It's their choice Op. But it's not fair - when it's not equal

My siblings and I were recently informed that we will each get $100K and our two half siblings (same mom) will split the rest of the estate (about $10M). My mother and stepfather married when I was five and had two children together. We all lived in the same house together (not in the same state ans my father but we visited him regularly). Our father passed away suddenly and tragically a couple of years ago and we will receive an inheritance from him, but nothing mindblowing.

No sibling issues because no one was consulted but WTAF?

My parents already give unequal financial help to my poorer siblings and it makes me kind of bitter, because 1) we aren't so rich where having that extra money wouldn't be greatly appreciated and 2) my siblings made the choice to live more carefree and irresponsibly while I live a more disciplined and stable life, and have made sacrifices to do this.

With our kids we're going to make it clear that money will be divided equally unless barring some kind of disability. I don't want to reward one of my kids for making poor choices or punish the other kid for making better choices.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a special needs child who is high functioning. My parents wanted to leave a larger part of their estate to my child, and my sibling who has kids of their own was fine with it. However, these are the only cousins my child sees on a more regular basis. I do not want relationships with their cousins to be an issue down the road with an unequal inheritance. I asked my parents to keep it equal.

That was stupid on your part. Hopefully you will be leaving a substantial amount towards your child care

Thankfully, we have been fortunate to do well financially to leave a substantial trust. You never know what will happen in the future like disability or special needs kids of their own in the next generation.

Anonymous wrote:I'm glad we won't have this problem. Money just makes people aholes even when they think they aren't.

Aholes are aholes no matter what - even if money isn't involved in estate settlement. When one of my siblings died, all he literally had was a junker car and less than $1k to his name.

And guess which sibling resulted running up more than $2k in legal bills fighting the other siblings over miniscule sentimental items like t-shirts and ball caps?

Yup...the sibling who has been a flaming ahole their entire life.

Anonymous wrote:I have a special needs child who is high functioning. My parents wanted to leave a larger part of their estate to my child, and my sibling who has kids of their own was fine with it. However, these are the only cousins my child sees on a more regular basis. I do not want relationships with their cousins to be an issue down the road with an unequal inheritance. I asked my parents to keep it equal.

That was stupid on your part. Hopefully you will be leaving a substantial amount towards your child care

I'm glad we won't have this problem. Money just makes people aholes even when they think they aren't.

Get an attorney involved to manage setting up the estate and help plan (and clearly lay out) distribution of assets now and going forward.

The idea of having everything open/transparent and mutually agreed to (as a pp suggested w/ everyone signing off) is excellent.

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think there is anything to be done. Your parents are alive and free to spend their money as they see fit. That said, if they want to change the parameters of their will to draw down from a sibling’s portion, that’s their purgative, but outside of that there isn’t anything you need to do. I’m not sure what “long term consequences” you’re referring to unless you’re talk about harmony between the siblings.

FWIW, I’m also the wealthier sibling and my parents have absolutely given both of my siblings more money through the years but their will designates 3rds.

I'm the "weathier sibling" in our case. My parents have given extra for that sibling's kids for college. Otherwise things will be split evenly. However, we (spouse and I) paid mid 6 figures for parents to enter a CCRC and constantly help out with "extras they want but refuse to buy despite being able to". So as part of estate settlement, we will get paid back that ~$500K plus interest. As such, most likely the other sibling will NOT receive anything, as estate won't be worth much after that. Now, I don't "need" it to be paid back, but the sibling has always been entitled and hasn't tried to help themselves (they make decent money and just blow thru it). So I most likely will let my parent's estate "pay me back"accordingly. I did request that my parents inform the sibling of that a decade ago when we made the CCRC payment. Sibling was not happy.

This is tricky.
My MIL is constantly bailing out 2 of my DH siblings - he has 6.
The rest of the sibling are angry about this. They grew up poor and worked hard and 2 of the siblings are moochers.
DH has encourage his mom to leave everyone equal amounts.
It has led us to double down on the fact that every one of our children gets an equal share.
However, we have never helped out any of them and likely won't, unless it's an emergency.
It's tiring being the responsible sibling but MIL gives the two screw ups all the attention. We'll never let that happen to our own nuclear family.

Usually the rule is give equal unless there are serious medical needs/special needs. However, if the adult children are totally fine with unequal due to life circumstances, etc and there is open discussion and input, I don't think it should be an issue.

My dysfunctional mother told me I would get more during the period of time she was angry with my Golden child sister and I insisted it be equal. My sister is litigious and difficult and while I don't plan to have a relationship with her, I don't want to be entangled in a lawsuit and hostility.

Fast forward to our aging mother losing it and being angry that I was pushing for a dementia evaluation and expressing concerns and my sisters convinces her not to get evaluations and to give her massive handouts and a larger inheritance.Mom presented it to me as punishment for being concerned about her health.

It won't impact our relationship because I don't plan to have one and I am not surprised this happened. It was hard to hear the sob story about why she deserves it when she blew through so much money making her ex husband's life a living hell, she had regular maid service (I never had a maid), she got fired from her job and decided to just get handouts from mom rather than find a new one. The best part is after years of me being there for mom, when she is in town and there is an emergency she tries to demand I handle it and blows up when I expect her to be a grown up and deal with it.

Ultimately it’s your parents money, they are free to do as they please yada yada yada. The reality from what I have seen however is that unequal inheritances inevitably lead to resentments whether covert or overt, even among the most saintly people.

It seems your parents have told you their intentions, which are to pre-pay some of your sister’s inheritance upfront which means less $$ later. I wonder if your sister is aware of this fact. The pp who mentioned every transaction was documented in writing keeps everyone looped in. As your parents age, memories are not as reliable.

We are in a similar situation in that my in-laws are giving large sums of money to a sibling who is going through hard times. My parents have done the same on a smaller scale. My sibling was a one time thing and there has been no drama at all, it’s their money and I would do the same.

With my IL, the biggest crisis happened as partly the result of poor choices, they have definitely been taken advantage of as well and it’s a sad situation. I think it’s a bit harder there because it’s more of a pattern, they have given large sums of money to siblings many times and made very little effort to get the sibling to make more reasonable life style choices so they need to be bailed out repeatedly. It ends up feeling a bit more like funding a lifestyle for sibling they pretty obviously can’t afford , and one we don’t enjoy ourselves despite having a much larger HHI (that we work hard for)

Both parents have offered to account for these payments in their will and in both cases we have said that we prefer to keep things even to prevent drama with siblings. I asked my parents to not tell me details about the extent of money they are transferring or what it’s going towards, again on the basis it’s not my money so I don’t need to know about it and it might be annoying to hear details. Personally I have found that very helpful. I choose to believe my parents did what they needed to do and I don’t want to know enough to feel they are giving *too much* or something.

I think my husband continues to think he has taken the right approach (we value our relationship with all our siblings and especially nieces and nephews). But he knows way that his parents have given a lot of money over the years (they could not afford to give us a similar amount and remain comfortable I think) and I think DH occasionally feels both worried about his parents own financial situation and feels resentful when his sibling is enjoying luxuries that are they honestly can’t afford.

Your sisters situation sounds a lot more similar to mine, tbh, unless you feel jealous she’s a SAHM and you can’t afford that or something? If possible I would try to be gracious and thankful that your parents can help her in this really difficult time.

If they have that level of wealth presumably they have an estate plan / will / trust in place - if not they should! And the lawyer who set it up should be able to help with this.

I assume my (wealthy) parents will split inheritances equally, but who knows.

I assume my (not very wealthy) in-laws will leave just about everything to the son who has lived with them and helps take care of them and their home