I am trying to work out what a ‘fair’ will would be in this situation and would really appreciate any thoughts.
The situation is generally pretty straightforward. The parents are both 70 and in good health. They want to rewrite their wills as the current version is old and pre-grandchildren. They have two adult children (age 39 and 41) each of whom is married/long term partner and has each has two children. No-one has disabilities or long-term health conditions. Both DCs and their partners work, both own their own home with mortgage.
The bit I’d appreciate thoughts on is this. About 18 months ago the parents gave DC2 and partner a large cash gift (100K+) to help them to move to a much nicer house. DC1 already had a house similar to DC2s new house. The parents told DC1 that they’d given the gift to DC2 and that they should see it as DC2 getting an advance inheritance. When the parents died they wanted to the DCs to remember the gift and sort it out so things were fair. Now that the will is being re-written they can think about putting it into the will rather than leaving it for the DCs to sort out when they die. So the question I’d appreciate thoughts on is how the will should be written to make this ‘fair’. Hopefully the parents will live many years to come so inflation etc may mean that the value of £100K looks very different by that point.
It’s obviously an awkward thing to discuss in the family but equally if people feel it’s not been done fairly it can cause real damage to relationships so I’d appreciate objective views thanks.