I’m NOT the parent in question. Just a FYI.
And by mental capacity, I mean like not just IQ, but also other mental conditions like depression, ADD/ADHD, etc…
Like the child(ren) has not done anything wrong like crime or misbehave, but simply the parent thinking that giving an inhertance to (in their view) a “mentally disabled” child is a waste and “would just end up in the hands of government”. And they justify it since they think that “the kid can just get disability income anyways”. (Location is USA, for reference)
I personally think this is just very ableist… what do you think? Is it okay for parents to do that?
That’s absolutely ableist.
Whatever the issue is, it clearly manifested long before the topic of inheritance came up
There are some circumstances where it makes sense. If you have a disability in the US, you cannot have money or you’ll lose your benefits
There are ways around this. Special needs trusts are very good tools. Not perfect but a good starting point for protecting a disabled adult while also providing for them.
Yes it’s ethical.
Family business : you want the steward to keep it going, maintain reputations, and support the family.
Large sums of money: look at lottery winners, many, many of them have really bad lives because they are not ready for the responsibility of managing it. If the child isn’t ready for it…
There are options for children who arnt ready to inherit. Trusts, disbursements over time, annuities
My brother is very smart, but he has other disabilities that nobody can see. My mom has already planned on willing his house to me so he can continue to live there.
On paper it may not look fair, but the alternative would lead to him being homeless, so it would be unethical to do otherwise.
Couldn’t the alternative be let the house to him? I don’t see how you getting the house guarantees that he’s not getting homeless.
To qualify for some benefits you can’t have any assets. The state forces you to sell your assets and pay for care before they will chip in.
Hello boring dystopia
This isn’t what OP is talking about, however.
OP’s parents are assholes.
Make sense in this nightmare we live in.
No, he doesn’t have the capacity to take care of the basics to keep it. Playing the utilities, taxes, maintaining the property, etc.
You can still help him do those things even if the house is his… Like, if he doesn’t have the house in his name, you can kick him out if you are a dick and there is nothing protecting him. If the house is his, you cannot do that, “best” you could do is stop helping out with the bills and such.
A family in that sort of situation has considered many options. Willing the house to the brother is the easiest, the poster and their mother have reasons for opting against it. They are likely good reasons; in the broader sense, willing property to someone who cannot care for it can in many scenarios be a bad idea.
It’s dangerous to assume the brother would be safe from predation if he owned his home; the poster could do a lot worse than just not paying the bills. This person apparently lacks the ability to pay taxes and ensure proper maintenance. Even just to help with that, the poster will need access to their brother’s banking and tax info. If the brother is compliant it would not be difficult for someone to take advantage of that situation.
Alternately, using their legal ownership of the home the brother could potentially shut the poster out and might actively sabotage efforts to maintain and pay for the home. In that case the property could suffer substantial damage, become dangerous/uninhabitable, or even be lost despite the poster’s efforts. Many people have destructive tendencies.
The more certain way to protect the house for the brother would be to place it in a trust, but that’s not a panacea. Setting up an ironclad trust to prevent selling the house is great until the brother can’t get up the stairs, or the whole family decides to move to Canada, or the brother goes into assisted living, or the property value skyrockets. A trust will also have tax implications and potential costs that need to be considered.
I assume and hope the mother has been advised by a decent estate lawyer on their options. There are scenarios where willing a house to a sibling is the best course of action. I wish the poster luck and hope they’ll act in the interest of their brother for their entire lives.
You hit the nail on the head.
We want to keep him safe, and that person saying otherwise proves one of my points. On paper, it DOES look shady or unfair, but nobody knows the whole situation, and sorry, you’re not going to, because that’s his business, not yours.
Yes it’s ethical. Their money, their choice. They can donate 100% to a charity you don’t like and it would still be completely ethical.
tiny bit weird to riff off the “my body my choice” slogan used by women asking for rights for your own finance argument. speaking as someone who doesn’t want that phrase to become old hat or meaningless!
donating 100% vs giving your smart kid 70% and your dumb kid 30% is much different. you’ll understand if you’re the 30%.
I agree and both are ethical.
It’s possible to spend your own money unethically. I don’t think your argument is sound.
If you find yourself spending your own money unethically then you tell that bad guy to stop it.
I would think a disabled person would need more money to survive in this world than someone not disabled.
Through the magic of the US government, more money actually can fuck them over. If they have more money than the government seems appropriate, they lose benefits and can be forced to pay back past benefits.
Maybe with better framing, but with the way you’re explaining this (or maybe it’s just that clear cut) the only realistic answer is “no”.
It’s not ethical or unethical—but your framing makes it inherently from POV of some assholes, so it kinda renders the whole hypothetical moot.
