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.

This seems the fairest option to me too.

In our will we are treating people as individuals, not families. If you leave money to the grandchildren, that doesn't really benefit their parents, does it? So in your situation I would either
a) split between your 3 daughters, equally
b) include the grandchildren and set a percentage for everyone, e.g. 25% for each daughter, and the remaining 25% to be split 7 equal ways between the grandchildren. Basically the same as @Schoolchoicesucks

We are also ignoring current/future wealth, which can change due to jobs and health. The fact that your DDs have different salaries should be irrelevant; any difference in the amounts left to each could cause family arguments.

Everything should be divided equally to the 3 daughters - their estates will go to their children, otherwise it is not fair.

What is one daughter and no children and her sister 7?

But all this could be avoided if it was divided into going to The Cats Protection.

My grandparents left an equal token amount to each of the grandchildren and great grandchildren (£5k), but the rest of the estate was left to divide equally amongst my dad and aunts. But they all have children. I suspect the fairest thing here is to divide it all equally between your kids. The ones with kids can give what they want to them.

Something like this seems most fair so DD’s each get a larger chunk and then a smaller amount is given to each grandchild.

Please don't skip a generation by leaving out your daughters. It would be awful for you to cause resentment by giving their share to their own children instead. The grandchildren will inherit from their parents in time.

You divide it equally between your children. Your daughters can then leave their own assets to their own children. Anything else is frankly a recipe for resentment going forward.

I think the fairest way is to divide between your 3 children equally.....and they can pass down to their children later

Leave equally to each of your daughters. The children then inherit from their parents.

My parents have left their 3 daughters 25% each, and their 4 GC 25% between them. Two daughters have 2 children each & the other is not having any/ doesn’t have any. Everyone thinks this is a great split- daughters get a decent split (75% split) and the 3rd daughter sees the kids getting 7% each so seems fair and proportional (even though parents LIVE for the GCs and love them the most!)

Why not a set amount per grandchild alive at time of death and the rest split equally by daughters?

I would just divide to daughters so each family get equal.
they then can decide between themselves.

The DDs although have children, they are also on a joint income and may also get inheritance from the husbands side.

The only right thing to do is divide between your children in my opinion.

Is dividing between 3 children putting them over the taxable limit. In lreland it's 400,000..so leave your own dds that much and let the rest be divided between the gc. We are leaving our gc 10,000 each and the rest to be divided between our 3 children. But we are giving our children equal deposits for houses now as we are a bit younger than you. There is no unfairness if your own children get equal amounts.

Yes this is the fairest

Agreed. Split between the three children.

Your grandchildren have already received family money in trust from your mother. This would have benefited your daughters with children.

I would split it into thirds.

Id leave £x to each DGC and split the rest between my DDs 1/3 each.

Assuming you love and see them all I dont know why their current circs would change what youd leave them unless you needed to provide for 1 for a disability reason or something

This - leave it to daughters 3 way split and they can decide what to do with it.

this definitely

Splitting it equally between 10 is the fairest and simplest way to do things.

I think it’d be incredibly hurtful to exclude two daughters from your will and would create some resentment between the sisters. Don’t punish your children who have created their own successes. Split it in 4 - 1/4 for each of your sisters and then a 1/4 to equally split between all grandchildren.

Leave it equally to your daughters.

Divide it into three. Give your unmarried daughter one third outright. Allocate the other two thirds to your married daughters. Ask them if they would prefer you to leave their portion to their children. If dd with four children says yes, divide her portion into four. If Dd with 3 children says no, leave her her third outright. There is no other fair way of doing it. If you divide it equally between your grandchildren, one daughter will get nothing, and the one with four children will effectively get more than her sisters.
We have decided to keep it simple and divide our estate equally amongst our three children. We’ll trust them to sort out their own children’s inheritance when the time comes.

If everyone had GC id say it was fair to divide with them. But as they don’t, I’d just divide by children.

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