More inheritance for adult kids who looked after the infirm parents?

In My Humble Opinion
1

From this thread on inheritance, we got into some discussion about this question, and I think it deserves its own thread.

I suppose we all should all aspire to be exemplary human beings and be happy to do every bit of work it takes to look after an infirm parent (or both parents), but I think the reality of it being hard work for a long time makes most people wish that existing siblings were helping with it. Knowing that the siblings might be far away and not able to help with things doesn’t make your work load any lighter. Would a larger share of inheritance make doing a hard job easier? I don’t know. It isn’t something you should be doing for the money at the end, but nobody likes being taken for granted.

Thoughts? Experiences with this issue?

2

In my case, everybody behaved well.

When my wonderful parents were getting frail, I invited them to live round the corner from me in a delightful country town (including moving from a house to a bungalow).
My sister would have done the same for them, except she lives in a tiny village with no facilities for the elderly.

I visited my parents almost every day (and rushed round one night when Dad fell out of bed). My sister visited almost every weekend and had lengthy telephone conversations.
When my parents died (within a month of each other), my sister and I shared the funeral arrangements and the paperwork.
The wills specified that we inherited equally.

P.S. My sister and I encouraged our parents to go on a cruise, buy things like powered chairs and lifting bath seats for the bungalow. It shouldn’t be about the money, but about the quality of life.

3

Good question. I only have thoughts on this, not experience. The first thought is that the parent may have already provided for this in their will. Another is that a reasonable executor may take the situation into account, if s/he thinks the deceased would have wished it.

But there may be other variables to consider. For instance, has the “local” kid benefited from having the parent nearby as well? This could be a two-way street.

4

I have no personal experience, but two close friends’ families have been through situations where one of the children basically spent several years looking after the elderly parents full-time. After the parents died, in both families the other brothers and sisters offered to alter the split up of the estate (which according to the parents’ wills had been distributed equally among all of the children) to give the “carer” child a greater share to reflect the carer’s extra effort - and more importantly - lost income.

5

I’ve got no opinion, just an anecdote.

My ex-husband visits his mom one day every week, while the other siblings spend less then a day a month. But it all evens out: he is an passionate gardener, has no garden in his city home, and the real big garden around his mom’s house has been his family’s and his own since he was seventeen. His mom, now in her eighties, still does his week’s laundry, and cooks dinner when he’s there. (He could do his own laundry perfectly well, but she likes doing it for him and while she still can he lets her). He goes up there, spends the whole day working in the garden, (sometimes together with her, she likes doing what she still can) eats with her. He also does what needs doing about mail, home repairs etc. Then he goes home again.
It works beautifully. He says he wouln’t be able to spend so much time at his mom’s place if all he could do was sit there.

6

There are too many variables here to make it possible to give a blanket answer. What if, as Kilvert’s Pagan suggested, the carer has always lived near the parents, who regularly cooked their meals, did their laundry, bought them little extras, babysat their kids, etc. before becoming infirm? What about differences in the amount of monetary support the parents provided for their children? Suppose one child lived far away, but had a good career and made a lot of money, while the other child had a less successful trajectory through life, maybe moving back in at times or being supported by the parents? (And that one can actually go either way, with some parents leaving more to the child they gave less to in life, and others leaving more to the one who they think will need it more going forward) I don’t think there is anything wrong with parents choosing to leave more to one child, but unless the unequal distribution is made absolutely clear and accepted by all parties beforehand, it’s very likely to cause problems later.

And on preview, Maastricht’s anecdote fits pretty closely with one of my examples.

7

My grandmother left her entire estate (which wasn’t huge) to my dad not so much because she was grateful to him for his help, but because she was angry at her other children for not helping, for basically disappearing. My dad disagreed–he felt that HIS dad would have wanted the estate divided evenly, and so wanted to divide the money equally. While working though the process, his siblings decided he was just bluffing and planning to keep it all AND that it was really about twice the size it actually was, so they sued, claiming undue influence and all that. My dad settled, because it was what he was going to do anyway, but it was very, very ugly and more or less ruined those relationships forever.

I guess my point is that even though my Grandmother was doing what looked to be the just thing from her point of view, the unintended consequences were severe.

8

My parents love for me and my brother is equal, but the cash and support goes to the one who needs it most at the time.

I have never had a huge crisis where I needed to take a lot from them, but right now my brother is going through a soul-crushing divorce. My parents have helped him to rescue his house from the mess, thus making losing child custody less of a fear, but the bleed goes on, as the house is in terrible repair, and emergency situations (a leaking boiler last week) keep coming up.

