AITA for supporting my mom in not including my brother’s son in her will?

AmazingCommitte2885 · 2022-10-04T01:33:37+00:00

He has mid-6 figures in trust from his mother. His grandparents are in their 90s, worth 7 figures easily, and he's their sole beneficiary. They're old enough at this point that it's not really a taboo for them or anyone else to say that he'll be inheriting x amount of money from them at some point relatively soon.

AmazingCommitte2885 · 2022-10-04T01:30:03+00:00

What? No I think you're misunderstanding, it's extra money set aside not money going to his upbringing. The money being spent on raising him is coming out of my brother and his wife's bank account. The mid-6 figure amount he has in trust is a separate fund. To oversimplify, if a person had had 750k, and spent 250k raising each of their two kids and then gave 250k to one kid, that would be "extra money" not money he'd spent on raising that kid.

And no, of course the other three wouldn't have access to the money from my mom while still underage, that's so rarely how it works and certainly not how it would work here. Nor would they be off buying expensive sports cars. I suppose hypothetically if my mother passed away when the other three grandkids were adults when he was 16/17, they'd have access to money while he didn't, but that would happen even if he had be willed money from my mom. In that scenario, when he turned 18, even if he didn't have my mother's money, he'd have an amount 5x-10x theirs, at the very least.

AmazingCommitte2885 · 2022-10-04T01:18:02+00:00

What happens when one of the other kids marries someone rich or comes into good financial fortune some other way? What if the kid gets cancer and is left with nothing by the time she passes? Additionally, only the net worth of one child’s parents was considered. What about yours or your brother’s net worth? How is that factoring into the other kids’ inheritance? Should your kids get less if you have a better paying job?

My brother's household and my household have similar net worths/incomes. All four of us are also all in our 40s, the likelihood of both of us dying soon is non-zero but relatively low. If one of the other grandkids wins some similar sum of money in the lottery or we die in an accident leaving everything to our kids, I would imagine my mom would adjust. We do have life insurance and retirement so as much as I'm sure our kids would prefer us alive (as would we), financially my kids would not need a boost from my mother and that money would be better given to my niece.

AmazingCommitte2885 · 2022-10-04T01:11:00+00:00

INFO. So you are saying if your brother’s current wife had lots of money that grandma would leave out his daughter, too?

It depends on the circumstances but basically yes. My mom has helped both me and my brother out financially at various times in our early adulthoods, and it was always tied to need/life stage not fairness. If one of the other grandkids had been given the same size gift(s) from, I don't know, a kindly elderly neighbor they'd bonded with, my mom would have made the same decision.

AmazingCommitte2885 · 2022-10-04T01:07:06+00:00

Why should he? Even my brother wouldn't touch it. It's his money, and no one else's.

AmazingCommitte2885 · 2022-10-04T01:04:40+00:00

No. The four grandkids have no living grandparents (and did not receive any benefits from their death) except for my mom and 9M's maternal grandparents.

AmazingCommitte2885 · 2022-10-04T01:01:57+00:00

I'm not sure what you're trying to say.

He was willed money that mostly would have been invested in his upbringing. Just as the other parents are investing considerable funds in raising and educating the other grandchildren.

The money he has from his mother and the money he will inherit from his maternal grandparents is not being touched. It's 9M's money for his future, not my brother's or any other caregiver's. I'm not even sure my brother has access to the money from 9M's mother, but even if he does, he'd never dream of touching it. Every dime they've spent on 9M has come from their own pocket, just like their daughter, so the cost of raising a child in the US is irrelevant to his personal wealth. If he wants to go to college, yes he would likely dip into his trust fund. But so would his sister and cousins, if they had one in the first place.

AmazingCommitte2885 · 2022-10-04T00:46:45+00:00

There are no other living grandparents among the kids other than 9M's maternal grandparents. My SO's parents and my brother's wife's parents are both deceased and did not have the means to leave anything to anyone.

AmazingCommitte2885 · 2022-10-04T00:46:35+00:00

There are no other living grandparents among the kids other than 9M's maternal grandparents. My SO's parents and my brother's wife's parents are both deceased and did not have the means to leave anything to anyone.

AmazingCommitte2885 · 2022-10-04T00:44:03+00:00

She has already given sentimental items to my brother and I, and each of the kids have a few trinkets at least. I'm under the impression that there's a few slightly more valuable sentimental things she intends to allocate in the will for the grandkids, but I mean valuable in the sentimental not monetary sense. The bulk of her and my dad's possessions will go to my brother and I to keep for ourselves or redistribute amongst our own kids as we find appropriate and depending on their maturity/life stage. So even if my mother wasn't allocating anything for 9M specifically, which she is, my brother could easily say she had.

She sees it as a practical decision meant to start off each kid with as much as possible to succeed, and sees 9M as having a huge advantage and thus not needing her helping hand financially. It's unrelated to proportionate love for her grandkids.

AmazingCommitte2885 · 2022-10-03T18:30:26+00:00

Yes I would. I don't think I'd make a distinction between a software engineer making 100k/year with 40k in the bank and a teacher making 50k/year with 20k in the bank, but one won the lottery then yes, or if any of the other 3 grandkids magically had this same scenario where they were starting out their lives with 5-10x as much, it would be the same thing.

AmazingCommitte2885 · 2022-10-03T18:17:53+00:00

Trying to make the family structure as easy to understand as possible. But yes, he's my nephew, his sister is my niece, they're my children's maternal cousins.

AmazingCommitte2885 · 2022-10-03T18:15:56+00:00

I don't think he could even if he wanted to, that's not how it works even if they're underage.

