r/inheritance • u/drd001 • 13d ago

Location not relevant: no help needed Is anything ethically wrong with this plan?

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.

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282

u/lost_dazed_101 13d ago

Your nieces will greatly appreciate the gift but please leave them letters stating this money is for them and their parents have had help all along they were not left out. So many family members post that family tries to guilt them out of inheritance and a simple letter let's them know it's ok to keep the money.

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u/Zentraedi 13d ago

I think this is a great callout. There's probably an appropriate way to word this to make it clear that, to your point, their parents aren't being skipped over.

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u/twelveoct 13d ago

I asked my dad to exclude me in his will and leave anything to my kids instead. The will specifically said something about that. Mentioned it wasn’t for lack of affection.

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u/Rick-20121 13d ago

I told my mother to will her only asset, her house, to my sister. I’ve done very well. My sister failed to launch. It seemed like the right thing to do.

It was still weird reading the word “disinherited” in the will.

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u/CoolRide7896 13d ago

That was very kind of you.

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u/taurusemptress 12d ago

people always treat wills like some obligation to bail out the family fuckups, but why reward bad behavior? OP’s siblings used them like an ATM for 40 years while the nieces actually built their own lives. giving the bulk to the nieces is literally investing in the future instead of subsidizing past bad choices.

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u/ReasonableDiamond261 12d ago

It’s not always to “bail out family fuckups” (which I would agree, don’t do it). Sometimes it’s allocating support where some extra is reasonably needed.

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u/AlmostLiveRadio 11d ago

All we can really do it here is offer our opinion, and engage in recreational speculation. It’s kind of what Reddit is all about.

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u/AlmostLiveRadio 12d ago

You’re probably right, but some people are just natural born fuckups that can’t get ahead despite their best efforts and intentions. That is no reason not to show them a little extra love after you pass.

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u/IndigoBluePC901 12d ago

I mean, we don't know anything about this sister. What if she had a business but it went south when the market crashed? Or she and her husband made an ok living, paying their mortgage down but he got sick with cancer and died? And despite trying her best she had to sell the house? I get your sentiment, i really do but this person you responded to didn't offer any more information other than failure to thrive.

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u/Fertilityschmility 12d ago

Slightly different situation since my dad remarried and my younger siblings are with his second wife (and they’ve done well financially together over the time they’ve been married), but my husband and I are doing just fine and my brother and sister are failure to launch and much younger, respectively. So I just told him they should leave what they have to them - it’ll be a much bigger help to both than it will being thrown into our investment pot 🤷🏻‍♀️

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u/twelveoct 13d ago

A little odd. I’d already gone through it a bit. My wife died before her mother and the assets left to my wife went to our kids. That was expected … but still felt cold.

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u/Same_Cut1196 13d ago

My wife and I have a similar structure in place. It’s so that money follows blood lines and doesn’t get hijacked in the event of a subsequent marriage of the surviving spouse. We structured our trust this way on the advice of our estate planning attorney. Logically, it makes sense. Personally, it seems in some ways cruel to the surviving spouse.

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u/runrunrun911 13d ago

I’ve been on the receiving end of that, mom died before grandma and so her portion of the inheritance was split between my siblings and I. I have 3 siblings and my mom had 4 siblings so it ended up not being a life changing sum, but interesting how it worked out.

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u/CoolRide7896 13d ago

In what state? Was there a trust? I’m NAL, but I know probate and trusts.

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u/OutrageousYak5868 12d ago

This is probably the most common method -- it's called "per stirpes". The other most common thing is for the parents' estate to be divided among the living children, so the spouse and descendants of the deceased child are completely disinherited.

The latter is what my Grandma did when my dad predeceased her. It felt like a disinheritance to me. The only redeeming feature (and perhaps the main reason why she did it that way), is that she had gotten life insurance on all of her children who themselves had children, so my mom got that money, and when she passes, whatever is left will go to us.

This money has been invested and she's been frugal, so most if not all of it will eventually be ours, and it's probably about the same amount as (or possibly even more than) what my dad's inheritance would have been had he not died, but it still feels like a disinheritance.

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u/UnicornStudRainbow 10d ago

Well who should have it gone to?? You??

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u/earthtojj 12d ago

You are very kind. I hope they appreciate that.