I’m not sure how my parents have everything set up right now, but I think it might be slightly skewed in my favour. My brother has a 10 year start on me and a very good career, and he’s always been the protective older brother. I don’t think he’d be bitter if our parents gave me a little more because I’m the little girl of the family.
My mother has a living trust. She told me what is in it, I know it’s 50/50 between me and my sister.
There probably won’t be anything left except the house, which is to be sold and proceeds split.
I know it will still be a fight.
My mothers bf wants to get married. She won’t do it and part of that is the inheritance issues. She doesn’t want her money going to his kids, or his money coming to us. I’m sure there are ways to keep that from happening.
I have a half brother is the “preferred” sibling in my parents’ will, the theory being that because growing up he only got court-ordered child support while my full siblings got full-time dad, with access to all his income and attention, he should get a bit more.
While I agree that a 50-50 split is preferable, I do understand that there are situations that don’t warrant it. One thing that would be an interesting solution to the OP is a 50-50 split, but in an incentive trust. In such a trust, depending on how it’s set up, the trust pays out based on what the beneficiary earns. In other words, you turn in your pay stub and the trust matches it. Clearly, the working sibling would therefore draw down his share of the trust faster than the non-working sibling, but the point of it from the parents’ perspective is to encourage the less motivated sibling to hustle a bit to get the money.
Barring something extraordinary, such as an active drug addiction, I’d leave everything to my husband first, then to the children equally.
If one of my two daughters takes on more than her fair share of caring for me and my husband in our senior years, then I will reward her for that while I am alive, by either paying a portion of her mortgage (if I am living in her home) or just giving her an annual cash gift. But what is left in the trust when I die will be split 50/50. I would never think to penalize one daughter because she happened to be more successful.
BTW, my grandmother recently died and left my brother ~5 times more than she left the other 4 granddaughters. He kept the house she gave him (worth about $60k), but split the cash up evenly between all 5 grandchildren. It is exactly what I would have done, though I didn’t expect anything at all.
Has anyone got thoughts on deceased siblings?
My wifes brother died a few years back, he was divorced with adult children.
I am aware that my wifes parents have a will that leaves the majority to her as the sole surviving child, with nominal named amounts to their grandchildren.
Will is quite specific as they were upset at how his children burned through their inheritance from their dead father.
Do you think deceased siblings can pass on an inheritance before they have lived to receive it?
I’m not entirely sure what you’re asking; your wife’s parents are free to leave their assets to anyone they please - they don’t have to consider anyone, and if they have a good reason to leave nothing to the grandkids, that’s their prerogative. Are you asking if the adult children of the deceased sibling have some kind of right to inherit his share?
I believe that people can pass it on to their descendants any way they want to, or not at all.
I would expect that if my sister were to die before me that her daughters would split her share. I certainly wouldn’t expect to get it, and if I did I would pass on her share to them.
IANAL, but it seems to me that assets would only devolve to a deceased beneficiary’s children if the will contains specific language directing the executor to do that.
My wife and I have separate wills with some significant differences in beneficiaries/amounts. If we die together, our estate (pretentious word for a house and a little money) is split down the middle. Half goes where I wanted it to, half goes to her choices.
Both wills contain an interesting clause: If one of us dies first, as is most likely, the survivor can’t override or negate the other’s wishes. Half of the estate (as it was at the time of the first death) will always be distributed as if we had died together. Any contestors are automatically thrown out.
By the way, we never had children. We just wanted to protect each other’s interests.
I think the behavior and the amount of time an adult children has invested in their parents’ lives should be an important factor in inheritance. I have a friend currently at war with her brothers because she inherited over 90% of their late parents’ considerable assets. The brothers lived across the country, maybe seeing the parents once a year. For the last seven and ten years of their lives her father and mother lived in her guest house with her seeing them almost everyday and attending to their needs. The daughter definitely deserves her vastly larger inheritance.
I assume that you created a trust as well, because I don’t think you can pull that off without creating one. Trusts are one of the few instances where the courts allow a person to speak from the grave. IANAL, and maybe a real lawyer can chime in here, but unless you have a LOT of money, I’d take out that interesting clause. Why?
Most property bought by married couples is deeded with survivorship benefits. If one spouse dies, the other’s interest automatically balloons to 100%, no probate necessary, which means that it is excluded from the will. Also, unless you named your trust as primary beneficiary on vehicles such as life insurance policies, stock market accounts, etc., whomever you named as beneficiary (probably your spouse) will get those proceeds.
If that is the bulk of your “estate” then why not have your wishes carried out immediately, and disburse what remains via a simple will? Give your long-lost cousin, Albert, his windfall right away? It’s certainly the less complicated, less costly, route.
If you don’t want to do this because you want your widowed wife to have access to the money while he/she is alive, then why not just give her the money outright and trust that she’ll honor your memory?
Because otherwise, in order to execute your wishes upon her death, yet still allow her access to the funds while she’s alive, I see no other choice but to put those assets into a trust. You’d have to put in language allowing her to borrow from the trust, with the provision that she repay the funds upon her death so that your final instructions can be carried out. Which risks her not having enough money left to repay the trust when she dies, which would render the entire trust pointless. Not to mention that your cousin, Albert, might be long dead by the time your wife dies. Then what?
In a perfect world yes, but see below.
Agreed and this often happens. In many families such dedication by one child is appreciated and understood as properly recognised.
Look up the terms “per stirpes” and “per capita”. Assets to be divided among the children per stirpes and first divided by the number of your children and, if one of them pre-deceases you, that share will go to his or her descendants. Per capita distributes your estate among surviving children, ignoring any other children’s descendants. This was explained to me when my wife and I drew up our wills. Which was long enough ago that it still names a guardian for our son who is now nearly 39.