Wills - leaving to children or grandchildren?

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?

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

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

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.

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.

I'd just spend it, personally.

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.

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

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.

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.

We have a bit of a bone of contention about this. At the moment, our two children inherit equally, but we have a grandchild, and since his arrival, DH has been minded to alter our wills to leave a third to him and two thirds to the children. Much as I adore my grandson, he is our daughter's child and our son has no children of his own. We have already bought some shares for our grandson, and started a long term savings account. I think leaving him an equal share of everything else is too much, and unfair to our son. I think 10% would be more realistic and acceptable. DH does not agree. At the end of the day, as someone has said, it will all come down to what is left if either of us has to go into care, so the whole discussion might be academic!

We have two sons and only one son has three children. At present we have left half to the son without children and the other half to be held in trust for the grand-children when they reach eighteen year's of age.

The son with children is well off so we thought that it would be a start for the children later on.

We recently decided to give our two children money now. To that end, they have had a huge chunk of our estate.

My husband, who has always 'looked after' our money (I know, I know, I will rightly be castigated for this but this was his profession and seems sensible - for now...) has had a bee in his bonnet for many years regarding the tax that would be liable on our estate.

His point of view is that we earnt every penny ourselves (true), were not left money from our parents (for varying reasons, also true), paid tax on our income's interest (true again) and is blowed if he will have the money taxed yet again when we die.

Initially I was unsure about the wisdom of his decision and we had many discussions about it. My daughters are in stable, happy marriages but should, in the future, these end, would our sons-in-law have the right to half of what was our hard-earned money, etc? Yup. However, my husband asked me if we trust our daughters and their husbands, which I do, and if so, what was I waiting for?

Anyway, his desire to thwart the tax man has prevailed and we have recently given our girls life-changing sums.

Our daughters are grateful (not that we were looking for gratitude) that they are freed from most monetary concerns and say that if push comes to shove, we can have it back again!

I completely understand that not everyone is in our position but if you have 'spare' money, dislike the idea of paying inheritance tax on what is all earned income, consider giving away some of your estate now!

Oh, we do have to live for seven years but I guess there is at least a disincentive for our girls to bump us off now - they've had much of the money!

We're dividing everything 50/50 between our 2DDs. They can then decide how much they want to give their own children. Mind you, on the advice of financial advisors, we have started 'SKIing' (spending the kids inheritance) so if it all works out, all that will be left will be the house!

I have 2 children and my civil partner has no children but a niece and nephew that she is very close to. We have left the money( If we haven't spent it all having a good time) to be divided between the 4 of them and they can decide if they need it themselves o if they will give some to their children. (One doesn't have children)

crossgranny that's interesting, I have not heard of bloodline wills.

When we made our wills the solicitor advised against leaving any to named grandchildren. We have one daughter with 3 boys, a son who will probably have children and a son who almost certainly won't, so we decided to leave everything equally between the children and token amounts to any grandchildren.

My daughter's ex-partner's father named his grandchildren in his substantial will and my oldest grandchild will inherit a quarter of the estate when he reaches eighteen. Because my other grandson was born after he died he will inherit nothing. My daughter is dreading trying to explain this to the boys in a few years and is hoping that the older boy decides to share his inheritance. Their other brother has a different father which complicates it even more!

We do not feel we should differentiate between our 3 children and each will get 1/3 of our estate. It is up to them to provide for their children. Spouses complicate things especially if marriages are shaky. For this reason we have made ''Bloodline Wills'' which help to ensure that inheritance goes eventually to the grandchildren [provided that our children are sensible''.Our children's inheritance is safeguarded against bankruptcy and marriage settlements.A good Lawyer can guide you through the process

We have three children and at the moment we have left everything equally between them. We may change this to take account of grandchildren in a few years time.

Anything we /I/ DH leave will be divided between our 3 DDs. If any DD should pre decease us then her share would go to any children she might have and the other 2 DDs would manage that money until GC reach 25. The share of any DD without children would be divided between the other DDs.

My 3 children will each inherit a third of my estate whether they have children or not - at the moment anyway. My mother is leaving each of her grandchildren £1000 (all adult) except for 2 of them who will share one third of her estate as the children of my late brother - in other words they get what he would have got - and my second brother and I will have the other two thirds.

Oops - not sure how I managed to post that 7 times!

When my mother died I was in the process of going through divorce. It was agreed that my inheritance would not be taken into account and in the end we agreed a settlement without going to court. I'm not sure what would have happened if it had gone to court but my mother would have been horrified if my ex had benefitted from her will in any way as we separated long before she died and I was only still married to him as he'd made getting a divorce difficult. I'm currently leaving an equal split between my children but both are still single and I have no grandchildren. I may have to review things if that changes.

When my mother died I was in the process of going through divorce. It was agreed that my inheritance would not be taken into account and in the end we agreed a settlement without going to court. I'm not sure what would have happened if it had gone to court but my mother would have been horrified if my ex had benefitted from her will in any way as we separated long before she died and I was only still married to him as he'd made getting a divorce difficult. I'm currently leaving an equal split between my children but both are still single and I have no grandchildren. I may have to review things if that changes.

When my mother died I was in the process of going through divorce. It was agreed that my inheritance would not be taken into account and in the end we agreed a settlement without going to court. I'm not sure what would have happened if it had gone to court but my mother would have been horrified if my ex had benefitted from her will in any way as we separated long before she died and I was only still married to him as he'd made getting a divorce difficult. I'm currently leaving an equal split between my children but both are still single and I have no grandchildren. I may have to review things if that changes.