I've namedchanged for this because I'm pretty stressed and scared by the whole scenario.
DH has 4 siblings, and no surviving parents. One of the remaining grandparents passed away recently and DH and siblings stand to inherit a fairly substantial amount of money each - except the oldest sibling, who has been disinherited. DH is now in two minds whether or not to give something to the disinherited sibling (B) and has basically asked me to help him decide, and I am stressed to bits by it all.
The backstory is that B was physically and emotionally abusive to everyone in the family and none of the other siblings is in contact with them any more as a result, was not in contact for many years with the deceased, and yet is convinced they're in line to inherit millions (it's absolutely nowhere near that much, but they're not very clued up on the real world). They're a horrible, horrible person for lots of reasons, and I'd be perfectly satisfied that they don't deserve anything (and that the deceased's wishes should be honoured), but they claim significant childhood trauma which 'makes them like this' (nothing that the other siblings can verify, but it could well be true) and their life is, from what little we know, a mess - no job, no money, no attempts to fix that, drug use, prison stay etc.
DH is torn - on the one hand, this sibling is a horrendous person and caused significant physical and emotional harm to both the deceased and the deceased's child (the sibling's parent). On the other, they are very very volatile and aggressive and DH is wondering whether they will absolutely lose it when they find out the grandparent has died and they've not inherited the piles of money they assume are coming (they don't even know about the death yet, but given the age of the deceased they will work it out in the next 5 years or so) and given their past pattern of behaviour, they'll stop at nothing including aggression and attacking people, damaging property, malicious police reports etc when they feel wronged.
DH is concerned they'll have a legal case to fight the will - they were originally in it, but the relative changed it about 5 years ago and he's worried they'll allege that the other siblings pressured the grandparent to change it, which wasn't the case at all - whereas I think a solicitor would look at the history and laugh them out of the door, but I am mostly concerned they will find out and target us (and the other siblings' families as a result). I don't know, though, if giving them a smaller amount of money as a kind of buffer will just inflame things if they're expecting more, and the other siblings who have been 'more' affected by B's behaviour, particularly his sisters, are refusing to split their share.
The money could be enough to change their life around, though. Does DH give them the benefit of the doubt about their alleged trauma and effectively pay them off to keep things sweet, or maintain NC and hope they don't find out? Or just ignore when they do find out and hope we don't get a brick through the window or cars smashed up (which is a historic way they've dealt with perceived slights)? The families are all quite geographically far away from one another, except us and the NC sibling, so we'd be first in the firing line.
On the face of it it seems obvious that they've brought this on themselves and ignore and tighten the 'security' we have to avoid their previous drama (i.e. remind mutual friends not to say anything about us whatsoever, keep social media fully locked down, avoid the area they live for fear of being spotted and having our tyres let down and being followed about - yep). But DH is wondering whether to try and ensure they don't feel completely slighted and hope that prevents any future issues.