AIBU to want my estate divided equally between all four children?

[Imdefonotmaddona]

I have 4 children
DD 1 and DD2 are mine and my late husbands.
DS2 - was biologically husbands and not mine but he is with me full time.
DD3 is mine with my current DP so the only one who hasn’t got the same dad.

on the passing off my husband everything came to me. I have always been financially independent and the house was paid for by both of us.
he had some money and a life insurance policy.

I am updating my paperwork and that Includes My will to include DD3.

I was discussing this with my best friend and she mentioned that I should seperate and not give equal amounts because some of what they will inherit would be technically my late husbands so should take than in to account for DD3.

I was thinking that It’s now my assets / money and that I should share it equally amongst the 4 children.

what would you do ?

i would do equal

But on the flip side DC4 father is living with them as a father so he should split his four ways.

As always reading comprehension has been impacted by the rush to ride a moral high horse into the ground, on a thread about blended families and inheritance.

Given your children were young when your DH died, it can be assumed a lot of ‘his’ money went / will go on raising his children including the one not biologically related to you - the irony of people trying to paint you as a wicked stepmother when you are raising a step child after the death of his father and planning to leave him some of your inheritance from your parents but scandal that you might leave your youngest child anything left from your husband’s estate.

Given the variables and the fact that each child will have additional inheritances, and by the time you get to shuffling off the vast majority of any estate will be yours, a 4 ways split is very fair.

I would do it four ways. It’s your money, and 3 of the children are yours. Then you have DH child living with you FT. I don’t see a reason to overcomplicate things.

DH was sent to a very expensive private school and his sister was not. There is still some resentment there from her so be aware of that.

Your list of who inherits what from who may not come to pass if people need nursing care. Or and it does happen a grandparent dies and then the grandparent remarries. My older sister remarried at 69 after being widowed at 64 and having been in a 40 year marriage. What her and her now DH have done asset wise has assisted his adult children now, who funnily enough are all very well off. Her children have to wait and then what if she dies first? Well they are waiting. She was always heart over head.

As you have raised the stepchild from young I see no issue with a four way split. if you had not thats would be very different.

Your best friend is wrong. It's your money, divide as you see fit.

Presumably you see all four as your children? If you do, why would you treat them any differently?

Of course you can do it.
The only thing I’d say, is - just in case of any disputes later - to use a solicitor to make sure it’s watertight.

A childless aunt of mine left everything to be shared equally between all her nieces and nephews, but if any had predeceased her, their share was to go to their children - ‘whether natural or adopted, legitimate or illegitimate’.

Presumably a solicitor added that last bit, just in case of any arguments later. I don’t think I’d have thought of it!

YANBU, as the poll shows.

Your DH chose for you to inherit, as was his right, so his money is now yours.

Equal shares shows equal love and removes the potential for upset when you're gone.

Was about to say this. It’s only your DD3 with your late husband who won’t inherit from another parent.

Your previous daughters will inherit from your ex (their Dad) and his son will inherit from your late husband’s ex (his Mum) - leaving your mutual daughter to inherit less overall.

That doesn’t seem fair.

Surely the op is accumulating further assets since the death of her husband? His son is being provided a home with OP and will benefit from a split of assets which if we are arguing ‘bioligical v step children’ he is not entitled to
so splitting it 4 ways is the simplest solution.
or am I completely misunderstanding the situation

Of course you’re being fair OP. Unfortunately there’s a lot of people with axes to grind on inheritance on MN. But I think generally it’s better to divide things equally in these situations. It’s different if they’d all been adults when your late husband died and he’d left a vast sum. But that’s not the case.

As the children are all still children, this potentially (hopefully!) won’t be an issue for decades. In which case, I would split evenly. I wouldn’t try and keep separate in my head what percentage of my assets came from my late husband. If I die when my children are young, I’d be fine with DH doing this.

If you had married someone late in life, they’d died when you’re both 90, and left you the house they solely owned and you were saying you would going to split that with their children and with yours, I’d say different.

You asked what would I do:

In your first post you said you'd leave everything equally between the four children, and that is what I would do too based on the other details you supplied. You are being very fair to your husband's memory and to his trust in you that you are leaving his child, your SS an equal share. You're also bringing up that child. In addition you're being fair in treating all children equally. It doesn't matter that some of what you now have comes from the fact your husband passed away. You're husband trusted you enough to leave everything to you, this means the decision is yours. It doesn't matter what anyone else things.

Leaving everything equally shows all 4 children that you loved them all equally. You'll never win on this as regards other people's opinions including the opinions of your children. Don't waste time on this.

You're making one mistake though, there is no guarantee of anything from anyone as regards inheritances from grandparents/other parents.

Once you've made your decision, I think it important to consider the tax implications. There are different rules depending on relationships, so your SS as you said he's not actually your SS, this might mean it will require careful tax planning for his 1/4 share.

