Is my dad being unreasonable?

[AnimalChaos]

My dad gives all his grandchildren a lump sum on their 25th birthday. The grandchildren are all in their twenties so have either received it already or will receive it very soon.

My sister has 2 children who have both received it. She also has 2 step children, one has just turned 25 and one is 23. She has been their step mum since they were 10 and 8.

My dad did not give her stepchild child the lump sum for his 25th birthday and my sister has fallen out with him over it. She thinks he is unreasonable for not giving her step children the same. My dad’s reasoning is that he wants his money to go to his biological grandchildren.

Would you say my dad being unreasonable? My sister wants me, our brother and all of our children to tell our dad he should give her stepchildren the same lump sum. I’ve said I sympathise but we can’t tell him how to spend his money and it’s a shame to fall out over it.

My brother has 2 children and a stepchild who is 22. He has said it’s up to our dad what he does with his money. He’s been his step dad since he was 13.

I have 2 children and no step children.

I don't know how much it is, or how wealthy he is, but could he even pull together 3 more lino sums? if your kids are all close in age, he's likely to have put money aside for years . Now she expects him to manifest thousands of pounds out of thin air

I think at 25 the "kids" are old enough to understand that he isn't their Grandad in the same way, it's her and her husband's job to manage any. expectations. has she been telling them for years how they're gonna get this cash when they're 25 and now she's scrambling to not look the idiot?

If the DSC have two set of grandparents, then one set are step grand parents of these (money receiving) DGC, so why is this a reasoning problem? I’m sure no one suggesting the daughters husbands ex partner’s parents gifts them money.

I am also seeing both sides, however I think I come down on Dad's side, simply because if Dsis marriage broke up, then the step-children's dad could take them away and they might have absolutely no contact ever again with your family. Because there would be no obligation and no blood ties. However, I know families who are connected by blood who have little to no contact with one another either.

Ultimately it is his money, your Dsis can want all she likes but it's not up to her.

My sister wants me, our brother and all of our children to tell our dad he should give her stepchildren the same lump sum.

Has she asked her own children to return 1/3rd of their cash to balance the pot or is it just the remaining grandchildren who should loose out?

No, but as the OP says, her sister may hypothetically expect her new husband's parents to give her children exactly the same as their other biological grandchildren. Maybe they do!

Have these kids treated your dad like a grandad @AnimalChaos ? Have they done Christmas and birthday stuff for him? What’s their relationship like with him?

I don’t think she expects any of the children to get less but expects him to give 2 more lump sums. It’s cheeky isn’t it.

My dad is well off so I’m sure he has the money but he wants his money to go to the bio kids only. I can see why my sister is upset but I think she should have kept quiet and dealt with her feelings herself.

Why should it be upsetting? They have two sets of grandparents of their own - why do they get to appropriate the grandparent of OP’s children, or - more importantly - FiL’s money? Will the sister’s step childrens’s paternal grandparents be leaving money and inheritance to her older children too? Unlikely.

OP’s sister needs to understand that the extended members of blended families are under no obligation to extend the same rights and benefits to children who are incorporated by marriage, unless they are adopted.

for clarity: Step child here. Never received a penny from step family - nothing in inheritances, contributions towards university even from my step dad, who had divorced my mother just before I started uni etc. I was treated fairly in that we were all taken out to the cinema/bowling and treated to macdonalds/meals etc by the step aunties/uncles, I received gifts on birthdays and pocket money at Eid. My mother married stepdad when I was 4, he was the only ‘dad’ I knew from the age of 3, and my bio dad was not on the scene in any way. I understood there was no money or handouts for me and made my own way.

That’s the reality most step children experience - and let’s face it, it’s only an issue here because FiL clearly has a little bit of money. These threads are always about money.

Every step-child has two sets of grandparents and one set of step-grandparents. So an equal treatment approach would see them receiving 50% more in gifts, on average, than children who are not step-children.

IRL there are so many variables that grandparents should be free to decide, and OP should remain neutral.

He isn’t causing any division -his grabby daughter is who wants him to give his own money to her step children who have no biological link to him.
Im going to make an educated guess and I say idontsuppose it was his idea for sister to marry a man with children- not his circus, not his monkeys.

Ultimatly it’s his money to do with as he wishes and if he doesn’t want to give adults with whom he shares no blood or genetic connection that that is his choice!!

I expect she either assumed or outright told her stepchildren they'd be getting it!

I don't think either your dad or your sister are being entirely unreasonable, @AnimalChaos. I can understand why your dad wants the money to go to his biological grandchildren, and I can understand why your sister feels upset by this.

Personally, if I could afford to, I would include step grandchildren with biological grandchildren - I would not want to differentiate between them. I would definitely buy Christmas and birthday presents, and include them in things I was doing with my biological grandchildren.

Unfortunately I don't think you can intervene here.

I’m a step child and have step siblings. I had my own grand parents growing up and saw them as such. The grandparents of my step siblings were always kind to me but i totally understood that when it came to the big stuff like helping out financially etc it went to their bio grandchildren and the same with my grandparents- it went to me not my step siblings

This was my thought too. It may be that the 'lump sum' is £100 and/or he gives them £50K but he's a billionaire, so it's just a token thing from his perspective.

However, if he's had to plan and save for it (maybe also taking advantage of compound interest over the years), he's had 25 years' notice for all of his bio grandchildren... whereas for the others, it's been only half of that - and he might have since retired and have much less income too.

Also, although they've been in the family for much of their childhood and beyond, what would happen if one of his adult children had married somebody with a 24yo child? Grandad could have given them the lump sum after a few months - if he even had the ability to save it all up in that very short time - and then his child and spouse could split up and he never sees the previous step-GC ever again, having given a virtual stranger thousands of pounds that could have gone to his own GC who will be devoted to him for the rest of his life.

