Inheritance

[realsavagelike]

Inspired by a currently active thread, surely there must be some MNetters out there who haven't inherited anything from grandparents or parents? DF is still alive - I'm pretty sure DM, who passed away a couple of years ago, left everything to him, and I'm not holding out for any inheritance from DF as I feel it is safer to assume any assets could well be eaten up by care home fees or any unexpected events. I inherited nothing from any grandparents. Yes, you bet I am jealous of those who have been more fortunate than I in this area! Is it just a Mumsnet thing where people expect to, or have received, an inheritance?

I mean if you assume iht @40% that is still £3m divided between them. If there are 4 kids then that's £750k each.

And that pretty much ignores the fact that the actual iht bill won't be 40% but something less than that depending on how much of that £5m is their home plus the tax free allowance.

Both myself and dp grew up in council houses and there is no inheritance. We are however actively planning towards being in a position to help our children.

My grandparents left their money to their children, not their grandchildren. To me this seems a lot fairer, as one child could have 1 (or even zero) offspring, while another could have 4 or 5.
It seems unfair that the person who has decided to have multiple children should receive the lions share of the parents inheritance for their own family.

My stepmum has arranged in her will to do this quite deliberately. Rather than leave to the stepchildren it's going straight to the step-grandchildren because I've had more kids than my sister and my sister has been an utter bitch to our stepmum...

Oh i understand then.

Honestly, reading about the wills issues who gets what makes me quite happy all my family is in country with set rules about this and you can't just leave a child out.

Fair enough, but most parents (presumably) love their children equally.

I thought so, until he got 250 k and I didn't.

So you'd begrudge your parents living the life they wanted to live whilst they still could in order to fund a lifestyle you'd like to have?

Would you (as I've seen others doing) deny your parents the help that they might need in their later years in order to keep "your" inheritance in tact too?

Wow.

Sorry to hear you feel this way. Have you got any friends who have lost a parent or someone you can talk to?
We lost Dad 6 months ago he was only 67. We've had a 100k inheritance this week which we plan to pay off the mortgage. Whilst I'm grateful for it, it wasn't a nice feeling getting the money. I just wish I could spend another day with him.
Take care x

I think I'd like to hear less of 'how hard they worked' and the 'hilarious' sking - spending the kids inheritance joke.
The in -laws I'm thinking of, got free open uni courses, grants for professional development, etc and yet the bitching about my kids going to uni, taking on phenomenal amounts of debt. Paying some other boomer eye watering sums for a student HMO. They truely have had the best of times but without seemingly any awareness or gratitude.

Clearly that’s not what I wrote, but why let the truth get in the way of a good story. My point was about leaving it to a cats home or blowing it in Vegas. It shouldn’t be wasted, it belongs to all generations. Absolutely pay for your care and if goes, it goes, c’est La vie

Household wealth in the uk has more than doubled from 3x national income in the 80s to 7 times currently. Over the same period the national debt has gone from 45% of GDP to around 100% now.
So households have got richer and government has borrowed to fund that lifestyle (and win votes).
This is why the country is in a financial mess and all the discussion is about wealth tax. It just isn’t fair on younger generations. For full disclosure I am early Gen X and bought my first property in 1995 so have fully gorged at this trough but I do intend to fully help my children.

Yes, but only so long as it's a lifestyle that you approve of? What if they wanted to go to Vegas and it all got spent? If that's what they wanted to do whilst they are alive why shouldn't they?

My grandmother often used to try to threaten her children with, "I'm going to spend my money and there won't be anything left for you", to which they responded, "Good. You've worked hard for it. Enjoy it as you want whilst you still can. We're not in need of your money".

This is why increasing inheritance tax is so fair.

Basically taxing against the population that borrowed the money, a lot of whom have unproductive wealth and are obsessed with trying to accumulate more.

Instead the government will probably up the taxes on the working young and destroy the economy in the process.

The Daily Rage though would scream death tax. In the same way it screams dementia tax. And in the end the whole country in about 10-20 years time will slide into the abyss with crap services and a massive sense of self entitlement.

My PIL have 2 sons - DH and his brother. DH and I have 3 kids, DBIL has 2 kids. I understand but have not discussed directly with PILs (as it is none of my business) the fact that they have put all their assets in trust to be inherited by the 5 DGC. They will leave a reasonable size inheritance although not enough to trigger IHT.

It bothers me only in the sense that one of my DC has mental health issues and I would worry about her having direct access to a significant sum at this stage (there may be an age restriction on accessing it but who knows).
It bothers DH in that DBIL's family get less than we do and they are anyway not as well off as we are (they are doing fine but we are considerably wealthier). The thing is we cannot ourselves do anything to change the split as the money is going to our kids and not us. I do also think that it would have been nice for DBIL and his lovely wife to have the money themselves if it was available as I suspect otherwise they will be working until 67.

I agree and to be clear they didn’t work any harder than later generations, most of their household wealth was springboarded by spiralling house prices and boundless stock market booms. The younger generation won’t have those opportunities as house prices flatline, and any chance of having investments is lost through higher tax to pay for their parent’s over generous benefits, student loans, high rents, etc

@MaturingCheeseball , I hear you loud and clear. My parents reused everything, spent nothing and tutted at the price of carrots. It came to light they had 100s of thousands in bank accounts.

Madness.

It’s wise to plan ahead. Anyone who saved, bought a house, has a pension … that will all be used up for care if it’s needed. Those who didn’t do that and spent all their money will be in the bed beside them … funded by the government. Having worked in accounting at several nursing homes I can guarantee that…

It’s a difficult one. I inherited nowt, but dh and I through our own efforts entirely have acquired a house (bought after rises so not much of a gain) and some savings. I don’t really want those sequestered and redistributed!

There are always consequences - if inheritance tax is much more punitive then people will make efforts to offload savings in a timely fashion. Or - which would be disastrous - people would not pay into pensions or indeed save much at all, leaving more people reliant on the public purse.

Well, they need somewhere to put all those odd bits of string that might come in useful one day.

My parents have left everything to our son. Nothing to me or our daughter. Bastards.

OP my mum died a few months ago, in her mid 90s. There's a few thousand each, that's all. £350-400 000 gone in 10 years of care. No real inheritance. I can't think we are unusual.

I have a friend who has been waiting for an inheritance from his mother since she was in her 80s. She’s 103 this year and still lives alone, does her own shopping & cooking etc …

My parents had no assets to leave, so no inheritance. This was due to losing everything in the 2000's to the post office via horizon. So I do harbour a fair amount of resentment for that. Not just for my loss of inheritance but the misery and shame of my parents reduced circumstances at the end of their lives.