My parents called me to tell me all this and to reassure me that they have made provisions in their will to reflect that my brother had more in their lives than I did. But I don’t mind.

For one thing, if it had been me with the crisis first, I’d have had it, and for another thing, the rate my brother’s situation is going (and it really isn’t his fault - he is trying to protect his two small kids in the face of a mad, vindictive ex wife) they will have nothing left by the time the will is discussed anyway.

Right now my husband and I are sending bits of cash to my mum and dad to help fill the gaps from them sending bits of cash to my brother!

My husband’s situation is similar - his sister lives with his parents and her husband in a huge luxurious house owned by the parents. When they die it is only fair that she be able to continue living in her house. I might have had a second of jealousy thinking about the fact that we might get a bit of cash but nothing else (and land in Japan is valuable…) except for the glaring fact that HER PARENTS ARE STILL IN THE HOUSE and though we see them almost every day, she is the one who is basically left with the day to day responsibility.

I am determined to not make a fuss in either case - I really do want my relationships with the living to continue and not be damaged over what in the big scheme of things is not a fortune in either case.

The best thing would be if both sets of parents used up all their money on themselves before popping off! After all, it is their hard-won money. Unfortunately my parents are back in semi-poverty thanks to my brother’s situation, and the in-laws are determined to scrape and preserve every last yen to go to their offspring. Sigh…

9

I DO have some personal experience in this area, and the answer is NO, it doesn’t make it any easier. At least in my case, and with relative small amounts of money. If there were millions, maybe it would, I dunno. But our family dynamics are so screwed up, this might bear no relevance to someone else’s situation.

My parents, in Chicago, had 3 kids; me in DC, my Good Sister® in Madison, and our Evil Sister® in Milwaukee. My mom was chronically ill for about 15 years. My sister in Madison was down in Chi helping out almost every weekend. Me, maybe half a dozen times a year from DC. Evil Sister, NEVER. Why my dad wasn’t real helpful is an issue for other threads.

When my Good Sister started to burn out, I moved to Madison so we could split up caretaking duties. Evil Sister never once lent a hand.

When mom died, Evil Sister’s only contribution was hourly phone call to us, her sibs, demanding that we stop the meeting between dad and the funeral director, because SHE wanted to make the arrangements. When could she get here to make the arrangements if we did this? Well, she didn’t know, she would get there when she would get there… and we apparently could all wait, indefinitely. That didn’t fly, as you might guess.

Dad died a few years later, without a will, so we sibs all got an equal share. We really didn’t care. We’re talking about $100K or so, not a big amount split 3 ways.

However, my Good Sister and I have both excluded the Evil Sister from our wills, and left most everything we have to each other (we are both single and childless).

10

My father died several years ago. My mother remarried one of his best friends. Before they married, they signed a pre-nup that he insisted on. If he dies first, she gets his entire estate, cutting out his stepkids by his first marriage completely (he’s given them each around a million before their mother died). If she dies first, me and my sibs get her whole estate.

My mother’s will reflects that she and my father pretty much supported one sister all her adult life. My brother was supported through a couple failed business, and helping him buy his house. The rest of us haven’t gotten much of anything. The two that took and took and took get a small cash settlement and the rest of us split the rest. This is what she feels is fair. Whatever she chooses to do is okay with me, I guess. I’ve supported myself so far. But since she wanted me to be the executor (because I’m not married) I told her everyone needed to know the terms before I would agree to do it.

StG

11

Thanks to featherlou for starting this discussion. Part of the provocation may have been my statement in the other thread that:

“To me, it’s an odd sense of fairness that speaks of compensation for caring for parents in their old age. Apparently, a lot more people changed their own diapers as infants, and expect to do so again in their dotage, than I imagined.”

Now, any family’s attitudes toward money and family obligations are much like it’s attitudes toward religion: unique, idiosyncratic in their origins, and largely immune to criticism by outsiders. But this issue bristles with ugly complications, from the parents’ possibly diminishing capacity to make independent financial decisions to the potential conflict between using parental wealth to the parents’ best advantage and maximizing the size of the inheritable estate. The only path through this minefield is clear, open communication. To my thinking, anyone who thinks they deserve a financial reward for caring for parents in decline should be able to look Mom and/or Dad in the eye and name their price up front.

12

I was my father’s caretaker for most of illness & up to his death. I was financially able to fly to Florida when needed; my brother who lives & works in Kentucky could not.

Until about 6 months before my father’s death, my brother was excluded from the will/trust. He was only added back in by codicil about 1.5 months before my father died. I knew I was the executrix/trustee, but I had not other details.

