Under what circumstances would you disinherit a grown child? (married, mother, adult)
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I was raised that there is no connection between familial love and being left money. They are completely detached. I expect nothing from my parents and will be pleasantly surprised if there is something left when my mother passes away. Anything she has will be split evenly between my brothers and I. Grandchildren don't factor in (I have two kids, one brother has 2, the other only has 1.
Since I divorced my husband rather than live with his neglect and allow my children to grow up thinking that his behavior was acceptable, I'm pretty poor. I'm not able to save more than a bare minimum for retirement. I plan to work until I'm dead. So I have no expectation that my children will have anything to inherit from me. Would I disinherit them if they had a gambling addiction? No...I think I would find a way that they could benefit from their share of my remaining assets without actually having carte blanche with the money. An iron clad trust of some kind.
Regardless, I have to say: there is NOTHING my kids could do that would make me stop loving them and stop giving them 100% of my approval and support.
You can't punish someone by withholding money if you don't give them money as a token of your love in the first place.
These are all excuses, I am interested in performance. It is never convenient to take care of an old and sick person, even if you have all the free time in the world. If you claim that you have other pressing needs and cannot participate in the care, then you should forfeit your inheritance in favor of the person who is stepping up to the plate and doing a difficult, time consuming, soul consuming, unpredictable, open ended horror of a job. I think the person who takes over the physical care should get almost all of the money on a sliding scale based on the time they invest. After 3 years of care, the caregiver should get it all unless the other kids contribute large amounts of cash to help with expenses and care. There is room to make judgment calls, but "I have a job and kids so I can't care for dad" is BS.
Care givers are undervalued in society because most people think nothing at all of using "other people's money" and "other people's time", which is, of course, the same thing.
Wow, I sure am glad my dad was more reasonable, as were my siblings. The estate was not split evenly, the caregiver got the larger share. And we were ALL fine with that.
Not all of us had cash to contribute and it was not necessary anyway. My dad had set it up so that any funds needed for his expenses, the caregivers expenses, or for upkeep on any of the properties, came out of the estate beforehand. The rest was then split.
But we all agreed the sibling was in the BEST position to do the care giving. I'm sure if he hadn't been there to do it we would have worked out another arrangement, probably with me being the caregiver. But it's kind of stupid to expect one sibling to give up a very specialized job he spent years training for, or for the other to move away from his own medical treatments and rearrange his life to care for my dad when the other sibling was more than willing and able to do it with minimal disruption to his own career or family life. Had it been me instead of him I certainly would not expect to inherit everything and see my siblings left out because they were less able to step up as easily.
If we go with your proposal I suggest people just leave everything to their nurses and paid caretakers and leave the family out altogether if they don't all come in and take turns taking care of dear old mom or dad.
(Would you cut out a grown child that was ailing because he let a more capable family member take on the care giving of an elderly parent? Really?)
I was raised that there is no connection between familial love and being left money. They are completely detached. I expect nothing from my parents and will be pleasantly surprised if there is something left when my mother passes away. Anything she has will be split evenly between my brothers and I. Grandchildren don't factor in (I have two kids, one brother has 2, the other only has 1.
Since I divorced my husband rather than live with his neglect and allow my children to grow up thinking that his behavior was acceptable, I'm pretty poor. I'm not able to save more than a bare minimum for retirement. I plan to work until I'm dead. So I have no expectation that my children will have anything to inherit from me. Would I disinherit them if they had a gambling addiction? No...I think I would find a way that they could benefit from their share of my remaining assets without actually having carte blanche with the money. An iron clad trust of some kind.
Regardless, I have to say: there is NOTHING my kids could do that would make me stop loving them and stop giving them 100% of my approval and support.
You can't punish someone by withholding money if you don't give them money as a token of your love in the first place.
I really like the way you put that last line, and I agree. I think our three know we love them all, and want only the best for them. And to carry it a bit further, I don't think the contents of the will should be disclosed before the reading. Nobody should have the expectation of an inheritance.
I really like the way you put that last line, and I agree. I think our three know we love them all, and want only the best for them. And to carry it a bit further, I don't think the contents of the will should be disclosed before the reading. Nobody should have the expectation of an inheritance.
Yeah, but....if you don't know how much money mom and dad have left, the contents of the will don't need to be hidden. It's hard to write a will that specifies "I leave 200K to John, 100K to sally and 500K to Bobby" because you don't know what the exact amount you are leaving behind will be. My Mom's will leaves her 'estate' split 3 ways. Period. My oldest brother is the executor and we trust him completely to be honest. We may disagree on the methods used to liquidate assets, but we won't argue about it.
I really like the way you put that last line, and I agree. I think our three know we love them all, and want only the best for them. And to carry it a bit further, I don't think the contents of the will should be disclosed before the reading. Nobody should have the expectation of an inheritance.
