Anonymous wrote:Do you plan to split it evenly?
How do you handle step children?
Second spouse?
Friend of mine lost her father recently. He gave one child most of the money and left one out completely. He apparently thought that he had spent enough on that one as an adult (drug addiction clinics).

This is what I would do. Sounds like the one child is entitled and spent his inheritance upfront.

interesting question. my mother will leave us some money/house (my dad's younger wife will be taking his $$$ thank you very much) but she wants to leave more to me than to my brother, because I have 2 kids and my brother, who is 44 and doesn't have kids and also makes much more than we do, probably wont. I understand her reasons, but I do not want it to impact my relationship with my brother, so I am urging to put some of it in a trust to her grandkids, leaving a small equal amount to me and my brother. I hope this is fair.

Anonymous wrote:In France every descendant is guaranteed under law an approximately equal share of the inheritance. Some may view this as State interference, but at least everybody knows where they stand and there are no dashed expectations and betrayals.

I think it is an equal share of half of the estate.

Anonymous wrote:Dividing things up unequally is almost never worth the drama it causes, unless you have one child who is severely disabled, and even then you have to be careful that you don't screw up any benefits they need by leaving them too much money. Even if one kid is well off and another isn't--fortunes do change. The well off kid could go through a layoff or become disabled, the not well-off kid could marry rich late in life. If one kid is getting a lot of gifts during life (for rehab or whatever), even it up while you are alive.

Evenly
Too bad if your kid needed rehab or whatever. That was a childs need you were supposed to provide.
Do not count on the changing of fortunes by marrying rich later in life. That rarely happens.

I told my mother to spend every dime she has and leave me just enough to buy a box of wine, so I can toast her passing.

Inheritances are nothing but trouble.

Equally. My parents asked me if I would be hurt if they left more to my brother (who chose to live in a lower COL area so he makes less, too). Damn right I'd be hurt & insulted -- I don't want or need their money, but if they leave more to him than to me, it just solidifies the favoritism they've shown him since childhood.

Those looking for a competent and relatively inexpensive estate lawyer, look up Scott Flanders in Vienna. He has set up a trust for us and arranged for everything for our children in the event of the death of DH or me, or both.

I've told my parents that if they want, they should feel free to leave a disproportionate amount to my sister. She works just as hard as I do (and does much more social good in her profession), but makes a fraction of what I do. I have no idea if they will do that, but I wanted them to know that they could if they wanted to.

Anonymous wrote:
I am sure MIL intends to be "more charitable" putting it too nicely - to SILs and not so to DH, even though he has done so much for the family and they basically would not be where they are without DH. She's just a sh*tty and arbitrary person. She is very old, otherwise it would never cross my mind. She squirrels it away, but I guarantee a lawsuit if she tries to shortchange DH. DH will gladly eat up any and all of what SIL gets if she is left more. He is seeing how rotten she is as time passes.

She should give it away before she dies even if she has to pay the gift tax. It isn't difficult to undertand why she doesn't like her son and his wife. Greedy, aren't you. It is her money and I hope all she leaves him is $1.00.

Anonymous wrote:Evenly. My spouse (first and only) have an estate plan that includes trusts to protect our kids' inheritance in the event of death followed by remarriage. I'll be goddamned if some 2nd wife is going to spend her way through what I've worked for and leave my kids out in the cold.

Dividing things up unequally is almost never worth the drama it causes, unless you have one child who is severely disabled, and even then you have to be careful that you don't screw up any benefits they need by leaving them too much money. Even if one kid is well off and another isn't--fortunes do change. The well off kid could go through a layoff or become disabled, the not well-off kid could marry rich late in life. If one kid is getting a lot of gifts during life (for rehab or whatever), even it up while you are alive.

This is what my stepmother is doing right now. As soon as she and my father married, she retired and started traveling all over the world. My father is still working (he owns a small business) and I am sure she will spend every last penny he has ever saved. She shops like crazy, has filled his beautiful restored Victorian with tacky Value City furniture, and at Christmas, lavishes her children with thousands of dollars worth of gifts while my sister and I get weird shirts from C-Mart. It is right out of a movie. I have already resigned myself to the fact that my sister and I will get nothing.

Split evenly between child and stepchild when we both pass away. There are college funds to go into trust if one of us dies while the kids are still minors and life insurance to give them an inheritance in case my husband dies while I am still relatively young or I die before inheriting my mom's rather large estate. (This is mainly for benefit of stepson, but we wanted to set things up evenly) Not all second wives are evil

Definitely set up a trust (unlike what the other person said, it should be a 'revocable living trust'). This can make things set up in any way and stipulate and series of events. For instace, if you would leave more to children with your grandkids or would not want money going to a child's spouse if your child died without children, all of this can be taken care of that way. For irresponsible children, you can have a 'sprinkled' trust - meaning money is doled out by the year, not in a lump sum. Anyway, it pays to have your estate this way to also avoid court probate for your heirs. It costs a couple thousand usually to pay someone to do this, plus a will, plus medical directives, but once you do it, it's done (and you can change it later on if you want). The Mike Collins firm did ours, and they were great. Well known group that does this.

Three parts - one third to each kid, one third to charity.

Anonymous wrote:
I am sure MIL intends to be "more charitable" putting it too nicely - to SILs and not so to DH, even though he has done so much for the family and they basically would not be where they are without DH. She's just a sh*tty and arbitrary person. She is very old, otherwise it would never cross my mind. She squirrels it away, but I guarantee a lawsuit if she tries to shortchange DH. DH will gladly eat up any and all of what SIL gets if she is left more. He is seeing how rotten she is as time passes.

if you're hubby is that litigious and angry, this sounds like a case of "rotten is as rotten does" ... hardly makes him or you come off looking good regardless of underlying merits.

I do think France (and other Civil law jurisdictions, which have similar requirements), it's more about protecting children from being disinherited by evil second spouses than anything. Historically, it's the concept of birthright. For common law jurisdictions (england, most of u.s.), it's all about not being able to impoverish the spouse (elective share), but mostly having independence to do as you wish.

Anonymous wrote:In France every descendant is guaranteed under law an approximately equal share of the inheritance. Some may view this as State interference, but at least everybody knows where they stand and there are no dashed expectations and betrayals.

Love France, always have, always will. But this does seem like one more way France encourages people not to stand on their own two feet. I'm personally all for equality in our family circumstances, but I can think of many reasons I'd like to make distinctions if circumstances were different (one sibling having received much more during my lifetime, one sibling providing greater care to family members, one sibling having provided financial support to other family members, etc.). I do think it's best to leave it to families to decide what's right, even if it does ruffle feathers.