# questions about inheritence



## THE_UNIT (Feb 25, 2011)

My dad is engaged to his girlfriend and i was just wondering if someone can answer my questions. When he passes probably not for another 25-30 years will i be left with nothing? She has 2 younger kids and i know if it were up to her she wouldn't give me anything. Just wondering if someone could explain what will probably happen because my mother told me i can kiss any thoughts of inheriting goodbye. This is in Saskatchewan if that makes a difference. Thanks.


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## Berubeland (Sep 6, 2009)

Wow sounds like fun family drama! 

I would ignore your mom, she has no idea what will happen in 20-30 years does she? If she does get her to look into the stock market and predict some good stocks to invest in.

Just concentrate on your own life and becoming financially independent rather than worrying about your inheritance which you may or may not get. 

Seriously you may well drop dead yourself at any time! Live till you die


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## Karen (Jul 24, 2010)

i don't know anythinng about estate law in Saskatchewan, but I'm wondering if you have the kind of relationship where you could talk with your father about this. When I married a man with children from a previous marriage, I changed my will to say that my total estate would be divided three ways between my husband and my two children. As it happens, he predeceased me, so I changed my will again leaving everything to my children.

As an aside, I believe it does make a difference what province you and your father live in. I was told by my lawyer that British Columbia is the only province in Canada where adult children who are not in financial need can successfully challenge a parent's will if they are not left a reasonable amount of the estate.


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## slacker (Mar 8, 2010)

Some people are so lucky in life.

I support my parents.


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## marina628 (Dec 14, 2010)

You dad may be worrying about his retirement fund not what is left to his Adult Children.I would imagine you should take Dad to lunch and talk to him.For some kids it is not the amount of money they are left but being thought of in the will.I have left something to my sister , Brother and Brother In law in my will , not because they need it but to show them I love them enough to consider their feelings.


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## financialnoob (Feb 26, 2011)

No offense, but I think your mom may not be the best source of information on this, especially considering her own emotional involvement on the issue. First word that jumped into my head was "bitter."

Can you legally stake a claim to the inheritance if you're not included? Perhaps, according to this short blurb which basically says anything is possible. Should you be worrying about it when it's decades away? No, berubeland is right on the mark and you should be concerned with yourself, not some potential future windfall.

And as marina pointed out, you should speak with your dad. Is it the money that's of concern, or is it that your dad may "forget" about you with his second family? 

I'd also think spending the next few decades forming/maintaining a close bond with your father would be better than any internet lawyer's advice about his inheritance.


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## kcowan (Jul 1, 2010)

financialnoob said:


> I'd also think spending the next few decades forming/maintaining a close bond with your father would be better than any internet lawyer's advice about his inheritance.


Speaking as a father of 2 sons who has moved on to a woman not their mother, I think your relationship with your father will mean more than anything. Your mother was dealt with fairly at the time of the divorce. So that should cover half the potential inheritance.

Your father will want to provide for his new wife in the even of his death. If he predeceases her, anything in his estate is fair game for her. With luck, he will live long enough to spend all his money.

But I agree with others that worrying about a potential inheritance is wrong.


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

i for one think that spice who remarry should be unbelievably careful about this inflammatory issue. A 2nd spouse would certainly have to be greedy & cold-blooded to regard his or her mate's estate as fair game, to the exclusion of the blood children of the first marriage.

one normally assumes that a 2nd spouse is not young himself or herself at the time of the 2nd marriage, ie he or she enters this marriage with valid assets or a working profession or both. Otherwise a 2nd marriage would be the archetypical gold-digger situation & the children of the first marriage could eventually be both hurt & angry if they are left out of an inheritance.

if a 2nd spouse indeed has no means & cannot work, often a 2nd marriage will include a trust for this surviving spouse, with capital eventually passing to the children. Or a house can be left to a surviving spouse.

if an estate is too small to justify trustees' fees, but there will still be some assets to bequeath, i think that parents who remarry should 1) carefully work out a truly fair plan that does right by everybody, 2) inform everybody involved including the 2nd spouse, and 3) decide in advance what kind of limits they are going to put around the subject so the kids will know that they have no right to keep on discussing.

there's one tricky little exception that applies more to widows & widowers. There will be some accoutrements & furnishings of the first household that the kids grew up with. All of these should go to the kids & the sooner the better.