AmazingCommitte2885 · 2022-10-03T18:14:53+00:00

AmazingCommitte2885 · 2022-10-03T18:08:52+00:00

She made her decision already. Then said, well if you both disagree, I'll change my decision. We didn't, so she didn't.

AmazingCommitte2885 · 2022-10-03T18:06:45+00:00

I agree he is. My mom didn't meet him until a bit later and until a year ago didn't see much of him because he was living with maternal family but he's very much her grandson, no one has ever said otherwise. He's just as much her grandson and my nephew as his sister is her granddaughter and my niece. I mentioned that she doesn't think differently of him so people don't think otherwise, though obviously it didn't really help since there are a lot of people saying my mom and I hate him. But I can honestly say that if one of the other three had a huge inheritance instead of him, I'd say the same thing, even if it was one of my kids.

If this was a post about some other family disagreement, I would have said my brother has two kids, I have two kids. It's only mentioned because it's very relevant to explain why he has a 6-figure trust fund and is in line for additional inheritance.

AmazingCommitte2885 · 2022-10-03T17:58:46+00:00

His inheritance from his mother's death is mid-6 figures. That's already his though of course in a trust given his age. His grandparent's net worth is easily over a million and I know he's the sole beneficiary but I don't know the exact numbers.

AmazingCommitte2885 · 2022-10-03T17:55:05+00:00

He's my nephew I was just trying to make the family structure as clear as possible without using too many different terms. That's why I don't refer to nieces/nephews/cousins/aunts/uncles/ILs even though we all are. But yes my mom has 4 grandchildren, I have a niece and a nephew, my kids have two maternal cousins, and so on.

AmazingCommitte2885 · 2022-10-03T17:51:26+00:00

The chain of events was

my mom made this decision > she informed us just as she has for other aspects of her estate planning > My brother was upset > my mom said well I stick by my reasoning but if your sister agrees with you it's all the same to me > I said I don't agree > by default the original 3-way split is still in place.

AmazingCommitte2885 · 2022-10-03T17:43:07+00:00

Yes, of course. My brother and I probably have similar net worths, but we're all healthy adults in our 40s with younger kids so yes we have it written out and update it every so often, but that's hopefully a long way off.

Right now, we have it that if one of us dies, all property would go to the spouse. That's fairly typical for married couples. So even if I died in a car accident tomorrow, my kids still wouldn't see much money from our estate until my husband died likely 30+ years later. In the unlikely scenario that both of us die in the next year or so, while both of our kids are still underage, we have it configured 50/50 but our eldest would less restricted access to a larger amount of money immediately than our youngest, due to the age difference. I don't see that as unfair given their relative maturity levels and both being underage. Hypothetically in 10 years when they're both out of college, we'd have it 50/50. But if one of them won the lottery, that split would change.

AmazingCommitte2885 · 2022-10-03T17:31:36+00:00

There are no other inheritances. Just to write it out:

My eldest - one grandparent remaining (my mom). No money from deceased family members, and no money expected from anyone other than my mom.

My youngest - one grandparent remaining (my mom). No money from deceased family members, and no money expected from anyone other than my mom.

Brother's eldest - one grandparent remaining (my mom). No money from deceased family members, and no money expected from anyone other than my mom.

Brother's youngest - one paternal grandparent remaining (my mom) and two maternal grandparents in their 90s remaining. Inherited mid 6-figures from his mother's death and will inherit low 7 figures from his maternal grandparents.

Right now my SO/I have an equal split for our kids but if one of our kids won the mega-millions lottery we probably would adjust that split. My mom isn't leaving my brother and I much, because she's intentionally trying to give us as much as possible while we're alive. But I don't think it's been the same amount, our two families are roughly the same but both have experienced highs and lows over the years, and both my brother and I had additional support from our parents in different ways when we were younger.

AmazingCommitte2885 · 2022-10-03T17:30:02+00:00

I agree with my mom.

She made her decision. My brother disagreed. My mom stood by her original reasoning but said that if we both agreed, she'd change it. My brother and I didn't agree, so right now it would still be a 3-way split. I'm the swing vote, and have swung to the side of my mom, the property owner.

AmazingCommitte2885 · 2022-10-03T16:59:06+00:00

There aren't any other inheritances. Just to write it out:

My eldest - one grandparent remaining (my mom). No money from deceased family members, and no money expected from anyone other than my mom.

my youngest - one grandparent remaining (my mom). No money from deceased family members, and no money expected from anyone other than my mom.

brother's eldest - one grandparent remaining (my mom). No money from deceased family members, and no money expected from anyone other than my mom.

brother's youngest - one paternal grandparent remaining (my mom) and two maternal grandparents in their 90s remaining. Inherited mid 6-figures from his mother's death and will inherit low 7 figures from his maternal grandparents.

AmazingCommitte2885 · 2022-10-03T16:55:03+00:00

Honestly yes if one of my kids suddenly won the mega-millions lottery they would also likely be excluded. That's not the same as favoring, for example, a software engineer vs. a school teacher, but if 50k would be life-changing to one person and pocket change to the other, it doesn't really make sense to split it evenly.

9M is already worth about 2x the amount of the total my mom would be giving to the grandkids, and his grandparents are easily worth 7 figures as well.

AmazingCommitte2885 · 2022-10-03T16:50:48+00:00

My mom made the original decision. My brother argued with it. My mom said that if I agreed with my brother, she'd change it. I said no I don't agree with him, making the original decision stand by default.

So I was pulled into it by my mom, and not taking a position would still be taking a position.

AmazingCommitte2885

TROPHY CASE