids - this means her DH will inherit less from them. And less will go to her eldest.

Ah I see, thanks. Couldn't follow the logic.

Well, IMO the GPs are completely entitled to give away their wealth like this and avoid IHT, makes total sense to set up their DGCs.

The issue with OP changing her will is that right now her eldest is included in his will, but he can very easily change that and only leave to his son if OP changes hers to favor her eldest.

If she changes her will her son won’t end up receiving more than the 50% he’s already in line for, and actually she risks him ending up with less. Any inheritance her husband receives from his parents won’t automatically become marital property, and he may decide to keep it separate in order to leave it in its entirety to his son.

I am not wanting my eldest to directly inherit from my in-laws but indirectly through my husband.

And this is precisely why the grandparents are giving directly to their grandson. They don't want to risk anything they have going to your eldest indirectly via their son. They've done him a favour by not putting him in a position where he has to give something to his bio son but not to his stepson.

The message is loud and clear: they're fond of this lad, treated him well over the years etc, but he's not a member of their family because they don't see him a child of their child's.

My parents did it slightly differently with one of their DC. They didn't want to deliberately exclude step-grandchildren...so they just gave less to the DC who is the step-parent of these children. They left that DC an equal amount to all their other DC, knowing full well that that money may filter down to said step-grandchildren; but that DC didn't get anything in addition "for" his step-DC whereas the rest of us did for our bio DC. So whereas we got (say) $100 each + $100 for each of our children, my sibling only got $100 and $0 for each of his step-children. Up to him what he does with his $100, we can none of us take it with us after all.

@DelaneyDonkey

I understand why you are unsettled by the disparity, however I think it was always a reasonable assumption that your PIL would not treat your eldest exactly the same in terms of inheritance/substantial financial gifts as they do their biological grandchildren. It’s not “fair”, in some ways, but it is what happens when you have blended families.

I don’t think things like paying driving lessons for their grandchild but not your son is unfair. Equally, paying towards his education- either through courses or helping with university fees- is not something I would expect from step-grandparents. It’s one thing to treat step-grandchildren well, ensure equality in terms of Christmas and birthday gifts and so on- but I don’t think you can expect equality when it comes to larger things like inheritance. It’s fine if step-grandparents do choose to do more, but I don’t think it is wrong or unfair if they don’t.

I know you say your eldest’s father is highly unlikely to leave him any substantial inheritance- but, for arguments sake, imagine he miraculously managed to leave a substantial inheritance to his son. Or, for some reason, your eldest’s grandparents left their estate to your son and not his father. What would you do? Demand he split it with his brother? Change your will (and what if he’d inherited more than the value of your estate)? Or accept that when you have different fathers, the inheritance issue cannot be 100% equal?

The reality is that is not your decision as to how your PIL choose to leave their money (or re-distribute prior to their death). I can understand why them leaving all to their children might have been your assumption (and preferred outcome, as you wish you eldest to benefit equally), but that really changes nothing.

I suspect the gift giving now is to try avoid inheritance tax and give their grandchildren a leg up. I can see the logic of their choice, if that is indeed the reason. I also don’t think they need your approval or consent- they are leaving it to him once he turns 18 years old and no longer, legally speaking, a child. He could get married, join the army and all sorts of other things without your consent. His grandparents don’t need your say-so to gift him a property. I can understand the argument that it would be better done at 18 or 25 (or done now but left in trust until he is older) when he might have more experience to rely on in terms of managing said property, but if done to reduce inheritance tax burden then they probably want to get it done sooner rather than later to reduce risks from the “7 year” rule.

If they had consulted you, what would you have said “no, unless you do the same for my son?” Or “no, just leave it to DH” or “no, just give to DH so my eldest can get a share”. It’s actually got very little to do with you- yiu are entitled to an opinion but not to a say.

