Thoughts on my will.

Thanks everyone again.
I think I shall leave a set amount (not too great) to the grandchildren with the rest divided equally between my children.
You have made me realise how lucky I am that my children all get on well with me and although living far apart and different lives, with each other.
The last thing I would want to do is jeopardise that.

I love and value my young adult grandchildren as individuals in their own right, so I have left them a specific sum each. The rest is to be divided equally between my two children. If the rest of my money should be used up in care home fees, my children will lose out, but hopefully the grandchildren won’t.

Whatever you leave your children benefits them, and the portion left to your youngest son will benefit his children as like as not. If you adopt this point of view, you could well leave keepsakes to the grandchildren - items you specifically name in you will as being for them.

From another point of view, you can leave each grandchild a legacy of an amount that seems reasonable to you and the solicitor drawing up your will. None of us can know, or should know that you have to leave, so there is no point in anyone suggesting amounts here.

The residue of your estate, including the house, or rather the amount it brings in when sold, is to be divided equallly between your children.

There is always a risk of some one or other of you heirs feeling ill-done to, and I do not know it would help to either tell your children what you have decided after you have made a new will, or leave letters to each couple explaining your reasons for disposing of your estate as you will have done by the time they read them.

They say that no good deed goes unpunished. My grandmother knew about my parent's will and also believed it was unfair to discriminate against someone because they had no children.

I never discussed her will with her. When she died she left her 4 grandchildren (of which I was one) an equal sum each. She bequeathed the proceeds of the sale of the house to be divided equally between her children. But she added a codicil leaving the contents of the house and all her personal effects (including her jewellery) to me alone. The codicil stated that she had done this "because of my love of antiques". I also suspect that she had done it to spite my parents.

My aunts had no idea what the contents were worth. The just saw it as a pile of dark brown funriture and were only interested in my doing a house clearance so it could be put on the market. They did not have my knowledge of antiques and no idea how to approach a saleroom. Organizing the clearance and sale of the furniture was hard work but it taught me a lot about the antiques trade. My aunts and parents were shocked when the proceeds of the sale were known. haha

Sometimes you can benefit more by an "odd" bequest rather than cash.

VenusDeVillendorf

It’s difficult leaving someone out of your will deliberately - they will contest it and cause it to go into probate and hold everything up.
The solicitors will charge and charge to get it sorted thus reducing everyone’s share.

Even if you have irreconcilable differences with someone, it’s always best to leave them about 2K so that they can’t contest the will on the basis of being disinherited.

If you really want to have a smooth passing, where you don’t piss off everyone out of your own bitterness and lack of forgiveness, it’s best to be a little bit kind to everyone else who will have to deal with the contrary one, and leave him a morsel, so grounds for contesting the will are considerably diminished.

Thinking that you’ve scored a point by “Leaving them out” only causes heart ache and extra expense to everyone else.

Leaving the problem person a morsel upsets their contesting claims, and everything is settled for the other family members more quickly and elegantly.

Being subtle is sometimes better that being vindictive as there are consequences for everyone else by being so obvious.

I’m afraid this is not good advice. A will has to be probated anyway. What you mean is that an attempt to contest the will will delay probate and may end up in court.

There are limited circumstances in which anyone can successfully contest a valid will - that they were financially dependent on the deceased but appropriate provision has not been made for them, that the deceased was not capable of understanding their actions when the will was written, or that the will was made under duress. If you decide to omit from your will someone who might expect a legacy but is not financially dependent on you, simply place a letter with your will explaining why they haven’t been included. There is no need to leave them a token sum. Don’t attach the letter, or anything else, to the will.

It seems unfair to me that the childless ones would receive less in order to give something to the grandchildren. I couldn’t do that

I agree 100% with what GSM and other posters have said = that to leave less (or nothing) to the childfree ones is a form of discrimination. It is one they may well grow to resent and cause angst between the siblings going forward. This is what happened in my family.

In the original will my parents had left their property to be divided equally between my sister (my only sibling) and myself. When my sister then had 2 children they decided to divide the estate into 3 leaving one third each to my sister and myself and the other third between the two grandchildren. This meant that two thirds went to my sister's side of the family.

Their rationale was that the grandchildren had given them a lot of pleasure and they wanted to give them a "start in life". When I made the point that I felt I was being descriminated against because I had no children the answer was "well that was your choice."

Yes - it was their money and their choice. But it only served to widen the gulf between my sister and myself and cause a great deal of resentment. All this had been settled before I left my home city to live elsewhere. For that reason I withdrew further and further from my parents once there was physical distance between us because it was clear that I was less "valued" for being childfree.