People can allocate their assets as they please. Every situation is unique. In your situation, it sounds like the parents were narcissistic assholes with a disabled child.
If I may answer with an example. My sibling is very emotional and not as good as studying and has therefore received a decent amount of money for not only their entire education but also living expenses. Because I got a scholarship and work other jobs, I was on my own. I’ve always resented it as being punished for working harder.
IDK how I would handle it with my children because I want to give fair opportunities but from the child’s perspective it is hard. Giving the same money would be best.
I don’t think that is OK and the parents I’ve known in situations like that would never have thought of it.
The inheritance can be put into a special needs trust, to be used for the benefit of the child.
Here’s a tip: if you have multiple children, split everything evenly no matter what. It doesn’t matter how good your reasoning is. It doesn’t matter if one kid is an addict, it doesn’t matter if one kid needs the money more. It doesn’t matter if one cares for you in your old age and the other disappeared.
No matter what.
You are inviting nothing but misery into ALL of your children’s lives by dividing it unevenly. No matter how reasonable it is to do something else, they will always tend to think that dividing the inheritance unevenly means that you loved them unequally.
100%
Anyone who doesn’t understand this has no family that’s dealt with family breaking over money.
this. even if it’s a dollar.
that one kid will be wondering why the $1 for the rest of their lives but have no way of finding out why. that stuff can start as nothing but fester quickly. I’ve had this happen to my family.
I think it’s also worth having frank discussions with your kids about their inheritance and encouraging them to work things out themselves ahead of time.
My family has maybe a bit unusual but I think very healthy relationship with death. It comes for us all eventually, no sense dancing around it.
There’s no complicated inheritance situations in my family, everything gets divided up evenly among them. If they don’t have kids it gets divided up evenly among their nieces/nephews.
So for example my parents estate gets split between my sister and myself, my uncle who doesn’t have kids gets split between us and my cousin, my cousin gets his parents’ all to himself.
We’ve already got things divvied up amongst ourselves pretty well. As long as my sister signs over her claim to our parent’s house, I’ll sign over my third of our uncle’s house to her, and she’s happy to buy our cousin out of his third or trade him for her current house (which would also have the benefit of getting all 3 of us in the same town, cousin has some disabilities and it would be nice to have us all nearby in case of emergencies, or the payout from my sister or money from sale of her house plus his own inheritance from his parents would set him up pretty well)
We also occasionally call dibs on some other desirable belongings, like my uncles skillsaw
This is something that needs to be more common. Estate planning shouldn’t be a surprise for the survivors, dramatic will readings are a B movie plot device, not reality. You don’t need to do an annual reading of the will, but everyone should know the basics that’s involved.
Or, if you have an inkling that you won’t split everything evenly, at least talk to the kids about it. My mom has 2 kids. She’s told me she’s giving a greater proportion to my brother and I’m ok with that.
My brother is a drug addicted felon and has always needed/gotten more support than I have needed/gotten.
I’m distant from my mom by choice (we didn’t have a healthy relationship) and I’m a functioning adult with a lovely partner, a stable job, and a competent therapist.
Mom’s told me she’s putting things into a trust for benefit of my brother, but I don’t know that she’s done that and it’s not my problem.
Anyways, I guess the takeaway is it’s ok for your kids to think dividing the inheritance unevenly means you love them unevenly if they’re not wrong.
I can’t speak to whether or not it is “ok” unless I have a lot of knowledge of the situation.
I think the fairest way to split an inheritance is by need, although that’s not always known at the time of drawing up a will.
No one is entitled to anyone’s inheritance. The ethics of the situation really depend on the details. Did one child look after the parents in their old age? Doe one child have more needs? Was there a promise to distribute everything evenly?
If the only reason for exclusion is because one child has depression or anxiety and isn’t the smartest, then that sounds pretty ableist and shitty. If the person really can’t manage the money, why not set up a trust designed to help them out without just handing over lump sums of cash? The one case where exclusion makes sense is if they require long term in patient care since at least in the US, all your money is eaten up by the medical bills before you default to Medicare (unless you have a stupid amount of money and can pay out of pocket for premium care forever)
Sounds very US… I had to take some info on the topic here in europe and it appears that there’s a very much unalienable right for kids (and next of kin) to a fair distribution.
One can literally not change the part of the patrimony going to a child (without resorting to very complex arrangements that seemingly won’t be accepted by a judge should shit hits the fan).
Even though, for example, one learns he did not father a child -still cannot change the percentage. Tough luck for the other children, the wife…
Everyone has a right to be protected here. In the grand scheme of things it’s for the best.
And yeah, ethics is the basis for this simply you have to assume the position of the weakest one involved and not from the perspective of the one with the money ;-)