I was trying to imagine if I might have given the house to both boys to share. While I am usually kind and generous to people, I don't think I would give a half-share in a house to a child that was nothing to do with me biologically. For all I know, that child might "leave the family" when all parents and GPs are dead, and have nothing to do with their stepfamily, and then six figures of what I worked very hard for would waltz out the family. When you give a huge asset like that to a descendant, you know that it will also benefit some future generations too (depending on how well the asset, or money from said asset, is managed or used.)

I can see what a dreadfully awkward situation this is. And it's not the first thread I've read on MN in a similar vein. Unfortunately, as others have said, this is the nature of blended families.

When I've felt very let down, I've tried to be grateful for what I have had, rather than what's missing. Could you perhaps try to focus on the fact that your eldest's step-GPs have been nice to him and been fair to him with everything else throughout his childhood?

Also, I wonder if you could start saving some extra for him. It adds up. Having received a house, I don't think your youngest would mind his brother receiving, say, 30k for a deposit by the time he's 30.

I am going to go against the grain here because you should reasonably have foreseen this scenario. You only had the two children and should have melded the family from the outset.

Well NO! It was up to you to mitigate this situation from the outset of your relationship and not sell yourself short. . A 3 year old should NOT be treated differently especially given his father was disinterested. Adults should have stepped into the void and provided emotional security.

From the outset you could have made it clear you were bringing the greatest gift of your 3 year old boy into the relationship, a ready made brother to your joint son.
And for equity your new DH could have adopted the boy given he was raising him.

For me, only if there were heavily involved grandparents on his bio fathers side would have stopped that scenario.

“I was quite a catch as you can imagine."

….this attitude has permeated your psyche. You considered yourself lesser because of it and your eldest likely has felt that aswell
He’s been the outsider in the family “the different one” / set apart.

No wonder he’s a bit footloose. He’s not had the emotional security / anchor your second born has had.
You need to sit down as a family and discuss this situation because when you’re gone, those boys will be left and sadly the disparity has driven a wedge between them.
Your DH needs to make it clear they will be treated equally in your wills.

A 3 year old should NOT be treated differently especially given his father was disinterested. Adults should have stepped into the void and provided emotional security

OP and her DH could of course do this, but you can’t marry someone and demand their family does the same. You can’t force other people to provide anything. And bringing a child from a previous relationship will not be viewed by everyone as ‘the greatest gift’.

This has the potential to eat you up. To let it go you need to focus on how both your sons have benefitted from your choice of husband.

It is understandable that the grandparents want to skip a generation to ensure that the money will be kept in the family.

Yes, I'm not sure how anyone thinks people can enforce this on others who don't agree with it and who they aren't in charge of. A person bringing a child into a relationship simply doesn't get to dictate how the family members of the other partner feel about it. The only choice OP had there was whether to remain in the relationship or leave it because of something her husband can't control either.

It's also a huge assumption, tbf made by more than one person, that adoption would be possible in this scenario. DS1s father won't win any parent of the year awards, but he's evidently been involved on and off and OP has said nothing to suggest he'd have been willing to allow his son's adoption.

@SpanishBaguette makes a good point about trying to reframe this as a marriage that has benefitted DS1 and improved his financial prospects too. Odds are he'll inherit more from his stepdad than his DF.

I don’t get what you are blown away by. Your eldest son is not their grandson.

Well NO! It was up to you to mitigate this situation from the outset of your relationship and not sell yourself short. . A 3 year old should NOT be treated differently especially given his father was disinterested. Adults should have stepped into the void and provided emotional security.

And how would you enforce this?

You are not being unreasonable to be sad about this. It sucks and this kind of inequality is unfortunately unavoidable in blended families (in my opinion).

as pp said: what you can do is do your best to support your eldest DS. Would he want to go back to uni? Learn a trade? Could you help him get his life back on track?

Since your eldest son isn't your husband's he's being generous in setting up a will where both boys get 50:50. Can you start a LISA for your elder son and make regular contributions? Encourage him to contribute once he's working again. Sounds like he'd benefit from an apprenticeship, too. I don't blame your ILs - it's up to you to support your child, not other people who are not biologically related.

