personally i am in favour of the unequal split. which is lucky, since i will be on the recieving end of one. i don’t know about my parents will, but i know that they asked my grandma (only surviving grandparent) to give all her money to my brother. we have no other family, my parents don’t need it, and in a few years i won’t need it either.
my brother on the other hand has just failed his A-levels for the 3rd time and shows no sign of getting a job/moving out, so he will probably need the money and the house more. however my grandparents have been helping out with some of my tuition, which it looks like my brother won’t be needing, so that kind of evens things out. and i would rather be debt free coming out of uni than have a house i dont want in a few years time.
Thank you for all the replies so far! It’s given my friend a lot to think about. He’s actually a little surprised that people haven’t advocated giving more to W the reformed spendthrift/family man. For what it’s worth I do believe that W has mended his ways and that he wouldn’t simply blow through the inheritance. He was on his way to paying off his debts and the money would allow him to get rid of them entirely as well as providing a college fund for his children.
My friend’s rebuttal
My friend and his then-wife were never the sort of parents who treated their children with blanket equality. For instance, when B and W were teens their parents bought them nice cars. N didn’t receive a car because he only needed to drive every three months or so, and it wasn’t expected that he was “owed” a car or something of equivalent value. My friend believes that changing the will would be consistent with how he raised the kids - “to each according to their needs”.
B himself has told my friend that he doesn’t need the money (although this made my friend even more inclined towards the equal split, so go figure).
I’ll address some of the questions that have come up as well - hopefully it will shed some light on the matter. 
The estate
The size of the estate is in the vicinity of 1-2M per child given an equal split; a life changing amount but manageable enough that my friend would prefer to leave it in a lump sum rather than through a trust (although thank you for that recommendation - it did give my friend pause). He was thinking of splitting it 40/40/20 (W/N/B)
N
To my knowledge N does have an actual mental/emotional disorder and has been receiving treatment for it. My friend feels responsible because mental illness runs in his family and he may have overcompensated for the guilt by coddling him (which he now admits did N no favors). N is not a severe enough case to warrant professional care but it does mean that nobody enjoys spending time with him socially.
In my OP I perhaps put more emphasis on N’s earnings than I had intended. To clarify, N is in a low-paying research position and earns enough to sustain himself. He actually has a fair amount saved because he is frugal, if not downright stingy. My friend’s main worry is that N will be alone and I think the additional money is to assuage his guilt about N’s situation. It’s likely that once my friend is gone, W and B will spend even less time with N - they’ll help in an emergency but they have lives and families of their own, and begrudge the time they spend with N.
Once again thank you for the replies and thanks for the stories about similar situations. I’d be interested to see if the additional information changes any of the responses.
I had already been given the trunk. That makes it a gift and takes it off the estate (and no taxes unless it’s something huge, like a car or house!) In her last years, whenever Grandma thought that a particular item would be particularly appropiate for a specific grandchild, she just gave it to us. That trunk was her father’s, who went to medical school in Zaragoza; like I said, I got it when I went away to school… circumstances similar to those when the trunk was bought. When she heard that my brother’s fiancée was from Zaragoza and in medical school, she grabbed his hand, brought him to one of the back rooms and bade him take from the wall great-grandpa’s medical school graduation picture
If there had been an inventory of the estate pre-gift-giving, then she would have had to update it. Since no inventory existed, once Aunt tried getting predatory with myself and one cousin and got growled away by both, she cut it out 
In terms of children-to-be-born-later, no reason why your friend couldn’t lop an equal percentage off each kids’ share to direct towards them (in trust, of course). 10-30-30-30 or something like that.
W N and B should be on equal footing. W gets the fancy house, car and vacations he couldn’t afford, then is back on solid ground while B spends wisely and is no better off in the end. That doesn’t seem right to me. If N’s problems are emotional rather than financial, throwing money at it won’t really help. He’ll just have lots of money and nobody to spend it with.
The only concession I’d make is to any grandchildren. If you want to help out W because of the children, then provide for their education and a nest egg to get them started in the world. Put $x in a trust for each grandchild, then split the rest up evenly.
I’ve seen this done so many ways…my one girlfriend and her brother lived with mom til she died, so they got the house and the other three kids didn’t get a dime. No one was destitute, so it worked out fine.
My other girlfriend has an adult special needs brother. He’s set up in a residential facility and will be taken care of by the state and by a small piece of dad’s estate. Dad was a gigantic prick and was abusive to all his children. But two of them sucked up so they could get the inheritence, so he left a million bucks to them and left the other seven children with nothing.
