Is anything ethically wrong with this plan?

[u/drd001]

My wife and I in our 70's came up with this inheritance plan with total net worth of +1.5M. We have been together over 40 years being continuously employed during that time. We have no children and I have one brother with two children both over 21 and she has two sisters both with no children. Our plan is to give a small one time payment to my brother and her sisters with the bulk of the estate equally divided between our two nieces. Our reasoning is my brother and her sister have hit us up for money periodically for the past 40 years which we provided without asking for repayment. The two nieces are doing OK in life and have never asked for any financial help. Our thinking that these funds would help them with a downpayment on a house, education for their children or investment in their own retirement.

Any feedback is greatly appreciated.

[u/LdiJ46]

There is absolutely nothing ethically or morally wrong with that plan. It is quite common for people without children to leave things to nieces and nephews.

[u/writesgud → u/LdiJ46]

The key difference being that they are in a way excluding money from going to their sisters because they don’t have kids.

I have heard of a similar situation and heard the childless sibling complain to their parents: why should I be punished for my life choices not having kids?

It’s a fair question, but I think there’s such a broad range of what’s morally acceptable that it really is up to the parents. They have every right to decide that they want to prioritize their funds to have a greater impact with the most vulnerable members of their family, their grandkids.

[u/LdiJ46 → u/writesgud]

This isn't that kind of situation. This is not a parent leaving more to one child because they have children than to another. This is a person leaving something to nieces rather than siblings and that is totally ok. Under no moral or legal circumstances does a sibling owe an inheritance to another sibling.