It’s not reasonable to expect in laws to give a house to your eldest as well. He isn’t their grandson.

It’s understandable to be sad your eldest doesn’t have the same windfall.

In your shoes, I would open a savings / stocks and shares ISA for eldest and start squirrelling money away for him. Don’t tell your husband.

Of course they’re going to be treated differently in terms of your parents-in-laws’ assets.

Your elder son has a father and two other sets of grandparents. Why are they off the hook, and your parents-in-law are the ones being unfair? Is it because there’s property and money involved ….?

Your PiL have no control over who’s come into the family vis their son’s marriage. You and your DH regard your elder son as family in the same way as you regard your younger son, but the rest of the extended family doesn’t have to.

I do think they should have spoken to you before promising your son a life changing gift at 17. Lots of 17 year olds wouldn't make mature decisions knowing they had that level of security behind them. So I think that is worth a discussions with the in laws at least, it's something you should have at least been informed of. I also think you should speak to your son about how his brother likely feels about this, it would be nice if he could recognise how fortunate he is and how this might impact on his relationship with his brother

I would not expect my in laws to gift my elder son a house. Can you work more or get a job and put it towards supporting him doing another course? Emphasising that it will be up to him to complete it.

They are not going to give their son’s stepson a house are they! I do not think they owe anything to him actually, other than being nice when visiting.

Your in-laws have done nothing wrong.

Its just one of the negatives of having a blended family.

All you can do is get life insurance and work hard to provide both boys with inheritance.

The youngest will always have more help because he has that side of his family involved but there’s nothing you can do about that apart from try to help your eldest out without making it seem unfair.

We're a similar situation.

My parents are discussing inheritance and are trying to find ways to ringfence anything unspent out of what they leave to me for my daughter and not my stepdaughter. They've never got on with my SD and they have pointed out that her Mum's family has a lot of money so its not like she'll go without.

It's not exactly what I'd like, but it's not a shock either.

DH is actually more OK with it than me, and I think that's partly because SD has kind of gone out of her way to make it hard for my parents to get on with her so he thinks she wouldn't expect any inheritance,

@DelaneyDonkey

"The house is not to live in but to rent out and manage. An older cousin has this already apparently and will guide youngest.

No dIscussion about this has ever taken place between husband and brother (father of 23 year old cousin)."

Becoming a landlord is too much of a responsibility for an 18 year old or a 23 year old. A good landlord needs to have a bit of capital for repairs and maintenance on their properties, and they need to have the wherewithal to arrange those and to understand the legal liability that you take on in that role. When I was younger and living in the private rented sector my (excellent) landlord became ill and handed over the management of his properties to his two young nephews and it was a nightmare - minor issues that would have been quickly resolved were ignored and when a more serious issue came up the two jokers tried to tell me it was a housing association flat and to contact them, despite them collecting my rent every month!

Young people need to learn how to look after themselves and their own homes before they become responsible for others. If someone tried to put my 18 year old in this position it would be a hard no from me.

I agree. I am about to re-write my will to benefit my 2 GC and my late DH's 4 great-grandchildren (equal shares of residual estate). I have checked everyone is ok with this (the inheritance in question would not exist had I not re-married). I am excluding entirely the family of my late DH's elder DD (and her brother and sister - who were not in contact during DH's lifetime). I could divide the property 50/50 and so my two GC would get more than late DH's 4 (current) GGC but that seems to me monstrously unfair when our work was equal and my late DH's family have welcomed me and my DC, and continue to treat me as a valued family member (about to go to step-GGD's birthday party) not only inviting me to family events but actively helping me, doing work in the house, sorting out finances, insurance etc for me.
Inequalities are always going to happen and my DC will inherit from my ex-H as well, so will not be short in any way.
It's just life.