Man Leaving Entire Inheritance to Second Wife And Not His 5 Kids Slammed
The curious splitting of a man's will has the internet talking, as many people question the morals of leaving nothing to his children, and instead giving everything to his second wife.
A Mumsnet user posted on the forum asking others for their thoughts on how a will has been split after an 81-year-old man died, leaving behind his wife and five children.
Mumsnet user GlassTumbler explained that the eldest two children (age 54 and 48) were from the man's first marriage, and the other three children (age 32, 30 and 28) were from the second marriage. In the will, he left the $778,000 house to his second wife, and nothing for any of the children.
The poster wrote: "He was married to someone 17 years younger than him for 35 years. She was 65 when he died.
"He left everything in his will (£650,000 house, savings and generous pensions) to his wife. She was able to downsize a bit (to a £500,000 house) and live comfortably off everything else."
The post continues that the second wife is leaving everything in her will to her three children, yet the two older children will still get nothing from their father's estate.
"The only grandchildren this man had when he died were the 2 children of the 48 year old from his first marriage. He left them £5000 each. But nothing to their parent or the older sibling," wrote GlassTumbler.
The man left about $5,900 to his two grandchildren. The seemingly unfair splitting of the will has led to plenty of debate.
"Even when a deceased person leaves what lawyers call bequests, or gifts, to everyone in a family, it is common to see people unhappy that they did not receive as much as someone else," veteran trusts and estates attorney Ashwani Prabhakar told Newsweek. "Even in situations where the value of what is left is equal, people may be unhappy with the type of the asset they were gifted.
"There is no regular practice for how people choose to split their assets among family members. People accumulate their assets through their own hard work and there are myriad reasons why people choose to distribute their wealth the way they do."
However, Prabhakar added that when drawing up a will, being precise and exact can prevent any arguments or conflict, much like this instance.
"It is good advice for someone drafting their will to specifically identify and distribute what they own rather than leaving it to their children to divide it among themselves," he said. "Leaving it to family to divide up belongings often creates issues concerning the monetary values of what items the family needs to divide."
With more than 100 replies on the Mumsnet post, many users highlighted how unfair the will seems to be for the older two children.
One person commented: "Really unfair to the oldest siblings but I don't think there is anything to be done about it."
Another person wrote beneath the post: "It is a great shame that when writing his will, he didn't consider his 2 eldest children and wasn't able to foresee that his wife would be likely to leave everything to her own DC [dear children] only."
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