Husband suffered severe stroke 4 years ago & I am his sole care giver.
Two kids live on my property & help me with him.
My youngest child has only visited one time in 4 years & seldom calls (says too busy) & no help. Lives 50 miles away.
My oldest is almost bedridden from obesity but calls every day.
I have a living trust made to divide everything in 4.
Now feel the two that do not help should get less.
How much less should I leave them?
There is no guarantee that there will be much left to leave anybody, if it turns out you need expensive care down the road. Don't postpone paying the kids who help to some indefinite future. Pay them now.
Then, what's left after your husband and you both die (if anything) could be distributed evenly among the kids, or the grandkids, or you can still decide to proportion what you leave each.
But please don't use your will to pay for services being provided now.
In your case, maybe something like the two who help each get 40% and the one who calls gets 15% and the other one gets 5% or something like that.
Just don't use that as a club against the kids who don't help. I have relatives who were always putting people in the will and then taking them out again while in a snit...and telling everyone about it. Very childish in my opinion.
And also consider what your children have been like throughout their lives. Were the two non-helpers ever more interested/involved? Is their lack of support a temporary thing? If they've always been that way, then I'd change the trust and not think twice about it.
I think I would want to make some note in the Will/Trust that if that child appears and helps out, then the splits will be changed to such and such. Otherwise if the child doesn't appear or helps out, the splits will remain as written in the amended Will/Trust.
Cwillie, my mother's parents did that. Us grandchildren got the bulk of the estate, where my mother and her siblings got much less. One of my mother's sisters contested the Will because she got so much less, but that was done for a reason, she played the horses and wasn't very good at winning.
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