Spin-Off of Inheritance Message Thread: Do Your Heirs Know What Your Intentions Are?

[ronandannette]

A little fluff-post was made about scrambled eggs but it got me to thinking. Do your heirs have any idea what you plan to do with your estate? Are they "waiting in the wings" for a windfall and if so, do they have any ideal how much, or in what form it will be?

We knew a few things related to our parents' plans. #1 was that neither of DH's parents would be leaving us anything. His mother had nothing (we supported her during her last years) and his father may have actually taken it with him, for all any of his children know. Upon my father's death, all assets were transferred to my mother and we always knew it was her intention to split the entire estate in 4 equal shares among her children, which is sort of what ended up happening. Some (fully legal) decisions made by the Power of Attorney did deviate and raised eyebrows, but were done cleverly enough to not violate any terms or conditions of the will.

We're not super-organized in this area and have had some life-altering circumstances over the past few years. We absolutely do need to get things buttoned down and one thing is for sure - we will give our heirs (the ones who expect to be, anyway), a general idea of what they can expect, if not how much.

 

[DLgal]

I have a pretty good idea what my MIL and my own parents have planned, simply because they all chose me to be the executor of their estates when they pass. So, I have a ballpark idea of how large those are. My MIL doesn't have much. And there are 3 kids to split it. Most of her net worth is tied up in the house she owns and one sibling lives in, so that might be difficult to handle. My parents have a modest amount of money invested and their house is worth about 2 times what they paid for it less than 10 years ago. But there are also 3 of us children and my mom has started requiring long term care, so who knows what will be left in the end. I'm not "counting on" anything to be left, to be honest. The money they have will hopefully be enough to pay for their own care during their lifetimes.

As to our own kids, we have 2, both with special needs. We have set up Special Needs Trusts and anything paid out upon our passing will automatically be split between them. We have a plan in place for someone to manage that money, so it will be used solely to help support them throughout life. Depending on how old we are when we pass, it could be a massive amount or a much smaller, but still significant amount. We have high value term life insurance policies on both of us that go through age 69, purchased specifically because of our kids needs.

 

[clh2]

We have one daughter. We have an estate plan, and she knows where all documents are located. She definitely knows what our final wishes are, both for healthcare, and assets in the estate. We also prefaced this (At least health care-related-we have made the decisions for you. Please communicate them with the health care providers.). The biggest thing she can do for us is to honor our wishes, related to healthcare. Now, related to our estate…if anything is left, a portion is designated to charitable donation. we did not specifically designate the charity (or charities). She can choose, as to what makes sense to her. Ie perhaps one of our grandkids will be diabetic, or have other healthcare issues, Ie perhaps she will designate to a charity related to our healthcare issues, or perhaps, she will designate our church. But we have verbally told her…if the church we belong to today changes their definition of who is welcome in that church…please do not send our money there. And, yes, she knows and agrees with our thoughts on this issue.

And, based on the advice of the lawyer who drafted the estate plan, we discuss this with our daughter once a year, near tax-time.

On the other hand… my parents are 87 and 85. They are not sharing any details of anything. what we know is, Daughter 3 (out of 3) convinced my parents to update all documents in 2020 after Covid started. She will not share details, says she did not review documents, and put them directly in a safe. My dad will not share details. All I want to know is…if something happens to my dad first, what is supposed to happen with my mom. And not to confuse issues, Daughter 3 has just taken a job 1000 miles away. Just seeing a nightmare on this whole process.

 

[tvguy]

Timely post as our 32 year old daughter is finally getting around to writing her will this weekend. She is single, owns a car and a house and is about to embark on some around the world travel and decided she would rather decide who gets her stuff if something happens, not the government.
Yes. Both our kids know our wishes, know where our wills and estate plans are, and we review them with them once a year. My mom did the same thing with me every year from the time I turned 18. My MIL did not, and we were left to guess what she wanted when she passed, and had to probate part of her estate.