I really don't think you should take into consideration what they could potentially inherit from someone else.

@Imdefonotmaddona

IMO (and I don't know much about the law when it comes to these things, so forgive me if I speak out of turn,) you should absolutely split the inheritance equally) and make sure your son who is biologically your husband's but not yours gets the same as your biological children.

As someone said back on page 1, any children your husband had (if it was more than just the one) should also inherit as this 'estate' is/was half his.

Also, are you ever going to marry your partner? Because if you do and you die first, this could maybe throw up some complications. (I'm not sure if he could contest it and demand it all as you were married....) As I said, I'm not 100% au fait with this stuff. Apologies if you have already said. I have whizzed through all your posts and didn't notice if you said you are ever going to marry him.

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@Imdefonotmaddona You sound lovely. Some people are misreading the thread as they have had bad experiences. You are not only having your late husband's son living with you despite his mum being alive, you are also paying for private school because of Sen I will assume.

Talk to a solicitor who will be objective.

Well if her husband had cared so much about this, he could have protected against it in his will and chose not to.

And she could survive her husband by 40 or 50 years. That’s a whole lifetime, and the money she inherited isn’t going to just sit in a pot waiting for her to die. It’ll be spent and invested and change identity over 50 years. His kids will only get something if she hasn’t spent it. It would be ludicrous for her to leave it sat there untouched for her whole life just to leave to some of her children.

And a lot of kids who have grown up as though they are full siblings (as is the case here it seems as they all live together full time) would want to see inheritance split fairly and equally amongst them as they see themselves as equals.

Yes, I think this is the issue with the discussion on this thread. You are clearly young enough to expect to live a good few decades still, making use of the inheritance for the interests of your children.

I would look at the sum of money and see what you think you will need from it to raise the first three children, from a friend’s experience I would also factor in some therapy for them. Anything leftover, I would put into savings and investments for them to access later. I’d let DP know you have done this and together you could build a similar pot for the fourth child. Once this is done, I would be splitting whatever is left 4 ways, considering it all my money.

If there is no money to spare from the inheritance then I think you are right to just be dividing by 4 as his death sounds untimely and that there are costs associated with raising children without their father.

None of this is HIS money. She inherited it and if he wanted to put conditions on how it was spent, she should have done that.

we don’t know enough about their finances to make that sort of judgement.

maybe their late DF’s estate was used as a downpayment (or part of a downpayment) for the new family home.
maybe their DM was better off financially than the new DP. Who knows?

And their stepfather definitely isn’t providing for the three older DC, seeing as OP has clearly stated that she and her DP have separate finances due to her DC.

Due to my children we have our separate finances which works for us.

Based on that I’d say that splitting the entire estate equally between all 4 children would seem quite unfair and may encourage resentment unless OP’s DP decides to do the same…

Hmm

Why not consider what your late dh left/his life insurance, deducting anything you think you have used to provide their home and life, see what is left now (or at some set age, say, 18), and transfer that to the first three children's savings accounts.

Then, they have "inherited" what their dad left.

When you die, all remaining assets are yours to do as you wish. I'd probably leave it four ways.

I disagree with your friend. If your DH had wanted to ensure that only "his" children benefited from his money, he could have made a will saying so. He didn’t, so the money is now yours, to leave however you choose. Equal shares seems like the best way to me.

I’ve put measures in place to ring fence my children’s inheritance should I die before my husband. Essentially ensuring that if he remarried and had other children, that my children’s inheritance from me is not diluted.

On the face of it you are not being unreasonable, you are being ‘fair’, because you see all these assets as ‘yours’ and not your late husbands. I would not personally like it to happen this way, which is why I’ve taken the measures above.

And a lot of kids who have grown up as though they are full siblings (as is the case here it seems as they all live together full time) would want to see inheritance split fairly and equally amongst them as they see themselves as equals.

Mmm.....it feels different when it happens.

My sister is my mum's but not my dad's, dad did adopt her, but she had a living father, who she restarted a relationship with when she was older.

My dad died first, left me and my brother £50k each, sister nothing (residual to mum). Mum and I decided to make it right, so mum gifted syster £50k saying it's what dad wanted and he had meant to change it.

Mum died. Me, sister and bro got (not quite, but for ease, essentially) a third each. C£200k each.

Then, sisters dad died, and she'll be getting another £100k or so from him.

And, in fact, it doesn't feel that fair.

Years ago, my dad's mum died. All money went to dad. He split it up - gave a bit to my cousins. Gave some to me and bro and sister. My sister got 10% of what I did. And I have literally never heard the end of it. To the extent that I often wondered if I should pass some on to her. Glad I didn't, considering her later inheritance.

It's very risky to make assumptions about what any child is likely to inherit from another relative. You don't know how much money the relative has, how he/she intends to distribute it, how many other people might have a moral claim on the relative's estate, or how much there might actually be in the estate at the time of death, especially if the relative has an expensive old age.