My mother in law has a little money and is probably going to spend most of it. She’s leaving her house to her son in law (deceased daughter’s husband) because he takes care of all the household chores and drives her to the grocery store or wherever she needs to go. I imagine my husband will end up with a couple thousand dollars and his pick of old lady furniture. But we’re all cool with it because no one has the time or energy to do all the stuff she needs done. Painting, mowing, gutters, garbage, plumbing, carpet shampooing, moving furniture, etc…we live too far away to be available to her, and don’t have the time anyway.
My husband’s ex and her brother are “this close” to killing each other. She’s caring for her invalid mother’s personal needs and the brother is nuts and is making her life a living hell. They are both depending on their inheritance to survive and both live with their mother. The crazy brother will drag the other two (there’s a successful brother, as well) through court with endless lawsuits over the estate (suing people is what he does for a living :rolleyes: ). I would not be surprised in the least if I saw these people in the morning headlines detailing a grizzly murder.
My dad is dividing everything evenly three ways. My brother has nothing for retirement, so I will probably try to help him set up some sort of fund that will ensure he gets the most out of his third. I hope my sister will assume the house (she was born there), but she may end up selling it just so she doesn’t have to maintain it.
Divide it equally or else someone will be hurt emotionally. Also, consider setting up a trust for N rather than just leaving the money.
I agree with dividing the money equally, given that N. isn’t in dire medical straits and needs more for that reason. If they’re all self-sustaining adults, there’s no reason to go deciding who “needs” more as “compensation” for a crappy life. That just strikes me as a really odd idea.
My parents are planning to divide their estate equally between their children (all six of us!), minus anything they’ve already given us. For instance, they recently helped me out with a big chunk of a down payment on a house, with the understanding that that money “counted against” my inheritance. Which is fine by me; I’d rather have it in advance when I can really use it, even if I receive a smaller share of the inheritance than my siblings.
With an estate that size, I really don’t see the reason to divide other than evenly. No matter how much of a fuck-up N is, $1-2 mill will provide him considerable insulation from himself.
And I really dislike the idea of essentially “penalizing” B for being responsible.
IMO&E, anything other than an even split creates the possibility of hard feelings.
I could imagine maybe giving N a slight advantage due to possible “special needs” - maybe 30/30/40 - or 30/30/30 with 10 in trust in case one of the kids needs it later. But why give the eldest more to support his more spendthrift lifestyle?
In my somewhat analogous situation, my wife has 2 sisters. One is roughly in the same situation as we, but the other is a major fuck-up. Licensed as a podiatrist, but I don’t know if she has been married and divorced 4 or 5 times, and has multiple judgments against her. Probably has a diagnosable personality disorder, but I’m not psychologist and maybe she’s just an unreasonable, self-centered bitch.
Bottomline, FIL has given her tens of thousands of dollars to bail her out of her countless scrapes. Multiple downpayments on houses she has subsequently lost and such. Has given little to either my wife or her other sister. We don’t really care to the extent that we don’t need the money, and we don’t particularly care for either FIL or SIL. Certainly aren’t going to kiss FIL’s ass in the hope of getting $ from him. But it does piss my wife off to some extent that it feels like she is being penalized for being responsible and making good choices. Not saying it is necessary a reasonable response - just that it is the response we have had.
Make a reality TV show of it. All three children must get together to write their parents wills. After the fighting and emotional drama, the kicker is the parents were watching and write their own will based on their perception of the kids greed.
How about in a situation where one child has done more for the parents? My wife has 2 older brothers, both who live out of town. My wife and I are the ones that go help them when they need things. I shovel the snow from their drive, cut their grass when they are away, and other things like that. My wife and I are also the most financially secure of the three (we are far from rich, but both college educated and we live within our means). This is also a two way street. The in-laws enjoy watching our children ever now and then so my wife and I can have a nice evening out. My BIL-1 comes to town and drops his 2 kids off with them and goes out partying with his wife and his old friends. BIL-2 is the one they rarely talk of. He calls (collect) when he needs money. My in-laws still have many years before I would really worry about them passing away, but I know they have already written wills and the such. My wife has never asked them, but knows that she is the executor (sp?..) of their estate. How would YOU handle this situation?
All I know is, there should be some sort of requirement involving spending the night in a haunted house.
That’s a great idea-- give it to 'em before you’re gone so you have a chance to see them enjoying the gift.
Thinking about personal effects brought up a memory of a lady to whom I used to deliver Meals-On-Wheels. She told me that she had gotten deathly ill last summer. While she was laying on what was thought to be her deathbed, her children swarmed the house-- not to comfort their mother and say their goodbyes, but to paste color-coded stickers on the posessions they wanted to claim. (She was a collector of antiques.) She was aghast, as was I when I heard this tale. “What did you do?”
She glowered. “I got right up off that bed and took those damn stickers off!” she declared. “They ain’t gettin’ nothin’ now. I’m givin’ it all to charity and my friends. See anything you like?”
