'AITA for being angry my in-laws cut my children out of their grandfather's inheritance?'
"AITA for being angry my in-laws cut my children out of their grandfather's inheritance?"
My (53 F) father-in-law passed away two years ago, and was father to seven. He was a widower at the time of his death. Sadly my husband passed away before him in 2015, and his younger brother before him in 2011.
Amongst the five remaining children are my late husband's two sisters, and three brothers. His sisters who are 52 and 59 were executors of his will. My FIL's will was very rudimentary and didn't have a lot of specification in regards to distribution. As executors my two SILs distributed their parents inheritance amongst their children. Their living children.
They felt that since my husband, as well as my brother-in-law were dead, it would be just as well to leave their children out of what would have been their parent's share.
Now it would be one thing if these were my FIL's actual wishes, rather than just something that was never thought to be addressed. To be honest I feel like I am in a difficult spot as I am not a blood member of this family, and have no place to say anything and obviously have zero claim to anything.
However I hurt for my children, as well as my late BIL's children. They are the ones who have been disregarded. This is their family, and always will be, but I cannot help but feel like it was the wrong thing to do and I hold it against them.
I especially feel that if my husband were alive he would be enraged to know what his sisters had decided to do. AITA for feeling this way?
Also for context as I feel people may ask, while they were alive, all seven children had a good relationship with their parents, and I can't think of any reason that either my FIL or MIL would want to leave any one of their children/grandchildren out of their inheritance.
UPDATE: I do not know when the last time my FIL dealt with his will, nor do I know the specifics of what he had written out verbatim. His health was poor in his final years and it's likely that he paid no mind to the outcome after he died, when it was clear he should have.
But what's done is done. For what it's worth this took place in Ontario, Canada. Unless I am mistaken, without explicit instructions executors wield a very large amount of power in how a will is executed. They were solely faced with the decision on how to distribute, and this was the result.
My late husband's sisters, and by extension his brothers in action, have decided it's proper to split the inheritance amongst the 5 of them (as I've seen some confusion in the comments on this). Whether or not the 5 of them gave any of their share to their own children, I have no idea, and is really none of my business anyhow.
Let's see what readers thought.
funmistake writes:
NTA. But since the in-laws cut their living blood relatives out… just cut them out too. Something tells me they won’t care that y’all aren’t close anymore!
hopefulchuck writes:
YTA.. Unless a will states that a person‘s share goes to their next of kin, it will be divided amongst the remaining living heirs. Sounds like your fil did not update his will after the deaths of two of his children which means their kids get nothing. Your SILs chose to give their shares to their own children which is their right to do so.
They are not obligated to give part of their shares to your children. My ils left everything to my husband and his sister. Had my husband died before them , it would have all gone to his sister. It would never have occurred to me to ask for his share. My father is still Living.
He has willed everything to me and my two siblings. My husband and son get nothing if I pass before my father. It’s kind of gross when people come out of the woodwork to see what they can get when someone dies. Edit to add, mine and my husbands will are set up the same way. If one of the heirs dies, everything will be divided equally amongst the remaining heirs.
subjectiveex writes:
NAH. Hypothetically executors could chose a less convenient option to divide an estate into 7 parts instead of 5. Of course it would be nice of them to do include surviving families, but it was your husbands inheritance and not your children's (yet), unfortunately he did not live to see it. FIL had every opportunity to document his actual wishes, but he didn't.