Grandchildren born after will made

[Generallyok]

I feel terrible writing this because I don't know if i sound unreasonable, but my husbands father passed away and he has named 4 of his grandchildren as benefiting from his estate. My 2 children were born after the will was written so dont inherit any money. Each child will inherit around £30,000. I would never bring it up with my husband as I sound money grabbing, but feel a little sad as it would have been wonderful if they had some money to put away for their future. I guess I wanted to know how often this happens and wonder why they didn't just state any surviving grandchildren?

Have you seen the Will? I would have thought it was standard to say that £X would be split between any grandchildren, rather than naming specific ones.

Yes I have seen the will and it names each grand child

Not sure legally that you can do anything about this. It is a poorly written will.

This is why I think it's not a good idea to give grandchildren anything in a will. Fairest way is to split it between children then if they want to put anything aside for existing or future dc the can.

How do your DH and his siblings feel about it? It might be possible to do a variation on the will but all the beneficiaries would have to agree to it. Alternatively, if your DH has inherited he could possibly have a variation to reassign some of his inheritance to his DC.

I think it's sometimes advised to name the grandchildren in case there are previously unknown grandchildren who might come forward and claim under a less specifically worded will. I know that has happened in our family, everybody was named in order to exclude one illegitimate child (and as it happened another two illegitimate children that the deceased hadn't known about) because the deceased had an irrational dislike of there being any illegitimacy in her family. The result was that another child that had been born after the will had been drawn up was also left out. So four children of that generation inherited, and four did not. It was the choice of the deceased, her money, her decision, so the family just went along with it.

It might be possible to do a variation on the will but all the beneficiaries would have to agree to it

yes please do ask if dividing the amount due to the 4 named children between 6 would be acceptable - it could well be .I know I'd always wish I'd asked if I were in your position .

Don't let embarrasment hold you back ( easier said than done I know ) ,it's worth asking .

My grandfather’s will was varied recently to include a grandchild who was conceived but not born at the time of death so not included. All the beneficiaries wanted the baby treated the same as the others. It came out of the children’s Share.

I’m not sure if DH and his siblings can consent to the grandchildren having less.

Its true sadly parents cannot consent to a variance that reduces the amount the minor (aka the under 18) as it is not seen in the best interest as it purely reduce their money.

But you could get them to reduce there own or simply you could get your DH to give some of his inheritance rather the reducing others as it will reduce bad feeling with the wider family.

The thing is op he was alive when your children were born and could have changed it then but obviously decided not to.

That tells you a lot imo. Not fair though

It might be possible to do a variation on the will but all the beneficiaries would have to agree to it

But if the other grandchildren are minors you would need the court's permission to vary their interests to split between the 6 rather than the 4. It's not my area of law but I'm not sure a court would agree the variation in this instance (it's not in the interest of the other grandchildren).

Although if there's money going to the adult children of the deceased too then I suppose they could agree to reduce their inheritance so that all the grandchildren get something.

I have to say though this sounds like an awkward situation which could easily cause a major fall out.