Timeline is a little confusing. OP says A had the new house for 10 years before parents passed but then later says in Post 24:
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So if I’m reading that correctly it’s been 20 years since the parents passed and this is still an issue. WTF!
Interesting argument, but I don’t see how that takes into account human nature.
You seem to be arguing that there are no bad parents anywhere and that unjustifiable favoritism doesn’t exist in the world. You’ve repeated the thought that the parents judgment needs to be respected because they are making wise choices based with the specific needs of each child weighed carefully.
Yet, the history of humankind is filled with all sorts of ugliness which people have done to others. There are parent who abuse their own children, some parent even kill theirs. Yet, despite all the bad behavior which humans inflict on each other, including their children, we are to believe that unjustifiable favoritism never occurs?
I don’t buy that, and I doubt you will find any other supporters of your position (unless you wish to restate it) on this board.
If the money is spent, it’s gone. I don’t see what recourse there would be.
Also, your facts are incorrect concerning this case. The money was divided prior to the parents passing away and not in a will.
That does not change my view that siblings should attempt to make some attempt to correct gross unfairness in the parents’ actions either when the parent was living or in a will.
Again in the same vein as my previous answer to Pleonast, any of us might reasonably believe we have a moral obligation to any of our ‘brothers and sisters’ in humankind if they need our help. According to social custom and also what I tend to feel personally, that would be more true of my actual brother. So most probably agree we might have a moral obligation to our brother, however we define ‘brother’, in need.
But I don’t see how parents having given unequal gifts long before they died by itself generates that obligation. Or even a surprise unequal inheritance not known till after they died. I see those two as different, but in either case.
You are examining the speculative case where B or C is in real need. But one might also consider if A (despite the house gift) and B are in real need, in which case C’s inheritance via spouse might not actually be wholly irrelevant to helping A/B. But it would be the dire need of A/B that would create that obligation IMO, not the fact C happens to have money. And same for A.
IMO the default in context of a rich society and where nobody said anything about penury of A, B, or C the question to me is whether the uneven gift division itself creates the moral obligation for A to hand over money to B and/or C years later. I would say no and pretty obviously.
Many posts have judged the parents and I agree as a rule it’s a bad mistake to favor some children over others in material gifts without a really good reason the parents should be able to gain consensus with the kids about (one kid is disabled, etc). And directly expressing unequal love is harder still to justify. But the parents are gone, and everyone knew the decision long before that, so the question is A’s supposed moral obligation to hand over money now just because they were given more. I just can’t fathom a yes answer to that, without further assumptions that weren’t implied.
Here’s another spin - any of you w/ kids give any thought as to how you might divide your estate? Would anything make you do things unequally?
My 3 kids are all doing pretty well. For the most part, my wife’s and my wills simply divide everything 3 ways. However, while we are alive, we don’t necessarily do everything equally down to the penny. For example, only one of my kids has a kid. We are putting money into a college fund for our grandkid, without gifting anything similar to our childless kids.
I guess I could imagine, if one of my kids was especially needy, I might direct more of my estate their way. Or if one of my kids really cut ties with me, I might reduce their share.
As I said just before, parents might have a good enough reason to divide an estate quite unequally but if so it’s probably one that reasonable adult children would understand and at least reluctantly agree to when explained to them beforehand, which it should be. Subject to exceptions as with anything like this.
We have no such good reason, and simple even division in will. And I do actually track pretty closely what we give each of them now while we’re still around to make that equal also, although out kids’ incomes as of now vary widely. Grand kids are still speculative for us as of now, and I don’t think it’s as straight forward to say they should be treated either as separate completely equal entities to their parents or strictly left up to their parents (not grandparents) to give them anything at all. It’s hard enough to gain consensus how you should deal with kids. 
But probably we’d give significant gifts and aid in their education, without deducting that from their parents’ share. Then back to paragraph one, we’d be open about it and try to get our kids with fewer or no kids of their own to understand, and I think they would.
The general drift of the discussion is against parents making unequal distributions (among kids, let’s put back aside grand kids). Some people remember clearly unfair (in their view) favoritism in their own families. Although it’s not 100% clear that’s true in OP case (unreasonable for A to get the lion’s share for taking care of the parents in their last years? arguably yes or no, IMO).
But some other people are very focused on people in general having too unequal amounts of money in their view, which they sometimes feel should be addressed by greater forced redistribution. Somebody of that view, if consistent, might question themselves for voluntarily giving equal shares to kids who aren’t close to financially equal on their own, when they think society should force those with more to give to those with less. I don’t view the world that way and to me giving kids equal $ amounts is equal, not somehow favoritism to those who make more themselves.
I treat my daughters equally for the larger ticket items, as it’s nearly impossible to do this with smaller ticket items, such as clothes. But what I give to one, I give to the other. For example, my youngest daughter’s car is on the fritz, so we’re selling her my old car for 50% of KBB value, which she can pay off over 3 years at 0% interest. At the same time, we’re giving my older daughter a check for 50% of KBB value.
