I’m NOT the parent in question. Just a FYI.
And by mental capacity, I mean like not just IQ, but also other mental conditions like depression, ADD/ADHD, etc…
Like the child(ren) has not done anything wrong like crime or misbehave, but simply the parent thinking that giving an inhertance to (in their view) a “mentally disabled” child is a waste and “would just end up in the hands of government”. And they justify it since they think that “the kid can just get disability income anyways”. (Location is USA, for reference)
I personally think this is just very ableist… what do you think? Is it okay for parents to do that?
Yes it’s ethical.
Family business : you want the steward to keep it going, maintain reputations, and support the family.
Large sums of money: look at lottery winners, many, many of them have really bad lives because they are not ready for the responsibility of managing it. If the child isn’t ready for it…
There are options for children who arnt ready to inherit. Trusts, disbursements over time, annuities
There’s no one size fits all answer here, it’s going to depend on how much money, how severe the childs disabilities are and what their care needs are, and what other sort of inheritance might be on the table ( for example one child gets the money and another child gets the house)
If the child is able to live on their own, then yeah, it’s a dick move and the parents are just playing favorites and being ableist.
If they have significant care needs- nursing home, psychiatric treatment, home health aides, visiting nurses, etc. then there might be some logical arguments to be made. If they’re already qualifying for some sort of government assistance then a large windfall of cash could potentially disrupt those benefits since they now have too much money to qualify.
That can be a real headache to navigate, they may need to arrange all new care for themselves, maybe switch doctors, find new housing, etc. which may be a lot for them to manage depending on the extent of their disabilities, and unless that inheritance is incredibly large it will probably run out at some point and leave them in a position where they need to navigate the system to get back on those government benefits, which is often no small feat.
So there could potentially be situations where it’s better for them to not leave them money and cause significant disruptions to their care and living arrangements.
This is all totally hypothetical without knowing the specifics of the situation. There’s a million different things to consider here and everyone’s situation is unique, and at best we’re getting one side of this story and don’t really know what the parents thoughts and reasoning are since we haven’t heard in directly from them (and it could very well be that their reason is just as shitty as it appears on the surface, I won’t discount that possibility)
You set up a trust (in the US they have a specific trust structure for disabled adults) and shield the beneficiary from the consequences of appearing to receive a disqualifying windfall.
This is true, and I did think about mentioning that but decided to keep it brief because once I start talking about trusts I’d find myself out of my depth pretty quickly and probably open up a rabbit hole of other financial strategies I’m not prepared or qualified to go down (and also to keep my comment at a more readable length)
But since we opened that can of worms (and like I said, this is getting out of my depth, so there’s a very real possibility that some or all of what I have to say after this is wrong, so take it for what it’s worth)
We also don’t know how much money we’re talking about here. The line between qualifying for benefits and not can be razor thin sometimes, and while we might assume that we’re talking about 10s or 100s of thousands of dollars or even more where a trust would absolutely make sense, we might actually only be talking about a couple thousand bucks, maybe not even enough to afford a couple months of rent depending on where you are, but potentially enough to fuck up someone’s benefits depending on where some government bean counters drew the line. It might be difficult or impossible to find a financial institution willing to act as a trustee for such a small amount, and there may not be any individual they trust to fill that role, and once the lawyers and such are paid there may not even be much left over.
There’s also the possibility that the parents are counting on the sibling(s) to sort of act as trustees without putting it in writing. We don’t know what their relationships and personalities are like, or what conversations they’ve had with their parents that maybe OP isn’t privy to. There could be an understanding there that they’re getting everything so that they can continue to provide for their disabled sibling after the parents are gone, and OP hasn’t been made aware of that (some people are really uncomfortable talking about this kind of stuff and avoid it even though they really should) or misunderstood what the intention is. That of course depends on the siblings being trustworthy and generally having their shit together well enough, which isn’t a given of course and their situation could change drastically.
