Inheritance

lealea12

In short, my aunt passed away in 2022 and had written her will in 2018 when my daughter was 6 years old. At this point I only had one child and my aunt left her quite a bit of money in her will. 

Fast forward to 2022 when she passed away, I now also have a 2 year old and then went on to have a third in 2023 - so after she passed away. 

The inheritance is in a savings account untouched. Would it be fair to split the inheritance between my 3 children? Or do I leave it all for my eldest? 

What would you do?

Keep_pedalling

This is not a moral question it is a legal one and there is only one option and that is all of it goes to your oldest child and she should be given the money on her 18th birthday, until then it should be kept in trust. There is no discretion allowed.

marcia_

 Its not your money to share out siblings or not. To do so would be theft imao 

DE_612183

If the money has been left to your eldest daughter - it's up to her what to do with it.

vacheron

marcia_ said:

 Its not your money to share out siblings or not. To do so would be theft imao 

This /|\ /|\ /|\  

Your aunt only ever met /knew your eldest child, so her wishes at the time should be honoured.

FlorayG

This is not a moral question an giving any of it to any other child would be theft. Your aunt left it to the one child and it belongs to that child.
It's sad that your aunt didn't take into account that you may have other children later but that doesn't change the facts

DullGreyGuy

lealea12 said:

In short, my aunt passed away in 2022 and had written her will in 2018 when my daughter was 6 years old. At this point I only had one child and my aunt left her quite a bit of money in her will. 

Fast forward to 2022 when she passed away, I now also have a 2 year old and then went on to have a third in 2023 - so after she passed away. 

The inheritance is in a savings account untouched. Would it be fair to split the inheritance between my 3 children? Or do I leave it all for my eldest? 

What would you do?

Legally the money is your eldest child's as that is what presumably was in the will rather than something looser like "divided equally amongst X's children".

You cannot simply take money from anyone. As someone with parental responsibility you must act in your child's best interests which includes towards their property. The money is not in trust so you are able to use it but you would have to be able to demonstrate that its use was for the benefit of the child. Redistributing it to their siblings without their considered consent wouldn't be to their benefit and given their age they cannot give considered consent. 

Sea_Shell

Did your Aunt leave YOU anything in her will?

If so, you can gift your other children from your share, should you wish to try and balance things up a bit.

QrizB

Keep_pedalling said:

This is not a moral question it is a legal one and there is only one option and that is all of it goes to your oldest child and she should be given the money on her 18th birthday, until then it should be kept in trust. There is no discretion allowed.

Exactly this. The money belongs to your oldest child. You can't just give it away to anyone else.

bobster2

lealea12 said:

In short, my aunt passed away in 2022 and had written her will in 2018 when my daughter was 6 years old. At this point I only had one child and my aunt left her quite a bit of money in her will. 

Fast forward to 2022 when she passed away, I now also have a 2 year old and then went on to have a third in 2023 - so after she passed away. 

The inheritance is in a savings account untouched. Would it be fair to split the inheritance between my 3 children? Or do I leave it all for my eldest? 

What would you do?

As everyone has said - it belongs to the eldest. You do not have a decision to make.

If probate/letters of administration were obtained - the will is going to be a public document. In years to come your eldest would be able to look this up online - and will know if money has been stolen from her.