My father had a history of manipulation; at one point or another, both my brother & I had been “cut out of the will” (insert Snidely Whiplash mustache twirl here), so it was just the luck of the draw that both of us were in it at the time of his death. The actual division was 33/33/33 - with my brother’s daughter being included. Had he died before amending his will, I would have most certainly and gladly split it with my brother 50-50.

The division of the real property (antiques, etc) was hilariously polite. Remember those two…mice, I think they were, in the old cartoons who were so solicitous & polite to one another that it was almost detrimental? That’s exactly what it was like - lol

I’m fortunate that my brother & I had a very amicable time of it.

VCNJ~

13

You know, that might not be the worst idea ever. There are a lot of parents out there who don’t want to be a burden, and having an agreement with their adult child for their care could actually make it easier for them. Others, of course, would be crushed by the soulless bastard who dared to demand money for looking after them - you’d have to know which way your parents would go.

14

Those would be the Goofy Gophers, Mac and Tosh.

15

I don’t think it’s so much a question of being financially compensated by the parents for the care in the old age. It’s really more about being financially compensated by your siblings – out of their end of the inheritance – for holding up their end.

If the parents in this equation leave absolutely nothing, I don’t think most people would feel that they should have been paid for their time in taking care of them. But presumably both children had their diapers changed as children. If only one of them did any geriatric care in return, I think it’s fair that they should see some compensation for that.

16

To begin with the most crucial issue, the Goofy Gophers were ripping off Alphonse and Gaston.

But my suggestion, featherlou, was serious and respectful. I can easily imagine parents who would think paying a child to care for them an ideal and dignified solution to their old age disabilities. I can easily imagine a lot of things, though, including parents who are appalled at the same prospect, so my imagination probably shouldn’t be given too much weight.

I have no quarrel with parents who mindfully and independently decide to specially reward a caretaker-child in their will. Maybe it makes financial sense to do that, sometimes. But I also have no quarrel with parents who cannot treat their progeny according to their merits (which must differ) instead of according to their status as their parents’ children (which does not, even if one takes service to one’s parents as the apotheosis of merit). Wills are as much or more the final expression of one’s mind and soul as they are a financial arrangement. Caring for one’s relatives is pretty much the same, it just takes longer.

It works to offer specified services for specified payment. It also works to offer freely of oneself without expectation of payment. It does not work to offer unspecified services for unspecified payment – both sides of that bargain are being dishonest.

If you want your parents’ money, ask them for it. Maybe they’ll just give it to you, and that’s okay. Or rent them your love and attention when they’re old and weak and afraid. That’s less okay, but at least it beats pretending you do it for love and then fighting over their money after they’re dead.

Fighting for your siblings’ share of your unremunerated love, jacquilynne, is a different topic, and I’ll leave it alone.

17

I agree that it’s a bad idea to bring love into this, which is why I didn’t. I have no idea why you would suggest that I did.

18

Jacquilynne actually hit the nail on the head, it’s not about dollars, it’s about how the estate is split. It may be a different topic than you’re discussing, but it is the primary topic in an inheritance discussion. Complaints are not usually that they got X dollars instead of Y dollars, they complain that they got X% while their worthless, absent, leech of a sibling who didn’t spend the last 6 months wiping mom’s ass, also got X%.

It’s not about wanting a particular dollar amount, it’s about wanting recognition for your efforts in making the end of their lives more comfortable, which implies recognition that absent siblings ignored their needs.

19

This happened in my family. The younger daughter, who lived closest, established an hourly rate for her services in caring for her parents (mostly managing in-home professional caregivers, rather than doing it all herself, but also shuttling to doctor visits, doing their taxes, etc.). She kept track of her hours for several years, and that amount came off the top out of their estate for her before it was divided among the children. (They would have done it pay-as-you-go, but her brother objected, and this was the compromise they eventually reached.)

20

If one child refuses to help at all, and the other(s) do willingly what’s needed, I could see that maybe making a difference, but still there is the fact that it’s all about what parents want and what they feel for each and all children. Also about what they feel about themselves (would they ever want to think they loved one child more than another, or gave one more?) My mother thanked me often for what I did for her during the last couple years of her life, and every time I told her it was only fair, only right. She took care of me when I needed it, and now it was my turn. Her money was her money, and if she had used it all up on her own wants and needs we would have been fine with that. (I won’t say the relatively small amount I inherited wasn’t nice to have.) But it wasn’t about that, and I really think any of us would have been upset to have her think it was.
Three of us took care of her, my sister lives far enough away not to be able to, really.