Potential issues with leaving an estate directly to biological grandchildren?

[ChorltonCreamery]

I am driving a neighbour to a solicitor’s appointment next week.

I refused to attend the appointment with her but will sit in the reception while she is in but I have been talking to her about her options though,

She has three children:

One son is divorced and remarried with stepchildren.
One son has a stepchild who has been adopted by him.
One daughter married for nearly three decades.
They all have children.

She wishes to bypass her sons and as a result feels she has to bypass her daughter.

She wants her biological grandchildren to inherit .

She wants to divide assets into thirds so each set of biological grandchildren share a third. So the grandchild who has one sibling would inherit more than the grandchild with two or three siblings.

Are there potential issues with this?

Would the former stepchild who was adopted have any grounds to challenge if the grandchildren are named in the will?

Would her own son be able to challenge on his behalf.

Two of the grandchildren are not yet 18.

She thinks that one son could potentially have more children.

Can anybody think of anything else that needs to be talked about or any potential issues?

Can you say why she wants to cut her own children out of her will? If she's fallen out with the sons then what about her daughter?

She is setting up for arguments between the siblings and a lot of upset.

IANAL, but if in England I think she can do whatever provided it is clear, and probably explicitly stated in will not just omitted. Eg leave £100 rather than just not mention them.

Seems sad.

My mother thought about doing this but has been persuaded out of it. One of my sib's kids frankly could not be trusted with his inheritance yet and it would cause him more problems than it would solve. My mother has no idea of some of the details of my sib's horrendous marriage and inheriting would allow a freedom that said sib cannot currently access. I have a tricky relationship with my mum, and also actively do not want my kids to inherit yet.

Additionally, had she gone ahead with it I would honestly have been angry with her for the rest of my life. Yes, she would be dead and wouldn't care, but there you go.

Of course, it's her money and she can do what she likes with it, but there are so many downstream consequences to family relationships if the obvious isn't carried out (estate shared equally between biological children).

I'd split my money equally between all biological grandchildren at the time of my death.

If her children are all adult and have homes, jumping a generation makes sense from a tax point of view. And if the dgcs come into their money at 18, then they can choose to spend the money on university fees, lightening the load on their parents, so that benefits everyone.

So many fall-outs! I couldn't forgive a parent if they allocated inheritance split this way - so some GC inherit more because they have fewer siblings? And the adopted one doesn't get anything? That's going to upset so many people.

I CAN understand bypassing DC and going straight to GC but this in itself can cause issues if some of the DC are actually responsible and would benefit hugely from some inheritance - as pp said to escape abuse or to get on the property ladder.

Young adults are CRAP with money in my experience - she would do better to leave it in trust for them until a specific age maybe?

Well it’s piss poor of her to treat the adopted dgc differently. He’s not a step child of her ds, he’s her ds’s son.

And yes I suspect they’ll all end up resenting her, and/or resenting the one that got the most.

She can leave it to whom she likes as long as no-one is financially dependent on her. If her kids have the legal fees, years to spare and a big enough grudge they can try and take it through the courts but it won't change anything unless they can prove they are financially dependent on her.

It makes no sense to me not to split it between the grandchildren equally though. Why divide it in thirds?

You know quite a lot of details so it would be helpful to know why she doesn’t want to do the usual thing of leaving her estate to be shared equally to her children.

frankly, anything other than that (except for really specific unusual scenarios) is pretty despicable. I’d want to keep well out of it tbh.

What is the nature of her relationship with the adopted grandchild?

I'm going to be generous and assume she's estranged from that son so doesn't really know that grandchild.

If I'm wrong, and that child is a full psychological and legal child of the family (if not biologically) her decision could be setting them up for a world of pain.

But of course she can do whatever she likes, she won't be round to deal with the fall out.

If the money went equally to the 3 DC then it would be reasonable to assume the GC would end up with an unequal share of the estate eventually anyway. I have more DC than my Dsis and our parents estate is 50/50 between Dsis and me.

My relative did this. The basis was the estate would normally be split between 3 siblings equally (direct children) so a third each - but the two with children were by passed and thier third was split equally between thier own children. So everyone got different amounts. The adopted grandchild was included as an equal though.

Anyway everyone argued and fell out over it. The people by passed felt shit, people couldn't understand that thier cousin got more because it was thier parents share they got really, not an equal split between grandkids.

It was miserable and its tainted lots of peoples memories of that person.

Money brings out the worst in people.

Blimey. This is brutal.

My MiL left money to each of her grandchildren equally, but stipulated that they couldn't actually receive the funds until they were 25. SiL was a bit miffed she revived nothing, but she is very comfortable financially, and MiL thought it would be more useful to the GC

I think it's disgusting to disown the adopted grandchild. But in the UK I think you can leave it to whoever you like unless any are financially dependent on you e.g. a spouse, child under 18 or disabled child.