We wrote mirror wills before we were Grandparents. We have decided to change, giving our GS enough for Uni or training of his choice, then the remaining estate divided between our 2 children. We considered asking his Mum (our DD) to ensure this happened, but while we trust her, we do not trust her partner. This way he gets it with our son overseeing it. We need to be sure it is safe from interference.

I have a daughter and a son. My son has five children. My daughter has none and will not have any children in the future. My estate is left 50/50 to each of my children. My son can pass money on to my grandchildren if he wishes to. I have explained this to them both. It seems a fair compromise.

Germanshepherdsmum

It seems unfair to me that the childless ones would receive less in order to give something to the grandchildren. I couldn’t do that.

I agree with Germanshepherdsmum. My daughter doesn't have any children but my son has one. I would think that my son would give his son something out of his share and if (god forbid) he was to die before me, my grandson would inherit his share anyway.

Assuming that anyone who chooses to disinherit a family member does so purely out of bitterness, vindictiveness and a lack of forgiveness is extremely judgemental IMO VenusDilVillendorf.

Our estranged son is not a beneficiary and our wills have a codicil which states he was amply provided for during our life time, which he was as along with my brother, we provided the deposit for his house.

Inheritance is a gift, and although I don't doubt that there are some EAC who would expect to inherit when their parents die, I can't for the life of me understand why anyone would want to benefit from the death of their parent(s) or anyone who they'd refused to have contact with for years.

Our DS and DiL have no children, our DD and SiL have 2 children.
We had thought of leaving one-third to each of the AC and one-third to the GC. But we wouldn't have wanted DS to think we loved him any less, so it's half each and that's how I'm leaving it.
However, over the years we did fund the DD and children a fair bit, while DS got substantially less once he was earning well

It’s difficult leaving someone out of your will deliberately - they will contest it and cause it to go into probate and hold everything up.
The solicitors will charge and charge to get it sorted thus reducing everyone’s share.

Even if you have irreconcilable differences with someone, it’s always best to leave them about 2K so that they can’t contest the will on the basis of being disinherited.

If you really want to have a smooth passing, where you don’t piss off everyone out of your own bitterness and lack of forgiveness, it’s best to be a little bit kind to everyone else who will have to deal with the contrary one, and leave him a morsel, so grounds for contesting the will are considerably diminished.

Thinking that you’ve scored a point by “Leaving them out” only causes heart ache and extra expense to everyone else.

Leaving the problem person a morsel upsets their contesting claims, and everything is settled for the other family members more quickly and elegantly.

Being subtle is sometimes better that being vindictive as there are consequences for everyone else by being so obvious.

My dd2 is childless, CID24, and I’m 100% sure she’ll have no objections to the terms of our wills that include dd1’s 3 children.
After all, anyone childless will usually have had far fewer expenses plus opportunities to save, than anyone with children.

Yes, the Gdcs will probably eventually inherit from their own parents, but they could easily be in their 50s or 60s by then (I was 67 when my mother died) so an earlier legacy, when they’re that much younger and very likely hoping to buy a house or flat, could be a great help when they may be most in need of it.

I’d go with the suggestion of leaving a cash gift to the grandchildren.

I have added £1000 each to each of my grandchildren. Everything else goes to my three sons.

I personally think it’s not fair to leave money to grandchildren if your other offspring is childless. The grandchildren will inherit eventually from their own parents.

We’ve left set amounts to the Gdcs, but also have junior S&S ISAs for them, to be accessed at 18. Whether we’ll still be here by then - in 10, 11 and 14 years is another question! I just hope they’ll be reasonably sensible.

The rest, after a few charity bequests, will be divided equally between dds.

A friend left a house (one of two he’d owned outright) to a charity, and was advised by the solicitor to leave them the actual house, not the proceeds of the sale, otherwise they’d be endlessly hassling his widow - why hadn’t it sold yet, why hadn’t it sold for more money, etc.

In the event, many months after they knew about the bequest, they wrote to the widow (who had a mammoth job to clear the house) saying basically, ‘Oh, by the way, it’d be much easier for us if you could just sell the house and give us the money, ta very much.’

All they had to do, FGS, was pass the keys to an estate agent - it’s a big charity with its own legal dept. so they could have handled that side.

Such a bloody cheek! Pleased to say that dh (who was an executor) wrote back and told them in somewhat more polite terms, to eff off.

It was a charity I’d supported for years, and I was so disgusted I meant to cancel my direct debit, and write and tell them why. To my shame I never got around to it.