 

[BlueStarryHat]

There's no windfall coming from me, as I live check-to-check pretty much. I have $20,000 in life insurance, though. My oldest niece is the beneficiary because she's level headed about money. Her written instructions from me are to use the payout for a viewing and cremation, and then to divide what's left over between her and my other niece and nephew.

Other than that, I have nothing much in assets to leave.

 

[DisneyHardin]

We don't have a will - it's on the to-do list. Since we don't have children, anything we have will be passed down to our nieces and nephew.

As for my parents - I know that when my Mom is gone, I will split her estate 50/50 with my sister. When my Dad/Stepmom are gone, I will split their estate in thirds with my stepsister and stepbrother. I have no idea about DH's parents. His parents are very wealthy, but also very odd, so I have no idea what their will says. He doesn't get along great with his parents, so I wouldn't be surprised if we get nothing or a very small percentage.

 

[disneychrista]

My daughters both know my intention is for them to split everything 50/50. My retirement savings & pension both have them as 50/50 beneficiaries.

My parents won't leave much, other than the house, which must be sold and profits split 50/50.

 

[TippyThomas]

I have no family so whatever is left will go to the shelter where I volunteer. They are aware of my wishes as we've discussed what could be or should be done with the money if possible.

 

[tvguy]

We don't have a will - it's on the to-do list. Since we don't have children, anything we have will be passed down to our nieces and nephew.

Without a will, part of it will be eaten up with Probate costs.

 

[georgina]

Without a will, part of it will be eaten up with Probate costs.

Assuming joint tenancy and only one goes at a time, probate may not be necessary. Pay-on-death, transfer-on-death are other ways to avoid it, at least in my state.

 

[tvguy]

Assuming joint tenancy and only one goes at a time, probate may not be necessary. Pay-on-death, transfer-on-death are other ways to avoid it, at least in my state.

Probate is totally unnecessary in California if an estate is set up properly.
In my MIL's case, she had a will, but had not set up the house and car properly so that had to be probated. That cost us 6 months and over $1,000 in legal fees.

 

[MamaMermaid]

My husband is the executor of his parents' will but I have no idea what's in it or what their wishes are. I am the executor of my mom's estate/will. I roughly know how much I'll be inheriting (unless she spends it between now and then ) and I know what her wishes are.

Our son is 5 and knows nothing, obviously!

 

[Kitty 34]

For the most part. My DH and sons know my wishes especially when I was first diagnosed with my lung disease. Interestingly enough, the longer I have lived ( ) a few specifics have changed.

 

[kymom99]

I’ve not told my son anything. He has half sisters and we have it set up a certain way. We may change it now that he’s older. We won’t have a lot of “cash” but will have property to be liquidated.

 

[Luv Bunnies]

My parents always made their plans very clear. They put everything into a trust to be divided equally between my sister, brother and me. My sister (the oldest and an accountant) will be the main trustee. I trust her 100% to ensure it's done correctly. My dad passed away a few years ago, so my mom is currently the sole trustee. She also inherited from my uncle (her brother) since his wife passed away before him and they didn't have kids. Most of his estate was passed down from their parents, so it's appropriate that the assets stayed in their family. My sister and brother didn't have kids either and plan to leave their estates to my two kids. We have a trust for our assets. Younger DS will become the trustee since older DS has autism. Younger DS knows his job will be to ensure that his older brother receives his fair share and that his needs are taken care of. It's all been clearly laid out for years. Everyone knows what will happen and what their responsibilities will be.

 

[design_mom]

I will be the executor for my parents' so I know about that: everything goes to the surviving spouse. Then, after that spouse dies, anything remaining is divided equally between my sister and me. If one us sisters dies before our parents, then that person's share gets equally divided among that person's children (sorry husbands, you get bypassed.)

I'm not sure what my in-laws' plans are.

We have a will... we probably need to relook at ours. It was originally drafted when the kids were little and has a lot of info about their care, how the money should be distributed as they got older... but they're both adults now (18 and 22.)

