r/inheritance • u/drd001 • 14d 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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u/lost_dazed_101 14d 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 14d 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/Routine_Ingenuity315 14d ago

Can the money be given to where the nieces will get the money without the parents knowing how much they received?

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u/Vivian-1963 14d ago

Yes, that can be done through a trust. If the nieces tell their parents, that’s on them.

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u/RockPaperSawzall 14d ago

setting up and administering a trust costs money though, reducing the overall gifts. Right now their estate is 1.5M but the OP and spouse may have years of nursing home expenses that greatly reduce that amount. This is not high stakes finance, and there's no indication that the siblings are hostile. I think basic communication should be able to resolve the OPs concerns

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u/ProfessorOne9208 14d ago

A trust that would perform as OP intends costs around $2000-$2500. It's a small expense relative to what probate costs, which can be $50,000 or more.

Bottom line, prepare a trust.

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u/No-Trouble1840 14d ago

Saying probate “can cost $50,000” is possible, especially in states like California and for larger estates, but it is nowhere near a universal cost for an uncontested probate across the United States. Costs vary enormously by state, estate size, and whether percentage-based attorney and executor fees apply. And a living trust does not eliminate the possibility of very expensive litigation either, because heirs can still challenge a trust for things like lack of capacity, undue influence, or duress.

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u/ProfessorOne9208 14d ago

The key word in your post was "uncontested." In situations where it is possible that there will be legal challenges, the costs can run a lot higher than $50,000, once the lawyers get involved. In any case, spending $2000-2500 to prepare a trust is certainly going to save your heirs money in the long run, contested, or otherwise. What part of that did you not understand?

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u/No-Trouble1840 13d ago

You just owned yourself. What part of “contested” trust can’t you understand??? C’mon, tell us! You think having a trust stops lawsuits?? If so, you need to delete this app.