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## OhGreatGuru (May 24, 2009)

THE_UNIT said:


> My dad is engaged to his girlfriend and i was just wondering if someone can answer my questions. When he passes probably not for another 25-30 years will i be left with nothing? She has 2 younger kids and i know if it were up to her she wouldn't give me anything. Just wondering if someone could explain what will probably happen because my mother told me i can kiss any thoughts of inheriting goodbye. This is in Saskatchewan if that makes a difference. Thanks.


1. Unless there is a family farm at stake, don't count on your father to leave you anything. He may need all his money to support himself in old age, or to provide for dependents. You are/will be an adult. Plan your life to live independently, and if you receive an inheritance that will just be a nice bonus.

2. Your mother's comment sounds like bitterness talking. She has apparently made up her mind the new GF is just a golddigger. It's up to your father to determine who his estate goes to, subject to some rights that a spouse and any dependent children have.

3. If you want a real conversation killer, next time your mom says this, ask her how much of her estate you can expect to receive. After all, she got half the family assets up to the time of the divorce.


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## marina628 (Dec 14, 2010)

Just wanted to say my husband's mom died when he was 17 ,his dad remarried in a year and he died when my husband was 26.My husband's mom had left her share of the house to my father in law to be left to my husband when father in law died.The 2nd wife got everything as it became their matrimonial home ,but the house meant so much to my husband that we bought it from step mother for market price when father in law died.My mother in law wrote the will herself and I am sure she assumed her baby was taken care of but in fact before my husband turned 18 he was basically kicked out by the step mother.
That is why we got the step monster situation in our wills to protect our kids as My husband has suffered so much because of what happened to him as a teenager.His step mothers kids got everything from his parents and not really much you can do when you make mistakes like my in laws made.


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## OhGreatGuru (May 24, 2009)

marina628 said:


> ....My husband's mom had left her share of the house to my father in law to be left to my husband when father in law died...My mother in law wrote the will herself and I am sure she assumed her baby was taken care of but in fact before my husband turned 18 he was basically kicked out by the step mother.
> ....


Writing the will herself was probably a mistake in a complex situation. She may have intended that her share of the house go to her minor-aged son, but it would be very difficult to make it happen legally unless she set up a trust to hold it. And that might have conflicted with her spouse's rights to inherit the matrimonial home.

If your husband was kicked out of the home at age 18, his father was still alive when this happened and lived another 8 years. If the father didn't write a will in all that time to benefit the son, (or write a marriage contract before his second marriage) it seems unfair to put all the blame on the step-mother.


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## marina628 (Dec 14, 2010)

Actually neither were well versed in legal issues and in his will he wrote that house was left to my husband but the step mother said it was her home as well even though she had a house when she married and was not going to be homeless.We got a legal opinion and of course legally it was hers ,morally she came in with nothing and should have at least left the house to the kids.But that is all done now and when she cashed that check from my husband I am sure my husband's parents both rolled in their graves.BTW My husband bought and paid for it then let his sister and her husband have it ,my husband is happy to go there for a few home cooked meals .The house and memories meant quite a bit to the family .Their parents were married 41 years when she died and this house was her dream house and she only got to live in it for 3 years.


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## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

can`t the father leave the son by his first marriage something in his will
if he goes to a lawyer


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## kcowan (Jul 1, 2010)

Yes he can. But he also has to take care of his new wife until she is 90. By then, any residual might be negligible. If he has enough money, he should give it to them when he is alive. But is he is like my Dad, he won't.


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## Plugging Along (Jan 3, 2011)

THE_UNIT said:


> My dad is engaged to his girlfriend and i was just wondering if someone can answer my questions. When he passes probably not for another 25-30 years will i be left with nothing? She has 2 younger kids and i know if it were up to her she wouldn't give me anything. Just wondering if someone could explain what will probably happen because my mother told me i can kiss any thoughts of inheriting goodbye. This is in Saskatchewan if that makes a difference. Thanks.



The only person that will be able to answer this is your dad. It will depend on how he writes his will. If he passes on evertyhing to his new wife, then it will be up to her. If writes it that you are included (other than the matrimonial home), then you will get what ever he leaves for an inheritence.

An inheritence is not something that should be counted on, and if there are 20-30 years ahead for you dad, then I would just forgot about it, and just live life as if there isn't anything for you to inherit. Your dad has a few decades of life to live, and you have even more. Don't fret about the money. 

I have been promised an inheritence all my life (since elementary grade school). It was something that was an attempt for control/affection with my siblings and I from our parents. It was something that if we did the right thing, or what my parents wanted, we would be 'rewarded' later in life. My siblings and I know exactly what we will inherit some day. My sibling and I all made the decision that I was not going to be manipulated with money or the thought of an inheritance, and have been so much happier since then. Each one of us have made it that we will never 'need' the inheritance and therefore never live life under someone elses control. Everytime our parents try and give us a guilt trip that they aren't able to do something because they are saving their money for our inheritance (this has been an on going theme for 30+ years), we tell them to spend more, and we'll even chip in. 