What if the new spouse had 12 children?! What if they hadn't even married, but had got together with somebody fairly recently and now 'considered' that person's child (who happened to be about to turn 25) their stepchild - and so had their hands out for them? What if they'd initially had a very casual relationship with somebody who had a 24yo child, but it gradually turned serious and committed, leading to marriage, over the next 3 years? Would they be aggrieved that their new stepchild had 'missed out'? What would happen if one of them remarried somebody much younger with young children, and dear Grandad had died before they got anywhere near 25 (or even had died before the new relationship actually began)?

This is very much the epitome of 'no good deed goes unpunished'. What started as a lovely, generous act from a loving and treasured grandparent has turned him into nothing more than an entitlement cashpoint.

They aren't his grandchildren. They have grandparents of their own. The OP's sister is being grabby and unfair.

In a blended family, it's the parents who blend with their children. The wider family don't. I have 4 nephews and nieces, not 11.

Your Dad is doing nothing wrong and your sister is a cheeky fucker. I’d at least hope that her entitlement is coming from her and not her husband though, because that could be very damaging for il law relations. Sister is especially wrong to try and get you and your brother to gang up against your father.

People need to stop forcing their choice to have step families onto other people.

OP did the stepchildren continue to see your father after they became adults? So did they treat him like grandad, keep in touch with him, say happy birthday / merry Christmas etc? Or did they just see him in passing when visiting their dad and your sister?

Your dad giving the gifts at 25 means all the “children” will have been adults for 7 years before receiving it so it would be interesting to know what the relationship was / is like because if they haven’t treated him like grandad (which he’s not) then I don’t see why your dad should treat them like grandchildren (which they’re not).

Do you see it as grabby?
I see it as her caring about her step children who have been members of her family for many years and her not seeing why they are being viewed as unequal.

Personally i think loving and caring trumps biological links any day of the week.

Giving this money is creating division, resentment, hurt and possible jealousy.

What are the sums involved?

If your Dad is worth millions, and the lump sum he is giving is £1000, I'd say Meh, treat them all equally.

If your Dad is giving away all of his money, I might feel differently.

It's very tricky. Neither are wrong in this. I get that they aren't your dad's biological grandchildren but I can see why your sister feels hurt because she wants them to be viewed at his family too. There's no right or wrong unfortunately.

How would the GC who have already received the money feel if they were told that, now the pot had to be shared between more people (including their two step siblings), they would need to give a large portion of it back for it to be redistributed evenly?

Especially if Grandad had decided split the money equally between each of his children for their families, as people often do effectively when it comes to a will - so if he'd given each of his adult children £X to be split evenly between their own children/step children (if desired), rather than a 'per grandchild' fixed amount?

There's also the potential for feeling aggrieved if there's a long time - maybe several decades if it includes step children and there are significant age-gap marriages in the mix - between when they all turn 25, unless the lump sum is adjusted for inflation. You could end up giving the oldest enough for a 50% deposit on a small house and then the youngest struggles to afford a 4th-hand car with the same money (and that's not even taking account of the oldest potentially getting university free whilst the youngest have to pay tens of thousands).

Families are complicated . It's your father's decision who he gifts or even leaves his money too. There is little to be gained by ganging up on him on this particular topic, especially if step children presumably have other grandparents who have expressed no similar intention of gifting eaving anything to THEIR step grandchildren I.e your sisters own children.

It's your sister's responsibility to redress any balancing within her blended family unit that SHE feels may be necessary at the appropriate time, out of her funds . She has time to start saving up if she wants to be able to gift a balancing sum to her step children.

Although this is a life time gift query, in the case of a will there is also the possibility of a post death variation of the will if the executors and all beneficiaries are in agreement for a different division of your father's estate. However I'd be surprised if the beneficiaries would decide differently from your father's wishes and accept a smaller share.

I can see it from both sides but I would absolutely tell your DSis that you are staying well out of it. No comment whatsoever and change the subject if she brings it up. It’s not your circus and not your monkeys.

Unless the step kids grandparents on maternal or paternal (bio parents) have left, or are leaving, gifts to ALL the dc and dsc in this marriage, then answers no

they have their own bio grandparents. 4 of them originally. What’s happening to their wealth re their own gc ?

when it comes to inheritance and gifting from estates, the gifter will often stick to biological relatives. Makes it easier - how many people leave their estates direct to DIL/SIL or partners of their dc for instance, even after years and years of a relationship with them? How many people leave their wealth to widowed partnered of their dc as opposed to passing it to their children (the gc) directly? It’s pretty rare and those relationships are sometimes decades old. Sc have no automatic rights under intestacy either.

we also don’t know if these sums were invested for gc at birth of each gc, so had 25 years to grow. While he was working and in employment . SGC coming into family at age 10 and 8, have a lot less time to invest, and also potentially different economic situation when they arrived, to be able to save for

sure, I’d expect GP to buy birthday and Xmas gifts for sgc in same way as gc, if they’re married and in blended family for a while with a good relationship with both gc and gsc…but this is a substantial amount of money that can’t be conjured out of no where, even if he was willing.

bare in mind that gifting lump sums counts in IHT, so if he passes away before in next 7 years (assuming money is in a trust) his estate will pay IHT on those sums, leaving less for his beneficiaries. Unless under £3000, but in that case he may have plans to be gifting the £3000 allowance to other causes at this stage of his life plans

Your dad is not being unreasonable. Your sister is being money grubbing and incredibly foolish to risk the relationship with her father over money. She's essentially telling him his love is only worth something if he gives her £50k.

Just because your sister wants them to be part of her wider family, doesn't mean her wider family see it that way or have to see it that way. It's great she views them as her own children. But they aren't your father's grandchildren.