That brings up an interesting situation. My mother went to an attorney to have her will and POA for me written. She wanted me in the room when she discussed what she wanted (She lived with me for 10 years before going into assisted living.) He brought it to Wednesday night dinner at church to have her sign it. (Very unprofessional). She barely glanced at it and signed it right there and brought the copies home to put in her lock box in her closet.
When she got sick and it was time for me to file and use the POA, I got all her legal papers out to go over them and since I thought I knew what was in the will I read it too. Boy what a shock! Nothing like what she discussed with the attorney and very strange with unfamiliar names, dates, etc.
Turned out it was NOT her will at all and somebody's else's information mixed up with her own.
When she got better I handed it to her and asked her if she read what she signed. Her response was "No, not really. I didn't want it to look like I didn't trust him". Being the fine Southern Lady that she was. We immediately found a new attorney to draw up a new will. She would not let me confront the original attorney cause she "didn't want to make a fuss".
If I hadn't read that will no telling what mess we would have had when she died.
The horrible thing about it is my father was an attorney and always emphasized DON'T SIGN ANYTHING WITHOUT READING IT ENTIRELY"
Yeah, but....if you don't know how much money mom and dad have left, the contents of the will don't need to be hidden. It's hard to write a will that specifies "I leave 200K to John, 100K to sally and 500K to Bobby" because you don't know what the exact amount you are leaving behind will be. My Mom's will leaves her 'estate' split 3 ways. Period. My oldest brother is the executor and we trust him completely to be honest. We may disagree on the methods used to liquidate assets, but we won't argue about it.
It's better to NOT have surprises.
You can write it up to leave percents or something. My uncle did something like that. He had no kids, just nieces and nephews. Of course, by the time he died, it was all gone.
I still personally favor an equal split.
Quote:
Originally Posted by no kudzu
That brings up an interesting situation. My mother went to an attorney to have her will and POA for me written. She wanted me in the room when she discussed what she wanted (She lived with me for 10 years before going into assisted living.) He brought it to Wednesday night dinner at church to have her sign it. (Very unprofessional). She barely glanced at it and signed it right there and brought the copies home to put in her lock box in her closet.
When she got sick and it was time for me to file and use the POA, I got all her legal papers out to go over them and since I thought I knew what was in the will I read it too. Boy what a shock! Nothing like what she discussed with the attorney and very strange with unfamiliar names, dates, etc.
Turned out it was NOT her will at all and somebody's else's information mixed up with her own.
When she got better I handed it to her and asked her if she read what she signed. Her response was "No, not really. I didn't want it to look like I didn't trust him". Being the fine Southern Lady that she was. We immediately found a new attorney to draw up a new will. She would not let me confront the original attorney cause she "didn't want to make a fuss".
If I hadn't read that will no telling what mess we would have had when she died.
The horrible thing about it is my father was an attorney and always emphasized DON'T SIGN ANYTHING WITHOUT READING IT ENTIRELY"
In this case, I agree with your mom about not confronting the original attorney, though for different reasons. Just be done with that guy!
Location: Stuck on the East Coast, hoping to head West
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I think there's a difference between leaving unequal amounts (in an attempt to even things out) and completely disinheriting. For one thing, when you completely disinherit a child, you have to take very specific legal steps so that child can't sue (at least in my state). That a parent would go to such lengths is telling.
My kids are grown and they know whatever is left is to be divided equally. They also know that that is my intent and I think intent is what matters most.
I think there's a difference between leaving unequal amounts (in an attempt to even things out) and completely disinheriting. For one thing, when you completely disinherit a child, you have to take very specific legal steps so that child can't sue (at least in my state). That a parent would go to such lengths is telling.
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It is telling. I don't believe that it always means the child was some kind of horrible person.
I really can't imagine any circumstance under which I would disinherit my own child completely. It's like saying they were never my child at all, and I can't say that.
I've seen both sides of this dilemma in my family. One was a mom who left her only valuable asset, her house to her son. She had a few married daughters with families or their own, but didn't have any money to leave them. The son was the only one who physically cared his mom in her later years when she was unable to walk or take care of herself. He gave up his own house to move in with her so he could take care of her. I think I would have done the same thing, but I was speaking to his sister and she was very upset that she didn't get part of the house, not for the money, but she took that as a sign that Mom didn't love her as much and loved the son more.
The other family.. 2 sons and a daughter. Son's were married and doing well, daughter was a drug addict whose SO had a gambling problem and that mom left the daughter out of the will completely. The ironic thing is the daughter doesn't blame the mom for leaving her out of the will. She blames her brothers and hasn't spoke to them in years.
I already told my kids i plan on spending it all before I go.
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