Leaving inheritance to grandchildren-Will you?

[UpperNwGuy]

My assets will be distributed in equal portions to my three children. I am not leaving anything directly to my grandchildren. Their parents (my children) will take care of them.

[David_w]

No grandchildren yet but I do have 6 nieces and nephews. Most of whom I never hear from unless I text or call them first and then it may take days or weeks to hear back from them. 1 or 2 never even respond and I mean never. I am thinking about leaving each of them $5,000 for 2 reasons. One is just because I want to and 2 is even though they didn't think of me in life enough to keep in touch even in death I thought of them. Maybe the 2 who actually do keep in touch once in awhile I may leave a little more.

[Wanderingwheelz]

If my parents estate plan triggered today, their grandkids would each receive approximately $100,000 each. It’s based on a percentage. For what it’s worth, that language wasn’t added until the grandkids were all college age and older.

We have no grandkids (hopefully, yet) so our estate plan doesn’t include a section for that. We’d probably change it if we become blessed.

Edit to add grandparents paid the bulk of the grandkids college too, with the use of 529 plans established at birth. In my kids case it was over 90%. I don’t know about siblings kids since some went to private college.

[Harmanic]

My personal belief is that large legacy transfers create moral hazard. I have seen it first hand and it can be devastating.

[Wanderingwheelz]

We have always tried to stick to the view that we don’t want to reward or financially penalize any lifestyle choices. So, we don’t favor home ownership over renting, formal marriage versus less formal, being parents over being child free, etc.

How does that affect whether or not you include grandchildren directly in your will?

Because it financially benefits the children who have children of their own, which we don’t care to do. Our heirs will each inherit significant amounts which they can then distribute to their offspring (if any) as they see fit.

We gift the annual exclusion max to each child regardless of their marital status, financial status, etc.

I’m not saying that it’s the right thing to do, just that it’s what we choose to do.

In the case of my siblings, when it was made clear my parents were funding 529 plans very early on, the sibling with the most kids made my parents aware he felt it wasn’t fair to fund his kids unequally (ie more) to the amount of the kids of his siblings, and he asked my parents to stop funding them once they were funded up to the point the other two siblings kids were. It’d my understanding that the grandparents obliged, but only they know what they actually did.

There’s a million different ways to families to deal with individual circumstances and different feelings and beliefs.

[rich126]

I had a close friend tell me that is what his mother did. She skipped her 3 kids and instead split it evenly among the grand kids. Since he was the executor she told him ahead of time. He had no issues with it, of course he had 3 of the 6 grand kids. His one sister was not happy, maybe because she only had 1 of the 6 grand kids and he thinks she might have taken a few items from the house in spite.

I can see inheritance stuff get very messy. I dated a lady a while ago who lived in an area where land was king and she said whenever someone passed away there was always fighting over who got what.

In my case we have no kids so do we give stuff to brothers or nieces/nephews or ???? Do you give more to someone who works hard but don't make much money and could use the help and ignore someone who happens to have a lot of money?

I never expected to get anything from anyone and was fortunate to have a stable career that once I graduated college I never had to ask my parents for anything. Surprisingly when my grandmother passed away she left my brother and I more money than I thought she had (not a lot but $50K ish). And when my father passed away he left everything evenly split between my brother and I and it was more money than I expected (nothing remotely life changing but just made retirement a bit easier).

While it is your money to do as you please, it could also trigger issues once you are gone so you might want to consider the repercussions within the family and whether that matters to you.

[privateID]

I manage my MIL's finances. She's 88 and going strong. She clearly will not outlive her money. Grandkids are out of college or still in college. After some discussions, we decided she would help fund the grandkid's Roth IRAs while she's alive (we did this in the form of a match to what the grandkids put in themselves that has increased over the years - currently doing about a 5-1 match). Of course, the grandkids need income for that happen. I keep good records and plan to even it all up when the time comes. We felt this was a great way for her to pass some money to her grandkids. We did discuss the equity since not everyone has the same number of kids. The ones with more kids were totally fine evening that out when the time comes as well.

[BradleyB]

Short answer is "yes."

Why? Because my parents and my in-laws did.

Daughter has 2 kids, both still toddlers, and son has none and probably never will. Also funding 529 college plan. Since both kids will receive a substantial amount, I don't see a conflict.