There’s also the possibility that a trust is exactly what’s happening and OP either misunderstood it or just plain doesn’t like it. A lot of people out there are pretty clueless about financial matters. If the siblings were named as the trustee (it’s often not a good idea to have the trustee be a close relative, but that’s neither here nor there) I could see some people viewing the situation as “they left all the money to my siblings” because they’re not getting a big one time payout and the money has to go through their siblings in some fashion.
Again, I’m talking all in hypotheticals, there are countless “ifs,” “ands” and “buts” here, we don’t know the specifics of OPs situation so we can only speculate.
If I were the parent, knowing exactly how little disability actually covers, as both my father and my wife are/were on it. I would help that kid more, and hope I raised my other kids to appreciate that they just needed more help.
Well, I have certainly seen the opposite. I have seen a number of cases where a parent has chosen to leave a significantly bigger portion of their estate to a disabled child because that child would need it.
Ethics is not an area in which there are right and wrong answers – just ethical principles that do or don’t appeal to you. For me, I think parents should have the right to decide how their wealth should be distributed without any “must be even for all children” constraints. But I would never choose to leave my least able-bodied child less for that reason.
Whatever the issue is, it clearly manifested long before the topic of inheritance came up
It’s not ethical or unethical—but your framing makes it inherently from POV of some assholes, so it kinda renders the whole hypothetical moot.
People can allocate their assets as they please. Every situation is unique. In your situation, it sounds like the parents were narcissistic assholes with a disabled child.
The inheritance can be put into a special needs trust, to be used for the benefit of the child.
You can give people cash with limits on it instead of just giving a lump sum.
For someone with a drug addiction or gambling addiction giving a lump sum would be death.
Put that money in a trust fund with limits on how often they can withdraw and what they can spend it on.
It may not be fool proof but better then just not giving anything at all.
could make a special needs trust.
If I may answer with an example. My sibling is very emotional and not as good as studying and has therefore received a decent amount of money for not only their entire education but also living expenses. Because I got a scholarship and work other jobs, I was on my own. I’ve always resented it as being punished for working harder.
IDK how I would handle it with my children because I want to give fair opportunities but from the child’s perspective it is hard. Giving the same money would be best.
I didn’t for a second read that and think you were the parent.
Depends on the disability, e.g. someone with a gambling addition will just spend the money, or sell the house. If its like autism spectrum disabilities than it can be considered unethical. (If the inheritance is a house, than put it in trust so they can’t sell it for any reason.) If they’re saying that the person will “just get disability payments” shows that they don’t care and would rather play favorites than have all their children to succeed.
There are some circumstances where it makes sense. If you have a disability in the US, you cannot have money or you’ll lose your benefits
There are ways around this. Special needs trusts are very good tools. Not perfect but a good starting point for protecting a disabled adult while also providing for them.
No one is entitled to anyone’s inheritance. The ethics of the situation really depend on the details. Did one child look after the parents in their old age? Doe one child have more needs? Was there a promise to distribute everything evenly?
If the only reason for exclusion is because one child has depression or anxiety and isn’t the smartest, then that sounds pretty ableist and shitty. If the person really can’t manage the money, why not set up a trust designed to help them out without just handing over lump sums of cash? The one case where exclusion makes sense is if they require long term in patient care since at least in the US, all your money is eaten up by the medical bills before you default to Medicare (unless you have a stupid amount of money and can pay out of pocket for premium care forever)
Sounds very US… I had to take some info on the topic here in europe and it appears that there’s a very much unalienable right for kids (and next of kin) to a fair distribution.
One can literally not change the part of the patrimony going to a child (without resorting to very complex arrangements that seemingly won’t be accepted by a judge should shit hits the fan).
Even though, for example, one learns he did not father a child -still cannot change the percentage. Tough luck for the other children, the wife…
Everyone has a right to be protected here. In the grand scheme of things it’s for the best.
And yeah, ethics is the basis for this simply you have to assume the position of the weakest one involved and not from the perspective of the one with the money ;-)
That’s absolutely ableist.