We've learned that there is so much that can happen over time with money. Stock markets crash, RE values go up, RE goes goes down, parents health can go, mental capacity dimishes, divorce, relationships go sour, you name it, etc, that nothing is really gaurentees an inheritance. My mother was so concerned that if she died that my father would remarry, and leave us with nothing, she forced my father to rewrite the wills. They are in their late 70's, married for 50+ years my dad has made it really clear that if my mom passes, he really would be stupid to remarry, and lose his chance for freedom  The wills were written to be the most tax efficient from an estate planning view point. 

The children (benefiicaries) actually did not want the will re written, even though it would benefit us because it does not benefit our parents. The both lawyers involved thought it was the craziest things they have ever seen. They said this was one of the first time where they have seen the beneficiaries arguing with the parents because we did NOT want the inheritance and wanted it to remain for the parents. Usually, lawyers are dealing with people fighting for the money, we actually told them to leave it for a charity. That nearly had my parents in tears, so we ended up going with their wishes. 

Sorry for the tangent. My point is you can either have the conversation with your father (though I think it's way too soon), or just ignore the inheritance part, and live your life. If you have a good enough relationship with your dad, then you can later have that conversation.


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## THE_UNIT (Feb 25, 2011)

Thank you everyone for the feedback. I am not counting on my inheritance in any way i just wanted to see what people thought. I have a successful job and started saving for retirement at 21. I understand the most important thing is spending time with my dad and not the inheritance although the thought of everything he has worked for to go to 2 kids that don't respect that and are already soiled really angers me. I feel better that it has a lot to do with the will.

Thanks


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## MoneyGal (Apr 24, 2009)

The general rule is that the estate is distributed according to the will, if there is one. If there is no will, the estate is distributed according to the 
rules of intestacy for your province. In Saskatchewan, here are the rules:

http://www.justice.gov.sk.ca/Intestate-Succession-Act-1996

Note that under those rules, "child" is defined as the lineal descendant of the deceased - that is, stepchildren are not included. 

So if your dad dies without a will, and his estate is $100K or less, it all goes to the spouse (defined to include a common-law spouse in Saskatchewan). If there's more than $100K, some goes to children and the law of intestacy sets out how the excess is divided. 

Note that divorce and remarriage affect the status of a will. Unless your dad has a will made after or explicitly in contemplation of a marriage to his new spouse, he does not have a valid will and will be assumed to have died without a will (but if he is divorced from your mom, any bequest to her will be invalidated by the divorce). 

In Saskatchewan, if you are an adult child who is not included in a will, you can sue for a share but the general rule is that you must show hardship associated with not having been included (unlike in B.C., the example given earlier).


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## Spidey (May 11, 2009)

THE_UNIT said:


> My dad is engaged to his girlfriend and i was just wondering if someone can answer my questions. When he passes probably not for another 25-30 years will i be left with nothing? She has 2 younger kids and i know if it were up to her she wouldn't give me anything. Just wondering if someone could explain what will probably happen because my mother told me i can kiss any thoughts of inheriting goodbye. This is in Saskatchewan if that makes a difference. Thanks.


I know that it seems unseemly to think about a potential inheritance, but sometimes it is hard not to be bothered by unequal distributions of a father's assets, especially to recipients that may not have been involved in the sacrifices the family may have went through to achieve those assets. 

As for the question, unfortunately it does happen rather frequently and is very difficult to protect against because the current wife has a strong claim on assets. (For example, it is not really reasonable to ask her to sell the house, car, etc.) Both my wife and myself have made a commitment to protect the interests of our children in the event that anything happen to either one of us and if the remaining spouse enters a new relationship. And part of the reason for doing this is not only the protection of our children's financial interests but also to try to ensure that their relationship with the new person is a healthy one.

If your relationship with your father is good, I don't think that it would be wrong to mention that this is a concern.


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## Berubeland (Sep 6, 2009)

Plugging Along I totally get your point, I would like my frugal parents to spend some money and enjoy themselves and what they have worked so hard for. Unfortunately they are still scrimping, saving and accumulating but it's a habit now.

The only thing I worry about is that the house I live in and paid off years ago is still in my parent's name. Still I did it once I could do it again. They like that control.


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