Wills - leaving to children or grandchildren?

Our first draft stated 50% to our son and 59% to our daughter and so much to our grandchildren. Then when we read the draft which included variable statements relating to giving to our DGC at a certain age, or if they needed it for education or starting a business or buying a house etc. what can you do with a "minding" as they say. Nout much. So we had the solicitor remove our DGC from the will expecting our children to offer them something (if there's anything to offer that is) then we had to rethink our children's circumstances. What if they die before us will their spouse be entitled - well the answer was yes. Therefore we stated should this happen our DGC will inherit their parents share.

This has been very helpful, as many of you mention, we have helped all our children out financially already, and now retired I look after one GS 1 day a week, and no doubt will do that for 'our' other daughter when required! We put money into our GC savings accounts, and are v generous to our children and grandchildren at birthdays and Christmas.
We are gradually spending our savings on our holidays and hope that our property will not be lost in care home fees. My mother was in a nursing home for nearly nine years, and the costs were eye watering. Now of course as she was 100% incapacitated following a stroke, and already had a very serious heart condition plus a colonoscopy, all the costs would not have been born by us!! One nursing home with a high dependency unit actually turned her down as 'too dependent'!
But I feel our planning should be optimistic!
Thank you for the comments I feel so much clearer now on what arrangements we will make.

Oops sorry meant to type 50% to our son and 50% to our daughter. Did anyone spot the deliberate mistake

When you make your wills a good solicitor will advise on covering eventualities such as having more GC without the need to keep revising your will. Our solicitor advised us to leave inheritance to GC in this manner to save any problems with their parents. Leaving inheritance to your children is natural, but can cause terrible problems if they are treated differently (for whatever reasons.) I have experienced the grief of huge family arguments where this has been the case, & a lot of heart searching as to whether to go against a persons will & share things equally, or have family rifts.

I'd just spend it, personally.

I like your idea Whitewave. I have always given my children exactly the same but my son is a spender and daughter a saver. The youngest boy looks like he will be a spender too so I would like to ensure the grandchildren get something.

If you want to provide for children with disabilities, there are Disabled Discretionary Trusts which can be written into your will. Look for a solicitor who is a member of STEP.

Candelle Do you worry at all about care costs later on? I think that's the rub.

The HT thing is better now since the gov revised it.

While growing up I knew my parents were short of money and hence never had any expectations of anything when they died which was fine.

I have only one daughter and so had planned on leaving her everything, but she and her hubby are currently in the process of splitting up, and he is going to be obliged to give her half his assets, including 50% of his inheritance from his father's estate (he died 2 years ago). This has made me realise that if I leave her everything and she gets married again the same thing could happen to her, leaving my 3 granddaughters with only half of what I would have wanted ultimately passed on to them.

Meanwhile, the father of my child and I split up way back and he now has 2 more children, so my daughter feels hard done by in that she originally would have had the whole of both estates, but will now have to share his estate with her two step siblings.

As you can see, it all gets VERY messy, so I'm now thinking that I'll live a very extravagant old age, spend every penny, and then they can all earn their own way in the world like I've done.

Any thoughts folks?

It's called SKI-ING
(Spending the Kids' Inheritance)

We've never inherited much at all, except love and memories!

Junglebellsfrocks: apologies, we have been away and I have only just spotted your comment on this topic. If you should read this........

Well, my husband and I have very different views on this topic. He feels that as he has studied and worked hard, he wants to make life easier for his children now and not make them wait until we die. He says that if his sons-in-law were not hard-working decent young men, he would have had second thoughts as, has been mentioned in this forum, hard-earned money can disappear in a divorce case, which is very sad.

I was less inclined to give so much away and wondered about willing it directly to the grandchildren, although there is also a burden to having money at a young age. I have personal experience of knowing a family who bought their 18-year-old son a sports car and very sadly, he drove too fast and died in an accident. The thought of our grandsons (in particular) having access to that money at an age when they would not be properly responsible for its use, was a great worry so I agreed with my husband's plan.

In direct answer to your question: our house is now quite valuable and I understand that good-quality care homes cost anything from £1,200 per week upwards. This type of calculation gives us some years of care and our daughters have said should we fall short, they will chip in!

I did look into facts and figures of care homes and although they vary considerably in terms of both comfort and cost (as with anything, I guess!) I understand that the average time an elderly person spends in a care home is around two years. We will comfortably meet this criteria if we were to sell our home.

I have had experience of looking after my mother post stroke and general failing health and prior to that, for many years after she was widowed in her forties. There is absolutely no way I wish our daughters to have that responsibilty for us and would do anything for that not to happen. It pretty much destroyed the relationship I had with my mother, who became, as she became frailer in body - but not in mind - very bitter and frustrated with her existence, and understanably too!

I have in mind, a plan to have live-in help and keep nagging my husband to esnure that there is enough disposable income left to ensure that this is a possibilty....

My own health hasn't been the best for much of my life and quite honestly, I don't expect to go on and on into ripe old-age, so money-wise, it makes sense to unburden some of it now.