 

[loves to dive]

My parents didn't have anything to leave, Daddy didn't even have life insurance. I actually owned the home they lived in. Daddy died first and I paid to cremate him, Mama had a small life insurance policy that I paid so when she died that paid for her cremation. I had power of attorney and since I owned the house, basically all the trash in it was mine.

Hubby's parents have already written their wills and told hubby and his brother what is what. They are basically leaving all the land they have that is not where the house is to hubby's brother and the house and land it sits on is going to both of them. Hubby didn't want any of the land since he has no intention of ever living there and didn't want to pay taxes on it. He didn't even want half the house and land it sits on but they felt they had to leave something to him. I imagine he will either sell it to his brother or they will rent it out and split the income and expenses or sell it to someone in the family.

I have a will and everything goes to my son. I don't have much but do have a couple of annuity accounts which I will deal with when I turn 70. If I don't spend all that before I die, he will get it. I've already told both my son and hubby to put me in a nursing home if I get where I can't take care of myself, I don't want them to have to deal with it. Hubby is convinced that even though he is 13 years younger than me he will die first. He has a will and anything he has goes to me. The house, anything in his checking acct. and life insurance. I've actually asked him to put the house in someone else's name cause I don't want to pay the mortgage if there is any left or have to deal with expenses and taxes (plus I hate this house and this town with a passion). He refuses, I think he is punishing me. Oh, the RV is in my name so if we haven't sold that, it will go to my son as well. Won't be worth squat in anything more than 5 or so years from now, they don't really last long and we have had it for 4 years now.

 

[Southernmiss]

Equally split between kids for both our and our parents' estates.

Dh and I updated our wills a couple of years ago. We had last made our wills when our kids were minors. They're now all adults.

Now, our oldest is our executor when we both die.

 

[georgina]

Equally split between kids for both our and our parents' estates.

Dh and I updated our wills a couple of years ago. We had last made our wills when our kids were minors. They're now all adults.

Now, our oldest is our executor when we both die.

Similar, we had made a will when we had kids with our wishes for their care. Updated a few years ago with healthcare directives, etc. Now we moved to another state I think some of that needs to be updated again.

Our estate will be split between our 3 kids. If we help grandchildren with college costs the amounts will be adjusted to reflect that, since only 1 of our kids has offspring so far.

 

[Colleen27]

My kids know not to expect much; they will have gotten their "inheritance" while we're still living, in the form of help with homeownership and higher education when they're just starting out, rather than waiting until they're middle aged or older to inherit a windfall. But because we value both helping them and living our lives in the present, we're not likely to have a load of money leftover when we pass away. A paid off house and, if we're fortunate, a little something left in the 401k will probably be it, and they all know we want that shared evenly.

Right now, we have little done in the way of formal estate planning and what we have is outdated and oriented mainly around providing for the kids, 2 of 3 of whom are adults now and no longer need guardianship provisions and such. But since everything is jointly held and DH & I are both still in good health, we don't feel much urgency to update our wills until our youngest reaches adulthood (in 3 years) and we can set things up in such a way that they won't need to be changed again until one of us passes.

As far as our parents, I inherited more than I ever thought I would from my mom because she died much younger than most women do in our family and I'm the only surviving child so it all went to me. I did have to deal with probate on the house and car because from diagnosis to death didn't give us enough time to finish setting things up to avoid it, but the estate was small enough that it wasn't an onerous process. I doubt that we'll inherit anything from my MIL; right now, her income barely covers the living expenses and upkeep on the gorgeous home she and FIL built. If she keeps the house, the value will be split between all three kids, but 2 of the 3 of them (including DH) are encouraging her to downsize and use the proceeds to enjoy life a little more since it is worth 4x what a comfortable ranch in her neighborhood would cost. If she takes their advice, she will hopefully have many good years of enjoying that money and there won't be much left to split. The third child, on the other hand, wants her to keep the huge house and have him move in to help afford it, in which case he would want to inherit it fully so he can stay on after she's gone (a big win for him, since he struggles to stay afloat in the much more modest home he owns now). So in that case there'd be no estate to settle at all.