Inheritance

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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?

My grandparent died 25-30 years ago. Before they died they told me they had left what would be around £15,000 in today's terms for me and sibling, in a separate earmarked account. My parent and their sibling pocketed the lot and were very cagey about the estate. Turns out the estate was worth about £900,000 in today's terms and the will that was executed was from the 1970s, 25 years before they died, naming only my parent and their sibling as beneficiaries. Fishy as fuck. I had to write to the probate office to get the details. They were already very comfortably off, but bought 3 more houses between them (additional to the ones they already had) and went on a lot of cruises.
I was dirt poor. I remember being down to my last £15 shortly before she died, and down to my last £40 shortly after, and wondering how I was going to eat the next week if my pay didn't come through. The money would've been an enormous help but what really rankles is the sense that you've been cheated and kicked when you['re down by the very people you should have been able to rely on for fair treatment.

I don't understand how anyone gets excited about an inheritance before it arrives - I always assume care home fees will eat up most of it, even £1million won't go far if you have 10 years in a care home.

But being self funded means you have more choices.

Should the tax payer pay for all the care home fees?

There is an alternative of course to paying for care home fees which is to have elderly parents move in with family. That might mean at least one adult in the house has to give up work (with associated loss of earnings) to be a full-time carer and even that might not be enough.

The reality is that people are living longer and therefore have more years when they will need to be cared for and age related health care issues are becoming more complex to deal with because people are no longer dying within 5 or 10 years of retiring, but are living into advanced old age in a way which wasn't the case a couple of generations ago. 60 or 70 is no longer old in the way it used to be. That's why financial planning well into old age (80s or 90s plus) is so important.

Comparing state funded old age provision with private funded is no different from saying the family down the road don't work and still get housing, food etc so why should I work?

Look at state funded services like the NHS and other public services (yes, I know that's for everyone, not just the elderly). It's on it's knees due to chronic underfunding. The state simply can't afford to pay for old age provision for everyone, as a country we can barely fund the public services we do still have.

No inheritance here. My Dad’s parents died when he was young - before he had kids - and my Mum’s Dad basically made some bad decisions towards the end of his life and lost everything he’d ever made. My parents are thankfully both still alive.

IRL I think wanting an inheritance is a big thing. I’ve known lots of people to bank on future inheritance and talk about them for years and years.
I’ve also known people to try and keep their parents in their home often in unsafe circumstances. I am aware this is a combination of the parent wanting to stay home, the parent want their DC to inherit and the DC wanting to inherit.

Nothing from anyone and nothing to leave.

My dad owned a house with my sister but when he died she just absorbed his half. I am going to see if I can lodge a claim - I am NC with all my family. She has no partner or children.

What about the voters ID card? Don't you have that to prove your identity at the poll station?

I’m the same OP, me nor my husband have ever inherited anything from grandparents. It all went to their children (our parents), I have to admit at the time I had hoped to get a small token amount as it would have been really helpful but I just accepted it.
DH won’t get anything from his parents as they are now estranged and I really hope I don’t have to think about inheriting from mine for many, many years. Although they seem to be going out of their way to spend all their money (and rightly so tbh!).
I am jealous when I hear of people getting big sums (although i appreciate it often comes with big heartache and bereavement) but I’ve got a few friends who have been truly set for life after inheriting from GPs which does make me a bit envious while we struggle on!

But it doesn't need to happen twice, it only needs to happen once and that's a 50:50 chance surely? ie you've got two parents and one in four go into a home, therefore the chances that one of them will go in will be one in two? And that's where you spend all the money (speaking as someone who has a dead parent who left everything to surviving parent who's now in a home at a six-figure pa cost...).

You can still have a provisional driving licence. You just don't have to use it,

I think the resentment about the have inheritance/have not inheritance will get worse. This is because of the difference in life chances an inheritance now gives people. What matters more now isn't how hard you work, it's how much you inherit. I was of the generation were you could work, sometimes in very ordinary jobs, and get ahead, build a comfortable future. I did very well. Young people now don't have the same opportunities.

On a broader note, whether or not you get a substantial inheritance depends on four factors:

1. parents owning property in London and the south east
2. only one possibly two siblings
3. parents not getting divorced and remarrying
4. parents not needing care

And actually I do know people who fall into this category (not me). And economists say that due to house price rises we're heading into the largest wealth transfer in history.

I didn’t receive anything from grandparents. Nor from aunts uncles etc. My DF left everything to my DM and only when she died did I inherit the residue of her estate, which wasn’t much after care home fees. She didn’t leave anything to her grandchildren.

I think that’s how it should be, you bring children into to the word so they are your first responsibility. Their children are their responsibility. I will leave everything to DH and vice versa, and our children will inherit what we leave behind, if anything. We don’t have DGC but if we did they wouldn’t be direct beneficiaries.