This tale might have some value. If done in the right way, it might save the family some bickering. Bring over all of the children and go around the house discussing who wants what and make a list which can be added to the will.
My grandmother recently discovered that her will, as it stood, made no provision for her personal effects. Each child and grandchild had just been given a portion of her estate, meaning that everything would have to be sold and the proceeds split. “Oh, but I want So-and-So to have my dining room table,” she protested. “You’re the executor of the will-- can’t you just give it to them?” I told her I didn’t think so-- I thought it might be illegal for me to “give away” portions of the estate and besides, it might cause ill-will if Such-and-Such thought that *they *were supposed to get the table, not So-and-So.
I sort of have a horse in this race, as I’m on the receiving end of a split-evenly will. One sibling was executor over both my fathers and now my mother’s death…and two other siblings dogged him constantly for control of the estate(s).
Me? I work for a living & pay my bills. Mortgage is more than half-way done. The other two siblings were money / thing hogs.
One of the two greedy siblings would make trips with her husband to my parents house (when they were alive) to ‘clean up the place’. They’d ‘clear out’ all those old un-wanted antiques out of the attic and be out of town with their booty before anyone knew. :mad:
Ironically, they were the same people who’d say ‘you’re all such pushy newyawkers, with that east coast mentality’.
(Well, guess now we know there are thieves on Both coasts, don’t we?) :dubious:
The other sibling here is a bit pushy…and would show up asking for checks for this and that to Mom’s nursing home (and for money for mortgage payments from Dad before he died). One check was in the mid five digits, so this wasn’t small potatoes either) Mom wasn’t poor, but ‘fixed income’ didn’t phase the pushy one.
The executor sibling did double the size of his house while handling Mom’s money, and my wife basically washed her hands of all of my family, calling them all thieves.
But… executor sibling seems to be trying to redeem himself. He is taking the money used to expand his house out of his share. Better, he has copies of all the checks and first/second/third mortgages that Mom & Dad gave the other two over the years that they never ever bothered to pay back, but they will all be paid back now, out of the proceeds. 
What does this mean? As the self reliant worker ant who lived frugally and never stripped works of art from their house or begged for bail-out money to pay for a new ‘sub-zero kitchen’, I’ll probably get a larger share proportionally than the others. It means my kids college will probably be paid for without tapping my home equity for a mortgage that wouldn’t be paid off until I’m 70. And it means that they’ll all be pissed and lose my phone numbers/email address after the distribution. Still, as I know they were only trying to manipulate me ‘Survivor’-style for financial gain, I guess it’s no big loss.
Still, I’m very proud that this justice-delayed is finally being served. And I honestly think that my parents would think that this is fair if they were here today.
My brother has been out of touch with the family for years at a time. Not because of bad blood, but for reasons we have yet to understand. My sister and I have been in the area for virtually the entire time. My dad still intends to divide his estate evenly amongst the three of us. And in my opinion that is as it should be. To do it any other way would look like payment for services rendered, and that’s not what he wants his inheritence to be.
That can be perilous too. My wife’s grandma, at a recent family gathering, announced that she’d like to start giving away her old mementos, Christmas ornaments, pieces of jewelry, etc., just looking to simplify her life and unclutter her house as she gets older. She asked her family members to let her know if there were any pieces they particularly liked or had a sentimental attachment to and would like to have. A couple of relatives decided to immediately “call” dozens of things they wanted before anyone had a chance to speak. It soured the gesture and caused a lot of resentment.
Divide it equally less any “bonuses” doled out throughout the years.
That’s why I suggested that all the kids/grandkids go over to the house as a group and have a sit-down about it. If they can’t discuss this rationally as a family, you’re sort of off the hook because it looks like no matter what you do, someone’s going to be upset. 
Divide it equally in the will, but give generously to those in need while alive.
I have seven brothers and sisters, so I’m not getting squat, but I can imagine the ire that would emanate from the unequal distribution of wealth in the will. It would seem like a reward to those who couldn’t manage their life, and punishment to those of us who can.
Reading through this, I am SO glad that I don’t have to worry about this with my parents. My father has three children, my mother two. I’ve already told them that I don’t want anything to do with their life insurance policies, and they have no money other than that. My parents might be poor, but they don’t have to deal with the stress of trying to figure out which child will be more pissed off.
Now, my grandmother, however, did have the right idea. She told my sister to straighten the hell up (she was more of a grasshopper as well) or she’d leave her out of the will and give everything to me and my half-sister. It was the wake-up call my sister needed (incidentally, I’ve told Grandma to leave my chunk to some sort of charity; it’s not a huge amount anyway, and I’m the kind of person who would rather eke out a living than gain a boost by an inheritance. 'sides, I’d get sad every time I spent the money on something cuz my grandmother’s dead).
~Tasha