I’m a HUGE proponent of equal division of assets because I had the misfortune of having a grandmother who overtly favored one grandchild over the others. While I completely understand the “You should be free to do what you want with your money.” argument, people should realize that disparity may cause resentment. And I don’t want that for my family.
As an example of how unfair my grandmother was, when my brother turned 16, she gifted him one of her old cars. He was the 4th of 5 grandchildren, and none of the other grandchildren had gotten a car when they turned 16. Ok, chalk that off to timing.
Fast forward 6 or 7 years. All of us happened to get married within a few years of each other. While they gave their 4 granddaughters NOTHING, they gave my brother…a house! Now we all had similar jobs and incomes, so no explanation or justification was given as to why they’d bestowed such a generous gift on one grandchild, except for the fact that he, alone, had a penis. We girls were just left to accept the fact that we, apparently, weren’t even worthy of a greeting card. Meanwhile, my brother was given the advantage of living mortgage-free for 5 years, which allowed him to save up for a better house. And, he got to keep all the proceeds from the sale of the duplex, plus all the rent he pocketed from his tenants.
Fast forward another 20 years. My last grandparent, my wretched granny, died unexpectedly. The female heirs, including my poor mother and aunt, steeled ourselves for the real possibility that everything would go to my brother. But it turns out she left the bulk of her fortune to my mom and aunt. Thank God! And, wow, she didn’t completely ignore us granddaughters. Nope, ALL the grandchildren, including my brother were given CDs worth $25-32k.* Nice, huh?
But wait, there’s more…for one of us! My brother was also willled…another house! PLUS his wife was given a CD of equal value to what the granddaughters got ($30k.)
So while we all did appreciate our nice windfall, it certainly wasn’t lost on any of us, or our mothers, how much our granny had overtly, and hurtfully, favored my brother. And that treatment didn’t help our relationship with her. I hadn’t seen her in 5 years when she died, and I can’t say I missed her. She was a mean old lady who thrived on causing conflict. I honestly believe she was actually HOPING to cause conflict. That was just the kind of special person she was.
Today, our extended family is gratefully pretty much intact. We still enjoy most holidays together. However, my aunt, who is one of the sweetest women on earth, cannot stand my brother’s wife, and I know it all stems from my grandmother’s favoritism to my brother. It’s a testament to what wonderful people my cousins are that they have never allowed my grandmother’s calloused indifference to taint their relationship with my brother. What resentment they have is directed upon my granny, which is why any criticism I have of the OPer’s situation is directed at the parents, not the siblings.
*P.S. In order to remedy the imbalance between the CDs, all 5 grandchildren cashed their CDs, put the money in a hat, and then split it 5 ways, so that we all got an equal inheritance. My SIL refused to participate and pocketed all of the $30k.
Underlining mine.
Overall I agree with you. You nailed the nub of the whole situation with the OP and all subsequent commentary in the part I underlined.
Poster elbows, et al, argue that an unequal distribution cannot ever, under any possible circumstances, generate a moral obligation between recipients to correct the distro post facto.
I argue that’s excessively doctrinaire. The “no moral obligation” case is *usually *true, but not always, period, amen, there is no question here. I also believe “no moral obligation” very probably applies to the OP’s case. The more years go by, the weaker B’s argument becomes. To the point that now it serves only as fodder for a bad hypothetical.
My IMO bottom line: There *is *a moral question to be asked and answered. Arguing that there is no question is a category error. But arguing that the answer is “no re-distro in this case” is the morally correct answer to the question asked.
So IMO folks such as **elbows **are arriving at the right answer for the wrong reason. Which is a massive distinction in my book. Not trying to pick on him personally; he’s just done the most eloquent and complete exposition of that position.
I expect to leave each of my kids roughly half of my estate (roughly because I expect that once I have grandchildren I will leave something to them directly). But I can easily see reasons why that might change - because “equal” and “fair” don’t mean exactly the same thing. For example, the house I grew up in was a two family, bought by my grandfather. First, my grandparents and my parents occupied the two apartments and then it was my parents and my sister. Because they were right upstairs, both my mother and my sister ended up doing the lion’s share of the caregiving as their parents aged even though their siblings lived at most a half-hour away. In fact, they both ended up not buying their own houses because by the time they were able to do so, the parents needed care and the other siblings had already gone. “Equal” wouldn’t necessarily be fair in this case - and in fact, the houses were not left to all siblings equally. The house were sold to the caregiver child for half of market value, and the money received was/will be split evenly between the other siblings.
That's just one example, I can imagine others. For example, my daughter just got married and we gave her a substantial wedding gift. If by some chance one of us dies without our son receiving a similar gift , the one left behind will make sure he gets the equivalent either via a gift or through a will. In that case, the estate may not be divided equally, but it will be divided fairly as it would take into account the previous gift to my daughter.