I have left everything I have saved equally between my seven grandchildren. I don't own a property and my savings don't amount to a great deal. All my possessions can be picked over and chosen at will. I know my children won't argue over anything, they have already displayed this, as did my brother and sister and I, when my parents died. There's is one benefit to not having much, ther is nothing to fight over.

I think it has to be strictly equal . We have 2 sons with children and one without . They all get exactly the same but if a father of some of the grandchildren dies before me their portion goes to the grandchildren ( I pray this would never happen but it did to my grandmother ). Last thing I want is the boys to fall out over inheritance .

My parents will states that us 3 daughters get an equal share of the estate, and they also request if we see fit to give our own children £5.000 and our grandchildren a £1.000 each, so myself having 2 daughters and 6 grandchildren I'll be giving £16.000 out of my money, whereas one of my sisters only has 1 son, so hers would be £5,000, I think that's a fair way to do it

My parents had a "mirror" will, so have we. Dad passed away first so Mum had everything.
Mum passed away 3 years ago then everything was per the will devided between my sister and I. The Will also stated it was ours to do what we want but our children should have a share in our half. Both my sister and I split our share between our children, so my two, got at third each.

GFplux The beneficiaries have no say in the disposal of the assets in an estate, unless they are the executors or unless they can see that the administration is acting in an unlawful manner.

While I am sure that what you describe can occur in exceptional cases, I have yet to come across it happening.

I have left part of my estate to charity, but left the choice of charities it is given to, to my children after my death. They will know what charities I was supporting at the time of my death and divide it up between them. They may well not be the charities I am supporting at the time I make my will.

My will is simple. From my estate, (which really means my flat plus a small amont of savings), forty grand to be set aside to give each of my eight g.children five thousand pound on reaching their 25th birthdays, if they have already passed that age when I die then to be given this as soon as estate monies becme available. Remainder to be divided equally between my five children. Should any of them pre-decease me then that proportion of the money to be divided by remaining children.

One of those children has four children, one two and the two others one each. My son and his wife has remained intentionally childless. He will, therefore, be the one to oversee the money left for his nieces and nephews. Again I have written in that should any of those g.children pre-decease me or die prior to their 25th birthdays then that portion of the money returns to the main estate.

Thought it will be nice to have that small amount (£5,000) to go to each g.child in my memory. The youngest of those is only just 11 years old, so will have to wait a long time. Do wonder what five grand will actually be worth in 2038!!!!

Each of my children have a copy of my will. It has been written so only they can inherit. Not their husbands, wife, partners, etc.

M0nica

GFplux I disagree profoundly with your comment on not using %s in a will, and your reasoning for saying so. I saw a house brought to total dereliction by someone leaving his much younger second wife a fixed amount of the value of the family holiday home.

Between making his will and dying, the testators holiday home rocketted in value, by the time he died the fixed amount he had left his wife had gone from half the value of the house to barely 10%. So she refused to agree to the sale. The children lived in Australia, so they did not visit it or use it, neither did his wife and over 20 years we watched a very pretty thatched cottage seaside home become totally derelict. The roof collapsed and the forest around Sleeping Beauty's castle was nothing to the state of the garden.

When the second wife died, the plot was sold and the collapsed remains of the house demolished.

If a family want a fight over a will, they will fight regardless of how carefully the will is drafted.

I would, and have left money to our grandchildren that dousen't come from the money left to DS. It doesn't have to be a large sum. Say, your estate is worth the average value of a house at the moment, roughly £285,000. If you have three children, one with 3 children, to leave the grandchildren £5 - £10,000 will make very little difference to how much each of the adult children will inherit.

We are in that situation, except that it is 2 children and 2 grandchildren. However, in our case, our DD has told us, without any kind of prompting, that she considers that any money or support we give to our grandchildren is entirely separate from anything we give to her and her brother.

We have also left small sums to our niece, godchildren and a substantial amount to charity. Our children know all this.

You may be correct. However I have heard of cases where people have left a % to a charity and the charity have not allowed any sale of assets while they want to achieve the highest price. The charity do not have any time pressures and can hold up sales for years and years.

I have 2 DDs. 1 has two teenaged children and the other has one. BUT The DD with the 2 children has Fairly well off In Laws still alive, whereas the DD with 1 child has already lost the In Law Granny and Grandad who left next to nothing.

So, after frank discussion with my DDs we are agreed that the DDs will inherit 50% each, then it will be up to them how much they give to, or spend on, their children