Why wouldn't she share equally with grand kids, seems a bit unfair? She can leave her money to anyone she wants, but a letter stating why she is skipping her children's generation would help stop any challenges similarly emphasising biological grand children only if that is what she wants to do. It can be sensible to skip a generation if IHT is involved and she is elderly meaning her children are not young. Two lots of IHT in rapid succession can be really bad.

My dad split everything equally between his grandchildren, but both my sister and I knew and were happy with this. As they’re all still children it’s in a trust with my sister and I as trustees (not sure how that bit got decided). Depending on the exact situation there may be some inheritance tax implications. In our case I can’t see any resentment as it was an even split ( we happened to have the same number of children but the will was written that it was split evenly between any living grandchildren at time of death), but the suggestion in the OP is likely to lead to a lot of resentment.

Excluding an adoptive child is unforgivable imo.

FWIW, it is legally a “thing” for some people to divide their estate in this way (ie so grandchildren get unequal shares if they are part of a larger sibling group), it’s called (or relates to) the per stirpes rule. The rationale is that as grandchildren would inherit via their parent (being the deceased’s offspring), their entitlement is based on what the parent would have received in an equal distribution. Of course it doesn’t have to be done that way - the whole point of your will is to set out how you want things to be divided and many people bypass their own children in favour of their grandchildren and in whatever proportions they want - but it is a well-known way of doing it.

putting aside any morals her issue is that if she leaves her estate split to her grandchildren without naming them then her adopted grandchild will be included as they are legally her grandchild equal to the biological ones. Naming specific grandchildren means any born after her will is created will be skipped.

Bypassing the adopted child is going to open a world of pain for her son and that child. Hopefully they are aware of how she feels and don’t get surprised by it at an already horrible time.

She has not to my knowledge fallen out with either of her sons.

However, if she were to leave her assets directly to her own children then there is the potential that step grandchildren would end up inheriting by default in years to come. The elder son has stepchildren as well. To avoid a potential quarrel between her own children she decided rather than leave a third to her daughter she would bypass all of her children and everything would be given to grandchildren proportionate to what their own parent would have inherited.

I do not want to get involved and I was only looking for legal advice, but my instinct would be to see grandchildren in their own right and leave assets equally between them, she feels however that might be contentious to her own children. This is something I want her to discuss with the solicitor.

The older grandchildren are all professionals and I don’t think she has worries about them inheriting (she is early seventies) and I have never heard her talk about tax avoidance however, the elder grandchildren all had some loans for university, what she did say was that should she die before younger ones go to university the inheritance would be taken into account and in reality they would not benefit as greatly in real terms as their elder half-siblings and cousins. She has only spoken of trusts for the younger ones.

She would change her will if the son with the younger wife had more children but obviously she couldn’t do anything if more were born after her death without inconveniencing the existing grandchildren.

She does not see her son’s adopted child / former stepchild as a grandchild. I don’t know what her relationship with him is like.

It is a ridiculous idea but I assume she causes internal problems in the family while she is alive and that is why she is continuing to do so after death.
To be moral and right she should leave it equally between her own children and let them decide what way to give it to their kids be they biological or not.

HerculesMulligannn

Thank you. If she does do what her instinct says and leaves a disproportionate amount to individual grandchildren in relation to their own parent Can she say in her will that she is using the per stirpes rationall?

Would using this term though, leave the adopted child a way of challenging her will as presumably he will now be in his adoptive father’s will.

She knows that she has to name the individual grandchildren.

Is she incredibly wealthy? talking of different amounts depending when she dies and trusts is making things very complicated so she needs to speak to a specialist solicitor.

She may not see the adopted child as a grandchild, but the law does so she’ll either have to name her grandchildren specifically or specifically exclude them.

If she’s excluding them specifically she’ll likely be advised to leave a note as to why so that there’s no case to say they’ve been missed accidentally.

I think some posters are thinking this is AIBU not legal matters and commenting on the morality not the legality. Legally you can pretty much leave your money however you like (in England/Wales that is, different rules apply in Scotland and elsewhere). You're perfectly allowed to be 'unfair' or 'unreasonable' and cut people out for any reason or no reason at all. You can leave your favourite grandson 99% of your money and your loving hard-working very deserving daughter who cared for you for 20 years 50p and a chipped mug, and the rest of the family nothing at all, if you so wish it. If any of the children or grandchildren were financially dependent on her (by which the law means regularly and substantially dependent on her money e.g. living together and she paid a substantial portion of the bills, or working together in a family business and the family member had taken a much reduced salary on the understanding they'd inherit the business. Financially dependent doesn't mean just occasional gifts or loans) and were cut out they might have a claim on her estate. It doesn't sound like that's the case though. She should certainly take advice from the solicitor on the best way to word the will so there's no ambiguity or room for challenge but they won't be able to help her manage the family fallout or emotions as a result, they won't advise her what they think is 'fair' just what legally is possible and since thats so broad it's not much help in deciding...