That “compensating for earlier gifts” approach can be a good idea, but it has pitfalls. We’re looking down the barrel of that ourselves.
My wife is one of two sisters. Their Mom will turn 92 in a couple weeks. Hooray Mom’s still alive, relatively healthy, and enjoying life, but it doesn’t take Dr’s Kildare or House to know this is an increasingly temporary situation. Even Fidel couldn’t live forever.
The whole family lives nearby and everybody is friends and everybody is sane and middle class or better. So far so good. But over the years Mom has helped wife’s sis financially a few times but because of life circumstances she’s not had to help my wife the same way.
While still 100% mentally solid a few years ago Mom stabilized her will, trust, etc. With a bigger share for my wife. Part of that difference is direct bequests of a small percentage each to sis’s adult kids whereas wife & I are childless. Taking those shares out of sis’s share is plausible but certainly a counterargument could be made.
Mom also wanted to “balance the books” for those earlier gifts. So my wife’s percentage share is bigger than the sum of sis’ & her kids’ percentage shares.
But … Mom set the percentage based on how she vaguely remembers what and when the help was given multiplied by some anally extracted interest rate and a fudge factor for remembered annoyance at the time. Since Mom fixed the percentage split the estate’s value has grown, amplifying the dollar difference.
There are no secrets or surprises here; everybody has a copy of the documents and has had for some years. But, as with the OP’s person B, there will be an opportunity for hard feelings when the abstract notion of “X% vs. Y% some day” turns into an actual non-trivial number of real US dollars to-day.
We shall see.
My take on the moral of the story: Parents should make it clear to themselves and the kids about any gifts vs. loans vs. “forgivable loans” at the time they are made. And if evenness of total outcome over the parents’ lives is their big goal, to make balancing gifts early and often, rather than storing up the accumulated difference to be resolved (or blown up) in a big bang payment a couple months after the inevitable funeral.
I completely agree with this.
In one family I know, the rich grandmother spoiled the oldest boy and give very little to the second son starting from when they were born. It reached levels of absurdity. Al got a new sports car and a trip to Europe, Bob got a beater. Eventually grandma died and Al got everything. I haven’t heard anything for a while but the last I knew Bob wasn’t talking to the family.
In the case I discussed earlier where one brother and his wife spent decades taking care of the parents, there is one difference with this case in that all the children had agreed that it was fair.
I agree completely.
Also the parents appear to have acted badly - but the OP doesn’t give any family history, so we can’t tell why they favoured one child over another.
Hmmm…
My father and step mother were in care homes (NJ) for a few years. Assisted living for him was $4,000 a month, dementia care for her was $9,000 a month. Other expenses, extra. He had a VERY good pension, but was still eating into home equity.
So I’m going to agree with a previous post that A is probably responsible for much of that “inheritance” being an inheritance. My parents probably ate up most of their savings and substantial amount of home equity in less than 3 years once they could no longer live at home. A probably earned the value of a house over 10 years. (House, what, let’s say $500,000 being generous. $50,000 a year for two people . Try finding assisted living, plus other services, for $25,000 per person - plus personal care and attention, not some attendant shared among 50 other inmates…)
As mentioned - legally, the parents can do what they want. They planned for the best case. Note too they took a risk. If during that time, A got a divorce, half that “inheritance” would belong to the departing spouse. IF A was useless with credit, ditto.
Morally - parents did what they needed to do. They took care of #1 and #2, themselves. Beyond that - my presumption is - A got the parental home, did not need another house. B got a really good head start on their own house too. C presumably had other resources (or was a disinherited jerk) so got nothing because they did not have the same level of need. So parents either made sure their children were adequately provided for, or acted on their emotions, or whatever. The only “moral” that enters into the discussion is how moral the parents were in disinheriting C? Was it because of hard feelings or because they knew he had alternative resources? Presumably they did not have enough money to give all three a house…
So now that the parents have died, what’s moral? The house A has is theirs, has been for 10 years. It’s a bit late for B or C to be saying “aren’t we entitled to a bit of that?” That question should have been asked at the time. The only “moral” at this point, is did A actually put in enough time and effort to justify the size of remuneration. If A locked the parents in the attic and changed their diaper every third day, then* morally*, no (s)he did not earn the money. Since nobody argues “did not earn/deserve” I assume the level of care was commensurate with expectations; so the 10-year bargain was completed as expected, and morally the value of the house is A’s.
If C is asking for a share, then morally C is a jerk. (S)he got 3 times as much as the other schmucks have, sitting in the bank (or the garage and yard) or blew it all, and wants more?
the only morality in all this is - if your sibling is on hard times, and a gift could actually help them get on their feet (as opposed to buying the next fix or being blown on stupid stuff like the last thousands) then a good sibling will help. And the receiver will be grateful, and try to return, repay or reciprocate once they can.
If, say, B won the lottery - they could give some to A or C, but they are not morally obliged to.