Wills and leaving to grandchildren

From what you say, I gather you have three children and the two eldest of these do not have children, whereas your third child has one child and another on the way.

In many ways the best thing would be to leave your will substantially as it is and leave a keepsake to each of your grandchildren. They will, after all, benefit from their father's inheritance from you.

If you wish to leave money to your grandchildren, I would suggest that you decide how much and deduct that from your total estate, stating that this amount is to be divided equally between your grandchildren. After that the residue
to be divided equally between your children.

Whatever you decide, I would, in your place, send each of my children a copy of the will, or at least inform them of your provisions in it. This way, if they object, they can tell you so.

You might want to consider making a list of who gets what of your movable possessions. A lot of trouble is caused by people squabbling over who gets this vase or that picture, or who is actually responsible for getting rid of what no-one wants. I knew two sisters who fell out over who had to get rid of their aunt's empty jam-jars!

Do get the new will, if you decide to make one, drawn up properly by a solicitor who can advise you and make sure that the provisions are actually legal.

Totally, totally wrong to leave unequal legacies in my opinion. Perhaps you can tell from my first sentence how strongly I feel about this.

My husband is one of three children. He has a younger sister and a younger brother. The sister had lots of financial help when raising her children; we had none. The brother is now approaching 70, and still living at home, doesn't want to work apparently. You can imagine the situation.

My husband and I have worked hard all our lives and we think his family's view of us is that because we run our own (very) small business, we must therefore be well-off, whereas the other two are or have been very dependent.

Oddly, rather than ever say they are proud of our achievements, his parents have always said how sorry they are for the other two and twice now they have said they will leave their house to the son eventually, leaving nothing to my husband.

He feels hurt and angry because there has always been an unspoken acknowledgement of love unequally divided. You may say love and money don't balance; however, to feel so shoved aside over the years and then to understand this will be shown in a final way by the physical inequality re inheritance ... well, I have seen my husband reduced to tears and depression by all this and I wouldn't want another family to go through the same thing. It's been awful.

I repeat, I cannot express sufficiently how morally wrong this can be.

I've got an odd situation here at the moment. Some years ago DD1 who is in property, suggested I bought a new build house to let out - to give me income to support my pension. At the time, we were better off, so to try and keep part of it from my estate, DD bought it jointly - at least on paper. I put down a hefty deposit, pay the mortgage, the tax, all the bills, so I keep the income. However, when I die the house will pass to her as her name is on the mortgage. At the moment, I've a will leaving substantially more to DD2, as DD1 will be able to retain the rental house and the income from it. They both know about this and both agree I've done the right thing.
Should I sell the house, I shall adjust my will to leave everything 50/50.

Leave it as it was ! Split it equally .

Keep it equal.
I have experience of hurt involved when differences made.
''Poor'' siblings on both sides of family favoured over achievers because achievers were ''all right''

Personally, I think the idea that children have an entitlement to their parents' estate when the time comes is antiquated and pays no attention to what role those children have played in their parents' lives. It's a question of relationships. Children who choose to emigrate to improve the quality of their own lives, leaving their sibling(s) to be around to help their parents as they become older and might need assistance don't deserve to be granted an equal share of their parents' estate. That's the whole purpose of writing a will - so that the person leaving the estate can decide what to do with it. What would drive my thinking is the good to which the money would be put.

We have made our wills leaving a sum of money to each grandchild (currently four) then the remainder divided equally between our three children. Think this is very fair as it acknowledges our love for our grandchildren while being fair to our children as well. Our older two children have two children each and as yet our youngest doesn't have any but that could well change.

Split equally regardless of circumstances - don't use money to show favour to one child. You cannot predict the future

My DF left 4 of us 49, 48, 23 and 16.
So the 16 yo was left the house (£395000 value) and £350000 in trust. The 23 yo got £50000 and the expensive personal affects. The 48 yo got £5000 - but he did buy her a house 20 years ago. I didn't get a mention. But heyho it certainly leaves you knowing where you stand with your parents. I don't resent my siblings at all - it's only money. I felt hurt but i have now been able to lay that relationship to rest in my mind. I spent most of my life trying to hold on for something that wasn't there and this has been the final slam of the door making sure i know my place - which isn't as a daughter but as a mother and Grandma to my own family.
So OP i guess it's up to you how you want your children to feel after you have gone.
You can open investment accounts for your gcs and these can be added to when you wish.

