Wills and inheirtance

kaydee said:
Is it wrong to leave more of your assets to one child over another?
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You can do whatever you’d like with your money. It you preferred one child over the others and want that child to reap the rewards of your decision, it’s certainly not against the law. It will probably create division amongst the siblings but you won’t have to worry about that cause you won’t be there.
 
kaydee said:
Well I have one child that wont speak to me at all and has treated me badly for years, the other 2 love me, but one has social anxiety issues and I think he should have a trust.
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In my view, you have every right to discriminate based on the support you've received and the relationships you have with some children vs. others. A child that won't speak to you at all and has treated you badly for years doesn't deserve your inheritance.
 
kaydee said:
Well I have one child that wont speak to me at all and has treated me badly for years, the other 2 love me, but one has social anxiety issues and I think he should have a trust.
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Sometimes, it doesn't matter. My sister abandoned our mother for the last 7 years of her life. I took care of her, even though she didn't deserve it - she was a raging witch but I just couldn't abandon her; especially when she became bedridden. Our mother excluded her from her will, but I split everything with my sister, anyway.
Once you're gone, your kids can do anything they want. Besides, if you favor one kid over the other, it will likely cause fighting & legal battles. And attorneys will get most of the money.
 
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There is no law stating that parents owe their kids an inheritance but many kids think they deserve it all. If there is anything left after my expenses it will go to charity. Some parents will take an objective look at each child's ability to survive with, and without, an inheritance and they divide up the assets according to need. I knew a lady who disliked her son leaving him $10,000 while her daughter got the million dollar house. The taxman will profit, so use a trust to mitigate the tax burden.
Read The Millionaire Next Door for some interesting takes on kids, inheritance and how the other half lives.
 
kaydee said:
Is it wrong to leave more of your assets to one child over another?
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I think it would be cruel in most situations, unless one of the kids is a murderer or something. Or if one of the kids is homeless, and one is a millionaire and you’ve talked about it to them first, so there’s less of a chance of hard feelings afterwards. Remember, this is how they’re going to remember you forever. I would be devastated if my mother did that.
 
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If you leave more to one than another you will be cursed by the other for all eternity. Unless you have an egregious reason, it is very wrong, and horrible to contemplate. Don't do it, if you must, have the guts to tell them while you're alive.
 
seadoug said:
In my view, you have every right to discriminate based on the support you've received and the relationships you have with some children vs. others. A child that won't speak to you at all and has treated you badly for years doesn't deserve your inheritance.
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There’s always two sides to every story
There’s usually a good reason children have a ‘no contact’ relationship with a parent
 
My husband’s mother left everything to him as he took care of her until she died.
He had a sister who married a very wealthy man and his mother didn’t think she needed anything.
My husband’s sister never spoke to him again ( as if it was his doing!) she also forbade her 2 adult children to ever see us again. We had been very close to them.
 
Marian said:
My husband’s mother left everything to him as he took care of her until she died.
He had a sister who married a very wealthy man and his mother didn’t think she needed anything.
My husband’s sister never spoke to him again ( as if it was his doing!) she also forbade her 2 adult children to ever see us again. We had been very close to them.
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family and money , never mix @Marian
 
Marian said:
My husband’s mother left everything to him as he took care of her until she died.
He had a sister who married a very wealthy man and his mother didn’t think she needed anything.
My husband’s sister never spoke to him again ( as if it was his doing!) she also forbade her 2 adult children to ever see us again. We had been very close to them.
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It probably felt like a final rejection to be completely written out the will, even if she didn't need the money. I don't think parents think of the laws of unintended consequences when the make these unequal wills.
 
I don’t have much but still I had a meeting with all my kids about funds and assets distribution after I die, so that there are no hard feelings. But we’ve always been a very close family, the kids are all close to each other, so that makes it easy.

I’m not sure what I’d choose If one kid was alienated from the others, or from me. All I can say is that it’s not my job to control my adult kids choices with whatever I leave them, or to mitigate their feelings by my choices. That said, I know me so I’d also be focused on creating as little I’ll will as possible between them in the hopes that there might be a reconciliation in the future.
 
My dad was an angry and violent man who caused a lot of rifts in the family, but in the end, he left everything to us exactly equally. That really went a long way to me forgiving what he did to us in his life. He seemed to have favorites among my siblings when we were little, but he left them the same inheritance as us "black sheep". I appreciated that and will remember more fondly because of that.
 

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