How can I divide my estate fairly between daughters and grandchildren?

[Ilikesundays]

Would really appreciate your views! I’m in my 80s and have three dds and 7 gcs. All are over 20. Two dds are married: one has 3 DCs and one has 4. Youngest dd is unmarried and has no children. I want to make my will and be fair to all of them. I was thinking of leaving all my property (f/h house, no mortgage in London + fairly substantial savings) to the gcs + the unmarried dd and nothing to the two married DDs. But on reflection this seems very harsh and unfair to them . How would you manage it? They are all working, bar two gcs who are still studying p/g.

Any decision other than leaving it split equally between your three daughter is wrong imo.
What if your daughter who is childless now goes on to have three kids?

Or one of your daughters with kids have more?

Only some of your grandchildren will have inherited and it will be to your currently childless daughter's detriment.
Three equal shares to your daughters is the only fair way

Ooops, should have read thread to end!!!!
Ignore me

Divide equally between your daughters, not your grandchildren.

They are individuals. It's not more going to one family. It's equal amounts going to the people inheriting. The adult GC aren't going to give the money to their parents. It's not family money. It's money for individuals that OP wanted to leave money for.

Leave equal amounts to all three daughters. It’s up to them what they give the GC

Best option in my opinion.

I’m sure someone has already said this, but the easiest thing would be to split equally between your 3 children and the 2 that are married/have kids can then decide to give your GC something.

Option 2 is to split equally between all of them, so each ‘family’ gets roughly the same amount of money. IE.

Split your estate between 17 people

DD 1 with 4 children = 5 people
DD 2 with 3 children = 4 people
DD 3 with no children = has no kids but would get 4 peoples share.

So say if your estate was worth £17,000

Each ‘family’ would get £4000, with an extra £1000 for the 4th child of DD1 - I’m sure there would be no arguments over all the grandchildren getting the same amount from DD3.

Option 3 is to leave a set amount to each GC - say £20,000 and the remaining is split between your 3 daughters.

Either way I wouldn’t leave any of your children out of the Will. I used to work for a bank and it can get very nasty. Even if you think they don’t need the money - they may not need it to pay bills but they can have a bloody good holiday on your behalf or maybe buy a beach hut or something to benefit them in other ways. Ultimately you had 3 children that you aren’t estranged from, they should all be treated fairly and not forgotten.

Personally I would leave it in equal shares to all the living children and grandchildren alive at the time of your death.
If more are born later - you can't predict that.

I personally don't agree with leaving it all to your children, who all have houses, stable incomes etc. Your GC may need help getting on the property ladder - who is to say your children won't spend it on holidays/renovations/crap and the GC won't get anything until they are way older, or not at all.

I’m a bit mystified that you planned to disinherit two of your dds (if I’ve read that right?) and leave money to one dd and gc and thought that was fair.

Agree with pps - equal shares to all three dds and a bit to gc if you want. Inheritance generally from one generation to the best, not trying to encompass all living generations. I received a few sentimental items and a tiny token of money via my parents from my gps when they died.

They are individuals. It's not more going to one family. It's equal amounts going to the people inheriting. The adult GC aren't going to give the money to their parents. It's not family money. It's money for individuals that OP wanted to leave money for

If there are more grandchildren born then that would be unfair to them.
Mil was going to leave money just to g/c but given that there was high likelihood of more g/c born afterwards, it would seem pretty shortsighted to do that.
Eventually she decided to just leave it equally to her children and leave it to them to pass it on whether sooner, or later.

Split it three ways

3 children and they can decide what to do with money.

Divide equally between your three daughters.

The number of grandchildren is irrelevant. Your childless daughter shouldn’t be disadvantaged.

Exactly. When did that business of sharing equally between children and granchildren starts?

Agree Makes it all so complicated. Especially when the boys are allocated more than the girls because. . . .well I don't know why, just because.😮

Well, it’s this sort of attitude that makes the decision contentious in some families - it makes it obvious you don’t trust your own children (maybe because if you have that much money to give away that it can make a material difference to so many people, you were too selfish yourself to give more of your money away during your own lifetime, so don’t expect your own children to do so either, and besides, it’s easier to say loftily that your own children don’t need any more money once you are safely dead and gone than whilst you are still alive and saying it to their faces 🤣).

Leave it to your 3 daughters only.
The ones with children can rewrite that part of the will giving some of their share to their children without incurring inheritance tax on that portion if that applies to you when you die.

That isn’t fair, either. More money will go to the family that has the four children.

But it's not family money for family use.

The GC are all adults.

That said I think Op should divide equally between her daughters.

Divide equally between daughters. Grandchildren will inherit through them.

I can see this is what you've already decided but I would also, definitely, split it 3 ways between my 3 children, if I were you.

You could divide it out equally amongst them all. Or you could just leave it to your children who in turn can hand down the inheritance in the event of their deaths

I'd either split it equally between your DC or split a portion between your children equally, and a portion between your grandchildren equally.

I have 2 DDs and DGC. I have left 40% to each DD and the other 20% to the DGC.

This would mean that any surviving assets could potentially be taxed twice under current inheritance tax laws.

For example, if the house if left to the children and they rent it out for an income, they pay inheritance tax on it once.

Then, if they leave it to their children later on there will be a second set of inheritance tax to pay.

The most tax efficient way to do this would be to leave everything to the grandchildren directly, that way there would only be a single lot of tax to pay.

By playing the long game more money can be kept in the family and less given to the government.

To keep things fair I would split equally between your daughters. It is then up to them how they wish to distribute it to their children.

My MIL asked that 5k be given to each of her 4 grandchildren, and then the rest split between her 3 children.

She then asked that the two parents of her grandchildren gave them an extra 5k from their inheritance.

That way the GC each ended up with 10k and then unmarried son wasn't penalised by another 3k.

I would probably give a nominal sum to the grandchildren and split the rest evenly between your children. You don’t say the estimated value of your estate (private I know but could be helpful here) but nominal would probably depend on that.