I realise how fortunate I am in that my situation is such that I have options and understand that many do not. We are generous with our money, both to family and to the wider world too and feel we are using what we have wisely, which is the best we can do.

This may look as if we have zillions and zillions, which we don't but what we do have (much much less than before our gifts! Incidentally, nothing was inherited) should be enough to see us through....I hope!

By the by, I have been advised that we should move house now, while we have the physical capability to sort through nearly fifty-years of possessions etc. Apparently we are missing a trick by not doing it at this stage of our lives. I do wonder if that is code for 'if you don't move soon, when you pop your clogs, we will hire a skip and the entire contents of your home will be gone in a trice' but who knows.....!

It's all very well saying I don't intend to be a burden to my children. I heard my mil discussing this with my DM . My DM died fairly rapidly at my home after that having cared for her mother and then sister for some time. I had her with me for a short while. Mil moved to be near SIL who had no intention of having her to live with her and for all her words about being a burden she desperately wanted to live with her daughter and be looked after by her. She died after a fall in a very luxurious care home but she was extremely needy in her last years . No care was good enough.

I have told my children that they are not to look after me when I am old and if I change my mind they are to ignore it- what I say now is what I really mean.

I shall leave the money between the children- they can sort out any grandchildren.

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Reported.

My parents have left everything to be divided equally for the grandchildren, as I have two siblings that are quite irresponsible with money and they didn't want them to blow through any inheritance and not let the grandchildren benefit. They spoke to me and my other sibling about it and we were fine with that. We've all got between 2-4 children so it's pretty fair IMO.

I've left a small amount to my oldest daughter. She is no-contact with me right now due to a controlling boyfriend's input and her dreadful behaviour towards her young brothers (my two younger dcs) that I called her on (politely but firmly - she obviously didn't like that). She is an adult and self supporting, and financially does not really need the money. The remainder is left to my two younger dcs as they are still primary school age and both have disabilities, so the money will be put in trust for them and/or be used for their care if something happens to me. It's not going to be a huge amount anyway. I've not left any money to my grandchild, as I expect dd to sort something for him out of the money I've left her. Once my younger dcs reach 18, then I will likely adjust things accordingly, but right now, I have to put the money where there is the most need.

That being said, my 2 irresponsible siblings are desperately trying to claw what money they can from my mum now (my dad is deceased). They have been trying to get my mum to give them money for this or that, pleading poverty. Thankfully she is living with my other sibling, who is responsible and watching out for mum's interests. We have both told my mum to use her money to help herself out - if she doesn't have any left when she goes, we're not worried. The money was left by my dad for mum to make her life comfortable and so she'd have the care and things that she needs, not for her to go without so it could be inherited.

I have DD living close by with SIL and 2 DGS. We are very close and see each other all the time and I know she will look after us when we get older. They live in a modest house and are not very well off.

DS, on the other hand, lives in Sydney, is lousy at keeping in contact and he and his DW are very much into their careers with no sign of having children (they do have 2 dogs that they call 'the girls'!). They are also loaded and think nothing of spending thousands of dollars on luxuries. He won't look after us, for obvious reasons.

I therefore think my DD deserves more than DS when we kark it, but how to do it? My idea is to split the estate 33% to DD, 33% to DS and 33% split between all surviving DGC (probably only DDs DSs). We've already hinted at this to DS and he doesn't seem bothered by it.

It is possible to create a special vulnerable persons trust in your Will that has tax advantages over other types of trust and can protect benefits from the effect of inheriting a lump sum.

In my experience wills have always caused problems, no matter how fair (or otherwise) they were. We haven't made ours yet, putting off looking at what lies ahead I suspect. He has no family, only me, so if it all comes to me I think I'm inclined to liquidate the lot and make sure my later years are comfortable. What's left will go to my only living son and he's already far, far better off than me. And his only child has so much coming to her from other directions that my little bit won't even be noticed.

As a solicitor I can promise you not having a will causes far more arguments and problems than having one (and generates dozens of times more in legal costs). Does Mollie realise that in her situation if she dies first her son gets nothing and when her husband dies, if he really has no family, everything goes to The Treasury, or Prince Charles depending on where you live? By all means spend what you need to live comfortably, but at least give what's left to your favourite charity.

I have just re-made my will this week at the suggestion of my lawyer (!££) as he felt, since DH died, things have changed somewhat. I have left 10% to the gc's and 30% each to the 3 daughters. I have not included specific items, but am in the process of writing a list of who gets what (I won't be there to see the fur fly ) and intend for them to help themselves to these items as soon as. I may well give these away before I am 'harvested' (lovely phrase!) depending on whether I want/need them. My lawyer says I would have to re-make the will if I were to move south of the border to England. Does anyone know if this is the case? Iaincam would perhaps know? I am loathe to do this; after all a will's a will for a' that!

We have been told by our Scottish solicitor that if we move permanently to Scotland, we have to make a new will to reflect Scottish inheritance law.

I'm not sure that the differences are significant when moving the other way.

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