It wouod be easier on families if children were allowed to easily buy the family home for full market value my friends dad was in his late forties early fifties they had so many hoops to jump through it was ridiculous he wasn't even sick he was just moving and his house was ideal for his daughter and her family to buy right area right size right everything it was seriously tricky my other friend wanted to buy her mils house and still have her living there it wasn't going to happen legally everyone kept saying it was fraud how is it fraud she has her money for future care which she might not have even needed because she was living with her family they fully intended to pay full price 🤷‍♀️

We know we'll get a decent inheritance but we're hardly excited about it! For us, it's something that will happen in the future. It's my mum that keeps talking about it, how much her estate will be, how the tax will be taken off it, what would we do to invest the money... we have to shut her up! 😬

I got £1000 from a grand parent back in 2007 and I used it as a deposit towards a new rental as I was pregnant with no 3 and we had to take my DN in. So that covered first months rent, deposit and a hire van.

both my parents are still Alive. My mum is 70 and an alcoholic along with her husband but between them they have a fair few collectibles that could, possibly, raise around £3-4 k. But with 3 adult kids 8 grandkids, 4g grand kids that won’t be going very far after we pay the fee for direct cremation. Be lucky to get enough to cover even that.

My dad owns a boat and a flat and collects coins. Maybe worth £160 k as it’s up north. But again, that’s to be split between 6 children/step children. He’s 80 and like a spring chicken, up ladders, DIYing, following his hobbies around the country . He’s sharp as a tack so I fully expect him to go another 10 years easily. I’d be delighted if he spent every penny of his money as I just don’t care about it. The second he dies my step brother is going to demanding money, my half sister will be at his throat and me and my full sister want no part in any of it. No chance my dad will go to a care home, he will take care of himself before that happens and he’s told us specifically that if we get a message saying “don’t come round, ring the police”, we are to do exactly that. He’s incredibly practical and a tight arse so wouldn’t pay for dignitas or any of that. And he certainly wouldn’t be paying for private care. He’s had small cancers a few times and it’s always easily treated but I’ve day it won’t be and he’s not one to chase life prolonging /extending chemo. I kind of admire this tbh. No fuss, no mess, just practical and to the point. I can see that I’m a lot like him.

myself and my DH. We have 4 adult kids. I’m the only one of my maternal siblings ( me, 1 full sister, 1 half sister) to have been lucky enough to get on the property ladder. So that’s currently worth about £90k , cute little retirement proof 2 bed flat with private garden). So no huge inheritance for my kids or grand kids either.

There no chance of me inheriting anything. No one I know has anything to pass down.
When I was young my dad inherited a tiny house from his great aunt who he used to look after. He did her shopping weekly and made sure she had everything she needed, she was a lovely lady who never married. His brother never bothered with her and fell out with dad when he got the house (1 bed back to back terrace with an outside toilet worth virtually nothing at the time). So my only experience of inheritance is that it causes arguments.

Most people inherit from their parents whether it’s the change in their purse or a million pound house - this is nothing new. What is new is increasing numbers of people of normal dying age are homeowners so the generation whose parents fall into this category are much more likely to inherit than people only 20years or so older than them. I’m early 50s and none of my grandparents owned property or ever had more than a few hundred pounds in savings whereas my mum has probably £800k in investments and property and gets richer every month. I do “expect” to inherit something from my mum (specifically a third of what’s left) and while she may need to sell up and pay care home fees her pension income would cover about 75% so her capital will dwindle fairly slowly. Most people don’t go into care homes (iirc it’s about 5%) so the idea that everyone’s estate will be fully devoured by care home fees doesn’t stand up.
DH has very kind and generous parents who work very hard but also play hard and he is much less likely to inherit than me as they will probably spend and gift most of their money before they die. They have much less than my mum (who sees spending money as a moral failure).

@Kendodd absolutely - it's going to be the biggest divider. I know young adult, only child, and whatever her classmates do in life, I bet she'll be the richest. That's even if the other kids she'd been at school with start successful businesses, get high paid jobs etc. When the parents got together they both had London properties, which they kept, and bought a large one together. She's going to be minted! And that's even with care home costs - aged 21 she's already got her own property in London.

Who signs it for them? Still needs a signature

Couldn’t you just get a provisional licence ?

As someone who inherited nothing because each time there was an inheritance to be had, despite being told I would be looked after those people left everything to someone else and thought that some of it would come to me or after that person has died then I would inherit everything.
My gran left everything to my mother. My gran refused to believe I was not in my mother’s will. My cousins will be the beneficiaries when my mother dies or has died (went NC years ago)
I say this over and over. If you want to leave something to someone then leave it to them. Dont expect others to do what you wanted when you didn’t do it in the first place.

It's often said by people whose parents were taken too young.
No amount of money helps that feeling

I don’t understand this - surely your mum would have been happy that her husband had the funds for a lovely nursing home when he needed it? Isn’t that what their assets were for?

None of my family have ever had any money to leave. Half of my grandparents ended up with their children splitting the cost of their funerals and the other two only avoided it because they paid into funeral plans.
I imagine my parents will be similar. They don’t own any assets or have any real savings.

A very good friend of mine lost 2 grandparents and a parent by the time she was 20. She inherited a lot of money - we’re the same age but she’s in her forever home, mortgage free, has a BTL and a lot of savings.
She’s grateful for the cushion the inheritance gave her but I’m pretty sure she’d give it back to have her mum here.

While I am envious of her finances, she is envious of the family support I have. I don’t think inheritance helps much when you’re young (friend lost her mum as a teen).