Pay Dirt: Our Homophobe Parents Disowned My Brother. Do I Have To Split My Inheritance With Him?

[minoanmiss]

[n.b. this is the one I couldn't help mentioning yesterday.]



He could use the money. But so could I.

My parents had three children: my sister, “Valerie,” then my brother, “Jack,” then I came along as a surprise when Valerie was 15 and Jack was 12. We all turned into very progressive liberals, which was a constant disappointment to our very conservative parents. Jack, whom they could never accept as bisexual, got the worst of it. They were fine as long as he dated women, but when he married a man, they cut him off and refused to even speak of him. Valerie and I have remained in close touch with Jack, his husband, and their adopted son.

Our parents both passed away a few weeks apart in 2020, and their estate is in the process of being settled. They cut Jack out entirely and left everything 50/50 to Valerie and me. Jack has not said a word about this. But Valerie, who is the executrix, has been putting increasing pressure on me to gift a third of my share to Jack. She plans to do the same, so that each of us would end up with a third of the estate. Jack and his husband get by financially, but his husband has chronic health problems and their son, who is now 14, has autism. While semi-high functioning, he is unlikely to be able to hold down a job that will fully support him.

I fully agree that it was wrong of our parents to cut Jack out because of who he is. But they did what they did, and giving up a large chunk of her inheritance is much easier for Valerie, who has both a high-paying career and a similarly high-earning husband, and has never wanted kids. My fiancé and I, on the other hand, also just get by, and we plan to have two or three kids ourselves. Valerie has flat-out told me that if I choose not to divide my share with Jack, I am lending my support to our parents’ bigotry and don’t deserve to call myself a progressive. Do you agree, or do I have a moral (in addition to a legal) right to keep my full inheritance?

—Undeserving?

Dear Undeserving,

I believe you have a legal right to keep all of the money, but I agree with your sister that you’re perpetuating your parents’ bigotry if you choose to go that route, which was pretty clearly a mechanism by which they intended to punish your brother for being bisexual. You and your sister are capable of rectifying that wrong, and the choice to do it—or not—is entirely yours. I think if this situation didn’t potentially benefit you or wasn’t about money, the morality of it would be clearer, and I doubt you would hesitate.

Also, consider your relationship with your brother. He may not say anything, but I think you’d be naïve to assume he doesn’t notice or mind. You know his financial situation is similar to yours, and unlike you, he already has a dependent to support. Consider what it says, not just about your progressivism, but your sense of overall fairness toward your brother if you decide to keep the entirety of the inheritance. Your bigoted parents probably wanted you to sever your relationship with your brother, and you are allowing them to posthumously create a situation that might facilitate it. Don’t let them succeed.

Comments

[melannen]

There are two kinds of fairness at play here: the "fairness" that says all three of you should get an equal share of the estate, and the "fairness" that says the three of you should divide up the estate based on need rather than maths.

You'll note that neither of those ends with your brother getting less!

LW you can't do anything about the fact that the three of you each have different money needs, but I do understand that it's tough to hear your sister talk about giving up money when that means something very different to each of you. And I know that an abstract sense of fairness is tough when it's your rent money or mortgage on the line. But you can't do anything about that; you can do something about your brother getting less money than you, and I hope you do.

Honestly though: before you do anything you and your sister should probably both talk to Jack together about the estate? It sounds like this might end up with you resenting Jack because of something your sister guilted you about, which I don't think either you or Jack would want. It could be Jack is staying quiet because he values his good relationships with you more than he cares about the money, or (given the age difference, and it sounds like you're still young enough that fifteen years is important) he might even honestly agree that you need the money more than he does, or he's still angry enough at the parents that he doesn't even want their money. It sounds like the three of you have a generally good relationship that sharing your real feelings about his being disinherited won't break anything more than the not talking about it is doing. Sit down and talk it out.

[lavendertook]

You are spot on about the 2 definitions of fairness--it’s the difference between equality and equity. I tend to be on Team Equity when it comes to fairness. And they can do something about the different money needs if big sis isn’t a big controlling dick about it and will only entertain Team Equality because she likes to look like Team Generous, but in reality is Team Control. One can hope.

I love your last paragraph assuming the best intentions from Jack and encouraging the best out of all of them to sit down and communicate. I want to live in the world you describe here.

[melannen]

My mother's siblings managed something like that! It's possible! There was no disinheriting drama, thank goodness, but a lot more people, and they managed to amicably agree to divide at least partly on equity. Though it probably does feel easier to give up a tenth of your 1/10 share than a third of your 1/2...

[lilysea]

There are two kinds of fairness at play here: the "fairness" that says all three of you should get an equal share of the estate, and the "fairness" that says the three of you should divide up the estate based on need rather than maths.

You'll note that neither of those ends with your brother getting less!

Yes, my take is that the siblings should add up their salaries - what all three of them earn in total, not including any income from a spouse/partner - and work out who earns what % of the total, and then allocate the estate to the people with the lowest % of the total earnings

so for example, if rich-sister earns 90% of the siblings total combined earnings, rich-sister should get 10% of the total inheritance.

[melannen]

that might work! Though the thing that's tough about equity-not-equality is that you can't really get there by numbers. Maybe equity is Jack saying, "I don't want anything from my parents' estate, but a trust fund for the kid would really give me peace of mind, if either of you put what you can spare there whenever you can and remember him in your wills." Maybe it's LW saying "We were going to use the inheritance to finally buy a house, but if we give up a third of it nearly everything will be out of our budget around here. If we budget a reasonable amount for a down payment and closing costs on a house we want, and pass the rest to Jack, would Valerie be willing to make up the difference for Jack?' Maybe they put it all in a shared trust that all belongs to all of them and they all have to agree on spending. Maybe somebody gets their pick of the physical property in return for not worrying about if it comes to less than their share of the liquid cash. Maybe someone can say "If we all throw our student loan debt on the table, that comes to just about the total of the inheritance, why don't we just do that?" Maybe LW does throw in a third, in return for a written promise from Valerie to help with niblings' college costs if the time ever comes. Maybe Valerie actually has some specific financial need the others don't know about that an inheritance windfall would help out a lot with, and that can set the amount she keeps. A lot of times something like that is more equitable in terms of people actually getting what's fair than something proportional, and leaves people feeling better about it because it was based on them negotiating how to help each other, not bleak numbers.

That kind of thing worked in my mom's family because nobody was orders-of-magnitude wealthier and also because everyone knew that if somebody ended up needing bailed out later they were all going to do it anyway so there was no point keeping score. But it requires people who are more interested in fairness and their family's well-being than in winning, and not every family's so lucky.

[mirlacca]

Okay, this may seem petty, but... while I totally agree that Jack should get a third of the available estate, it's important to realize that there are also tax consequences which are different. Inheriting a third of an estate is one thing. Giving someone a third of what you have inherited may involve gift taxes.

So while I agree that the sharing should happen, the three of them ought to consult a tax attorney to ensure that they also share the potential tax consequences to each of them of doing so. Fair is indeed fair.