Following discussion with our two children we made wills in favour of the grandchildren, by passing them. Both are comfortably off . We were so pleased that they agreed.

Having been through this myself re my mother's will, I would not change your will. It can cause so much resentment and upset.

My will is split between my 2 daughters. At the time I did not have grandchildren. I now have 4 x The Solicitor added 'Issues' If one daughters dies then her Issues or children get her share of the money x

I am one of three. My mother left one-third to my eldest sister (no children), me (no children) and one-sixth to each of my other sister’s 2 sons. The sister who had the boys was miffed that she hadn’t been left anything, and said she should have had a third, and given the boys something from that. You can’t please everybody!

My current will splits my estate between my two sons but I am contemplating a three way split now with one third being divided between my two granddaughters.

I have read the responses you have received OP and I haven’t noticed anyone commenting on the situation regarding your second husband. (apologies if I am wrong)

It does not matter if you have kept your finances separate. If you are legally married your husband has rights over your estate. What these are depends entirely on where you live.
I purposely have not remarried, though live with my OH. We both have our own money which will go to our own children. Had we married this would not have been the case.

I trust my OH completely. He would abide by my wishes even if we were married but I have no way of knowing what our end of life situations might be and no way would I want my children’s inheritance (which ultimately was their father’s) be used up in nursing home fees incurred by my OH.

I suggest you consult a solicitor.

My parents, at one time , wanted to disinherit my older siblings and leave everything to us two younger children. I didn’t want them to do that as it would have caused trouble and I didn’t want either of my parents to feel bad ‘at the end’. They divided everything equally and let us decide what our children got. After all , the GC would inherit from us. I think it was fair.

I would go with leaving your estate to be divided equally between AC then to GC if any of the AC dies before they can inherit. If you can afford it you can give something to any of the AC who might need some help. Always a difficult decision.

Our DPs left their estate to be divided equally between AC, as well as leaving the same amount of money for each child, irrespective of amount of children etc. They also left a small amount each for DGC. As circumstances had changed after one had died, the other added money for each of DGGC. Not much at all in total but the kind thought was very much appreciated by everyone. Please don't treat any recipient differently from their 'equals'. If you want to help any AC out with something specific, do it now.

My suggestion would be that you talk to your children and agree between you what they would be happy with, rather than have them upset later. And assure them that you love them equally.
Other than that, a percentage to be shared amongst the grandchildren and the rest to be divided equally amongst the children, is what I would do. Fortunes can improve or decline so we never know what their futures will bring, eg ill health or a lottery win.
The grandchildren's share to be put into an account which they cannot touch until they are adults, which hopefully would leave time for others to be born and to have a share.

Definitely leave it as it is.
Putting myself in the place of your older childless children, I wouldn't be happy if the youngest was given more than me because he/she had.
Maybe they were unable to have or chose not to have children.
All three should have equal amounts in my opinion with your youngest giving a share of their inheritance to their children if they wish to.

My brother has no children whereas I have two. My father (mother predeceased him) left specific legacies to my two children, and the remainder of his estate was left to bro and I. He did also set up a Trust which avoided IHT

Not read all PP but I have just made a new Will leaving 10% to my GCs. I don't know if you will have to pay IHT but leaving for grandchildren means this is not paid twice. I don't see how leaving to GC to inherit when they are 18 can be objected to by your childless children. There is a very simple Trust for minors that does not incur any extra taxes if they inherit at 18 and it can be used by parents for them before that age.

That is - 10% of my estate to EACH GC.

My colleague has just done the following in her will. Both AC get half her estate with the son getting 50%of his share the other 50% divided between his children the daughter getting 70% of her share with 30% to be divided between her children if she has any. This has been discussed with both and agreed as son had a private education and the daughter did not.

one note of caution. If you leave money for grandchildren, to be saved until they are adults, make sure you tie it up so it can't be touched. Not because your children want to touch your grandchildrens money, but if the children ever lose their jobs/become disabled, and reliant on benefits, DWP class the childrens savings as the parents if it is only in an childs bank account with the parents name alongside.

Leave equal amounts to your children. That is The fairest way to do it. My two AC both have children. One has two the other three. Leaving it to them would mean it isn’t a fair split. The GC will have their inheritance to come from their parents.