My two children are in very different situations.
My older daughter is 45 years old. She owns two apartments, drives a very expensive car, and takes long, exotic vacations with her spouse every three months.
My younger daughter is 25. She is a low-income social worker and a PhD student, and she lives very modestly. She contributed significantly to helping us purchase a small apartment. Without her leading this and contributing, we would not have any family property.
She has now sold that apartment and is buying a larger one, where we want her to live and be an inheritor. Once again, 99% of the effort and a lot of the financial contribution are hers. My older daughter never supported this idea and did not contribute in any way. However, she is now extremely upset and is demanding half of the value of the property since in her logic siblings get 50/50y She demands I create a fair will immediately.
We have been arguing for months, and our relationship has deteriorated significantly. She accuses me of having no moral compass and claims that her younger sister is privileged. Jealousy has overtaken her, although she has everything she needs.
All I want is for both of my children to have a home, but this situation is tearing our family apart.
NTA. Don’t disclose your estate planning other than telling them where the files are located. Drop the assets into a trust so it can’t be disputed.
Not disclosing what you plan to do is terrible, terrible advice. Own the decisions, let the children be mad at the parents, and save the siblings relationship.
Hide your plans, then you get to “keep the peace” while you’re alive, and when you’re dead, the truth bomb drops: now the blame will shift on the sibling who received more.
If a sibling will receive less than the others, then it must be known well in advance.
Find a lawyer. Have them write up a contract: The apartment goes to your younger daughter NOW, and you get a right to live in it.
She already paid for it, it SHOULD be in her name!
NTA at all!
INFO are you saying that younger sib is covering or subsidizing your new home, and older sib is not contributing? Why are your children 20 years apart1? Why are you unable to afford property independently? How much have you contributed to either sib’s education/lifestyle/property, and how do you explain any discrepancy?
NTA. Make sure that property is in your daughter’s name now and you have residence rights. Don’t make it part of the will. Transfer it now. Leave whatever is left 50-50 as your eldest daughter wanted
NTA but think a bit, when you had your older daughter, were you financially stable? Were you a present parent? Did you get to take her places a lot when she was a child? Just wondering because I have seen things where parents have their first child really young, struggle a lot, then have a second child much, much later when they are more established and the older child be resentful because the younger sibling had a happier time in their childhood.
Stuff like that can stick for a long time.
Ding ding ding! OP basically confirmed all of your ideas. Older sister grew up poor and without support, became incredibly successful, and now feels like she’s still being set aside.
Agreed. Seems like the older daughter actually shouldn’t get any of the property if the younger daughter majority funded it’s purchase. But the resentment probably isn’t about that directly and more about perceived parenting effort split between younger and older child.
Even the way OP describes them I feel like they have more care/pride in the younger when the older ones seems to have achieved an awful lot.
Because the older daughter brought stress and resentment and struggle to OPs life as a young woman. The younger daughter came when OP actually wanted and could dedicate time to a child. The younger can do no wrong.
My grandmother treats my father differently because she says she was too young when she had him, and he stole her youth from her. But his brother was born years later when she was ready, and she loves him to death.
I feel like this might be missing missing reasons here. There is a big age gap between your daughters, is there any reason that your eldest might feel that she didn’t get the support growing up that her younger sister did. If the younger daughter is contributing financially of course it makes sense for her to get more than 50/50 but it does seem like you are helping her purchase an apartment, did you do the same for your other daughter when she was younger? And ded she gets the chance to be financially supported while pursuing higher education?
You’re not dead yet, so there is no inheritance for either of your daughters until that happens
NTA. Remind your older daughter that it is **your** money to do with what **you** will (pun intended)
Create a fair will. Just at the start take into account what each of them contributed, give them that and divide the rest fifty-fifty.
If one of your daughters contributed a lot to your house, them that should go back to her (maybe in percentages of value).
NTA, your older daughter is. Why is she beating on her inheritance az this point?
Info: it’s hard for me to assess but with such a big age gap, I can’t help but imagine that there’s frustration in the first child in how she experienced a different childhood than your younger one. Did they have different opportunities growing up?
This kind of demand usually happens when there’s been already some unfair perceived treatment.