Inheritance with grandchildren and step grandchildren

[DogsInThePaddlingPool]

My mum has recently told us she has updated her will. She has decided not to leave anything to me or my siblings but to leave it to our children instead. She has explained that as we are all settled and financially stable, she wants to help the younger ones who it will be harder for.

I have 2 children, my brother has 3 children and my sister has 2 children and 2 step children. My mum is leaving equal amounts to her 7 biological grandchildren and then a much smaller amount to my sisters step children. The step children have been in our family since they were 4 and 5 and are now 19 and 20.

My sister has had a row with my mum because she feels her step children should get the same as the rest of the grandchildren. My mum isn’t budging.

My sister wants me and my brother to tell our mum that she is being unfair. We don’t want to get involved and have said it’s her money and her decision.

My sister hasn’t made any contact with any of us for the last month since we said we wouldn’t side with her.

Are we being unreasonable? Is my mum being unreasonable?

Adoption means legally becoming that child’s parents.

Marrying a parent doesn’t establish a legal relationship with their child, or confer any responsibility on a stepparent for that child.

Your sister is the only one being unreasonable as it is your Mum's decision. I think though that it is better to pass money to your children not your grandchildren. We are financially secure but it would not be appropriate for me to be by passed by my recently deceased parent in favour of my kids in their twenties. I will and have taken care of them long term. It maybe depends on the amount involved. Some figures will sap work ethic more than others. In your shoes I would be miffed but not for the same reason as your sister. Is it fair the one with 3 kids gets more than one with two? Not really. Her own babies deserve a fair share, they chose how many to add the the world.

@DogsInThePaddlingPool is this the first time you've seen your sister behave like this? If you're honest, you don't think your mum is being unfair, and neither does your brother, are you surprised by your sister's interpretation that this is completely unfair? And secondly, are you surprised by the demand that you negotiate with your mum and "the silent treatment" or is this something she has always been prone to - before she met her DH - if she is pissed off?

I haven’t managed to read all the posts and circumstances but I’d say it with regards to step children, it depends whether they are being raised as children or they are one step removed .

i didn’t get any inheritance from step family because I had my own biological family. I loved my step family but I wouldn’t have expected anything in this circumstance.

I think in this instance it sounds perfectly reasonable for your mother to have made their decision. Your sister should compensate the step children if she thinks they have been hard do e by.

in my family my sibling and I have asked my mum to skip us in favour of our children. She is splitting it fairly between us 2 though so each family gets 50:50 so my children get 25% each and my nephew will get the full 50%. I don’t think it’s fair that I should inherit 66% of my parent’s assets rather than than 50% because of the skipping of our generation.

if you mum did this then your sister would distribute however she likes. Her children will just get a smaller share.

If I were your mum I wouldn't give your sister's step kids any inheritance after her behaviour. Not even a token amount.

Named amounts in the will are settled first I believe. So if the will is set up this way e.g. £1000 each to each of the step grand-children and then the remainder of the estate shared equally between 6 Grandchildren, it would be possible for the step grandchildren to get more than the grandchilden if the remaining estate was very small.

It's not a very practical idea.

Adopting a child means becoming their legal parent and having parental responsibility, and you can't do it unless there's either nobody with PR for that child or the state has removed it from them. Whereas the vast majority of other children have two parents with PR already. I don't think it would be very popular to implement a system where all parents could theoretically have someone else given PR for their child against their will, even when there's been no issues with parenting and no need for the state to get involved.

I find it so odd that your sister has an expectation that her mum would leave a portion of her estate to her stepchildren. They lived with their mum growing up, it’d be more understandable if they had practically been adopted in to the family. That’s not the case here. It’s really entitled, if she wants to she can leave her money proportionately in favour of step children to balance it out

And I shared mine
It's kind of the point of a discussion

My husband and his sister were treated like that by their step mum and her family growing up. She had 2 stepchildren and a son and made her stepchildren “other.” She took the emotion out of it.

All three children including the one she gave birth to are low/no contact with her and her family as adults. They didn’t like being treated noticeably differently and wanted to feel like family, because their biology isn’t their fault. It was adult choices (and the death of a spouse) that created their blended family.

So yes we choose to behave differently and luckily so do our families. We would absolutely go no contact with any relative who treated her differently. And that would be their choice.

I agree with people who've stated that her husband, who you say loves money, is at least partly behind this. I think he's pissed off your sister isn't inheriting, so wants to both control and have that 'lost' money accessible somehow via his kids. But it is appalling your sister still couldn't be bothered to take ten seconds out of her day to send a well done message to her niece commending her on her A-level results. I hope things smooth over eventually.

I think they should feel lucky she is leaving them anything. They are no relation so she would be well within her rights to give all of it her bio gc and nothing to them. I have one grandparent left and my Mum told me she is leaving a sum to each of her grandchildren and the rest is split equally between her three daughters, I feel lucky to by getting anything and I'm real granddaughter.

"it is appalling your sister still couldn't be bothered to take ten seconds out of her day to send a well done message to her niece commending her on her A-level results" - it will have been more bother for her not to do this, it's not about the level of bother.

Also, it sounds like the kids have all been having discussions about this and are all close and gaming together etc. This is not to "excuse" the sister for not sending a message, but who knows what has been said, interpreted, reported, misinterpreted, misreported etc. to the sister by teenagers... perhaps nothing, but I would be surprised if there were not an accidental level of chinese whispers.

Can you imagine the carnage if step parents genuinely fully gained the status of a parent purely via marriage?
Would my DHs ex need to sign off on his marriage to me, or have the power to veto it if she saw fit? She didn’t have a child with me, she had a child with him. Why should she have to tolerate a third party with an equal weight in the co parenting party?
Would my SC and her actual parents have any obligations to me as a full and equal mother or would I be all alone in my delusions?
What a mess it would all quickly become.

Do the step grandchildren consider your mum to be their grandmother? Equal to their biological grandmothers?

I don’t think they consider her to be their grandmother. They call her by her name and like her because she is kind to them, but I don’t think they’ve ever thought of her as their grandmother. They have one set of grandparents who they are close to but the others died. It’s difficult to judge. My children and their cousins are exceptionally close to my mum and I know from friends that their children don’t have the same relationship with grandparents that my children do. I’ve never seen the step children with their grandparents to see how they act around them and whether it’s the same as when they are around my mum, but it’s very different to how my children and their cousins are with my mum.

Glad you’re ok - you had me worried!

Do not leave it to the donkey santuary they have 7 farms and are more than wealthy and doing ok.

Leave your money to your human relations!!!

But the first bit is correct - do not discuss your will - ever!

If they don't consider her to be their grandmother, I'm struggling to understand why their parents would expect them to inherit anything from her.

She is still including, but not to the same extent, children that were only with her daughter very part time, limited weekend contact….. I would be asking your sister to confirm that her children will be getting an equal share with their step siblings from their other grandparents? That their mother’s parents, are giving all children an equal share in the will? Because when she inevitably says no, at that point she can be told to shut up…….

I reckon grandma saw through him. You don’t get to be a savvy business woman by being naive to these types.

My Dad remarried and had a son, despite us both being full children my step brother is getting 3/4 and I'm getting 1/4 my step mother never brought any money in it is all my dad's yet he regards it as half hers so I only get 1/4. If I was a step child I would have got nothing at all.
Under English law it is entirely the decision of the person leaving the money-fairness doesn't enter into it.

He’s your half brother, no?

This is normal in this situation, your DF has split his share between all of his children fairly, his wife leaves hers to the only child she has.

If they’ve been married a long time, of course it’s joint money.

I don’t see what’s unfair here tbh.