In situation like in #36, the best thing would be if caregivers are compensated in some fashion. What’s left after that in the estate can be divided equally.
My uncle was in his 50’s when he died; the kids were in their teens and early twenties. My uncle had left the kids’ mother for another woman a couple of years before he died so there were a lot of unresolved hostilities between the kids and their dad at the time of his death.
There was no reason to be estranged from my grandmother that I know of, however. Their mother was/ is my godmother and she still sends me birthday cards every few years or so, so it is not like the mother cut off our entire side of the family. And the kids were grown up enough to maintain a relationship with my grandmother if they had chosen to do so. They all lived far away and did send Christmas cards with pictures of their kids to my grandmother, but nothing beyond that. I regularly attempted to facilitate contact but they were just not interested.
I agree that when the work is unevenly falling on one or two people (as often happens), it is better if they receive some financial compensation and then things are divided AFTER the compensation for all the hard work that was done instead of windfalls for folks who really had little to no contact for whatever reason.
;))
Well, you might not have done it that way, and you don’t like how your grandmother did it, but perhaps for her it was all about the blood relationship.
It usually would be fair to have some way to apportion some reward for caregiving. But its also true, sometimes, that since caregiving comes with proximity the caregiver may have benefited in the past with assistance on childcare and other benefits of having the parents nearby. It all depends on the specifics of the situation.
Its very hard to sort this stuff out in a way that seems/is “fair” to all.
It’s disheartening that in the majority of families spouses of offspring are assumed to be unworthy of inheritance. I wonder if it is possible for surviving heirs to redistribute estate assets voluntarily without violating the terms of the trust. I suppose one solution would be to gift a portion of the inheritance to the surviving spouse and file gift tax disclosures if the amount is over $14,000.
It seems natural to me that most people would want their money to go to their grandkids rather than the surviving spouse. And as long as the surviving spouse is not having severe financial problems, no one is really missing out. There could be some special cases where a family was bankrupted by medical bills during a final illness, where it might make sense to leave some money to the spouse. But in that case it would make more sense to give the money to the spouse sooner rather than have them wait out a possible inheritance.
A friend is estranged from her married son. Her will now leaves his share to his kids. I’m hoping they reunite before that bequest gets distributed. Can’t figure out the estrangement, so of course I blame her DIL, as does she. If everyone had a problem with her, I could see where her son might have a need to distance himself, but she has friends she’s had for decades and is otherwise on good terms with the rest of her family. I want her grandkids to know she wanted to get to know them, and hope they find that out before she dies.
Thanks for the clarification on the Generation Skipping Tax, @JHS. It’s been a while. I couldn’t remember when it applies, but I know it’s a killer when it does.
My mother eventually made a new will after my father died. I told her I thought that if either my sister or I predeceased her, the fair thing would be for my share or hers to go to our respective children. She asked about leaving something to my H, but I discouraged it. For one thing, when H inherited from his father, he kept the assets separate from our finances. I wouldn’t have thought of doing so, but now I intend to do the same, should it arise. (doG knows, my mother might outlive me!) Secondly, to be fair that would mean she should leave something to my BIL, who has long been the beneficiary of substantial trust funds and inheritances.
It makes sense to me not to leave money to the surviving spouse. Let’s say the surviving spouse got remarried. The money could very well leave the family.
In my experience, it’s not the spouses who are thought unworthy. It’s the children that those spouses had – or will have in the future – with other partners.
My mother divorced my father and later remarried. Her new husband had four children from a previous marriage. My mother set up her will in a way that would ensure that his children would not inherit from her and was so adamant about having this wish carried out that she made my father – her ex-husband – her executor! She figured that no one else would be as highly motivated to protect the interests of the children they had raised together.
For very long marriages I think of the surviving spouse as an equal member of the family, regardless of whether the marriage produced children. I guess it’s easy enough to include them in the estate plan, but the advice from estate attorneys is almost always to follow the bloodline. Which reminds me of the Netflix show Bloodline, talk about heirs unworthy of their inheritance!
Well the nice thing about CC is that the explanations here, often are a lot easier to understand than what the lawyers tell you.
My brother did almost all the caretaking for my Mom in the last few years of his life. (And honestly his wife even more than him.) They had quite a bit of work done on the house while she was there - some to make it livable for her, some just because. They said they knew they needed to pay it back, but honestly the rest of us siblings think they deserve every penny of it.
As for whether I really care if the money goes to people who are not direct descendents. If I died tomorrow and my dh had a new family. I can’t say it matters to me if some of that money went to his new wife - though obviously I wouldn’t want our own kids completely cut out. He’s brought more money into the marriage through income, I brought more from inheritence. I have no idea what would be fair. I’m okay with fair enough.
If the child and spouse were both still living at the time of the inheritance, and the child inherited a share and then died thereafter, the surviving spouse would likely get that money and it could leave the family anyways.
How much money are we talking about that people are so concerned with it “leaving the family”?
I love my spouse. I don’t think my spouse is suddenly going to go gaga and cut our children out of his will. But it’s no just MY money. Its OUR money.
Did anybody here grow up in a family where the running joke was “we are spending our last dollar on our last day!?”
I hope my parents do! They have earned it.
Of course I understand some of the complicating factors that get going, and how these issues can lead to division in families. That is too bad. I don’t think most normal parents envision that, but it can and will happen in many families, even over small stuff.
The family hurt happens when the surviving spouse re-marries, and then dies. The new surviving spouse inherits everything, and the kids from the first marriage get left out. Part of it is the money (or the heirlooms), and part is just the feeling that both parents are gone and they didn’t leave you anything.
The way to avoid it is for everyone to have a well thought out estate plan, that is communicated clearly to all concerned. Also everyone should eat 5 servings of vegetables a day, and exercise 30 minutes a day, and save for a rainy day, and wear sunscreen. But since there are a lot of things we know we ought to do that we leave undone, you can count on plenty of people not thinking through or executing a comprehensive estate plan, and causing hurt to their families.
We often tie money with love. People who are leaving inheritance may use it to show who they love and people who are receiving inheritance also view it as how much they are loved, and that’s why a will is so meaningful. It is not the amount of money, but how it is distributed.
We have 4 siblings in my family, 2 sons and 2 daughters. One of my brothers and I do the most for my mother (my dad passed away few years ago). My brother takes care everything around the house for my mom (from 2000 miles away) and I take care of all her finances. I visit her every 2 weeks. My other brother and sister barely do anything for my mom, other than visiting her over the holidays. I think toward the end of my mom’s life it would be my brother and I doing the bulk of caring for my mom.
I am the executor for my mom’s will. I helped her with her will. I told her to distributed it 4 ways equally because if she didn’t she would just leave behind too much hurt behind her. My other brother and sister would just believe my mom didn’t love them the same and that would be a lot to carry. I know I am not looking after my mom hoping for more inheritance. My brother and I are doing it because she is our mother period.
If siblings don’t share in caregiving of a parent or parents, then they don’t deserve to inherit equally, IMHO. It is a tremendous strain (mentally, physically, possibly financially) for the (usually, one) sibling who does the caregiving, particularly if a sick elder doesn’t end up in a facility (and, often, even if they do).