pretty sure assets prior to the marriage wouldn’t be included in any divorce settlement in English or Scots law.
Most of it is in a trust that was established before the marriage. a fair few properties have already been transferred, some into my name.
She’s 1 of 3 siblings, none of thm have a degree and she’s the only successful one so is the only 1 he has any faith in. he’s a self made entrepreneur, dislikes any “conventional” investments bar property and is intent on ploughing most of his cash into start-ups and pet projects.
Ironically, most of the action he’s taken over the last 2-3 years has been driven by him divorcing his 3rd wife (who is younger than his daughter) and is pursuing him through every court for ever penny she can get her grubby wee hands on.
We prefer the term ‘Champagne Socialists’ actually.
But in all seriousness, he left when she was very young and she didn’t see him or hear from him again until she was in her late 20’s. She grew up in a council estate, dragged her way into a successful career with no formal education past the age of 16 and built a portfolio of buy to let properties despite nobody else in her family ever even owning a property. She knows about downside risk.
Her half brother on the other hand, he was brought up with money and is bailed out almost annually.
I haven’t had any inheritance yet, I just know it’s out there. That being said 1) I explicitly don’t factor it into my plans 2) it does shape some of my willingness to take financial risks knowing I have a safety net between myself and bankruptcy and 3) I can’t be a champagne socialist since I’m not a liberal. Although I do get a kick out of my Hillary supporter friends calling me a ultra conservative while my Trump supporter friends call me a bleeding heart liberal.
I’m in a similar position as BS, and while I don’t expect any tears, the amount that I expect has done nothing but go down over time. My grandparents getting divorced destroyed an incredible amount of wealth, and the sale of the family company turned off the cash flow spigot that was pretty generous. I expect I will get enough that once invested would provide enough income that I wouldn’t have to work if I stay single, but not enough that I could live the way I do now on it or support a family. Hence, I’ll keep working.
Inheritances are often dangled to get people to jump, but they often aren’t there when the time comes. End of life expenses are high, stuff gets gifted away, some people invest poorly, others are just selfish.
To the extent that it helps people learn to take reasonable calculated risks, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
My mother came from money and always suggested that it was there for me if I needed it. This is part of why I know a little bit about some of the inheritance and marriage issues. In reality, I never saw a dime, other than her willingness to pop for plane tickets to visit her at her palaces. She basically spent everything on herself and died with about 6 months of living costs left to go, and willed any assets that might remain to some flaky charity run by this guy she banged. I sometimes refer to her as the 6 million dollar woman, because that is the amount (inflation adjusted) that I estimate she burned through over the course of the 25 years after she inherited from her father.
My stepmother told me when I was 12 that I should live my life assuming that I would get zero inheritances, despite the appearance of money. At the time, I thought she was trying to teach me not to let my mother use threats of disinheritance to manipulate me. Later I realized that she was preparing me for her own plans to take it all.
My father was not rich, but solidly middle class, at the time he was recovering from the fact that in the divorce, my mother had taken virtually every asset of his, except for the pension (which apparently was left intact in exchange for all rights to the house), his car, and some personal effects. It struck me as very relevant that she had all of her own money going into the divorce, and yet managed to grab everything from him as well, even though she was the one that had stepped out of bounds in the marriage. I suspect that this has a lot to do with my own reluctance to get married. Watching my father get shafted by two different women (not to mention the collateral effects on me) has made me very shy of those kinds of commitments.
It took years for me to realize that not all women are like the crazy ones that my father liked (though there are plenty of them), and my relations with women improved markedly once I got there and learned to be more careful in my due diligence, but it is still tricky for me to commit that last 100% because of the shadow of that past.
Yeah. I imagine it’s fairly common that money one is expecting to inherit, is “poof gone” in the final years. That was a gruesome story.
Didn’t have wealthy parents, but still if people work their whole lives you would think the kids would get something?? But nope. Parents bad with finances, general selfishness “I’ll be gone so who cares”, money mysteriously blow/lost in final years, pooled money with non-family without solid papers on ownership of those assets, creepy acquaintances move in and get it.
My observation, old people are greedy creeps, fighting over some scraps.
very good points Bchad. I don’t know why but (what i presume is your) surname just screams “old money”
I find it fascinating the wake that money leaves. My wife’s extended family back home (most still living in a council estate in one of the most deprived areas of the country) are all living with the expectation of a huge windfall coming their way at some point in the future. The amount of bickering over hypothetical cash is amazing, the jockeying for claim to the man that they all loathe. My wife’s been contacted on multiple occasions by people claiming to be half brothers and sisters, some playing the long game and others just outright asking for money.
My parents never talked to me about money at all. My siblings and I derived fairly recently that my dad must have inherited $20mm+ in real estate from his parents. Most of it is managed by someone else and I have never set foot there. In retrospect, that time when he bought 4 cars over a relatively short period should have tipped me off. There is a business worth a significant amount as well. I might find myself in a pokhim sort of situation one day.
(Interesting note: one side of my family used to be serious “old money”: upper levels of imperial China. There are some Wikipedia pages on a couple of these guys. But then they lost everything in the revolution… The main thing that was saved though, is that they were among the first Chinese to study in US universities. So until today, my family tends to have a tradition of impeccable academic credentials.)
To be honest, I have never once considered that I might be living off inherited money at any point. I’m aware now that it is there, but I’m not exactly counting down to the day my parents die… No one in my family knows how to spend money (other than luxury watch fetish). So not sure exactly what is going to happen here.
My inheritance has actually been growing, but that being said, I just don’t plan on it. Honestly, we were raised working on a farm and given a certain work ethic. My older brother (who’s a bit of an eccentric loony toon - scary coming from me) wanted written out to avoid conflict after seeing the way another family experienced a lot of infighting. We talked him off the ledge but I have a feeling there may be at least a million or more there for me when the time comes, I just feel weird taking it so I try not to think about it. It’s really more sad than anything given the backdrop which is maybe why I just don’t htink about it. Anyhow, knowing I have a family to support me has definitely encouraged risk taking (ie pursuing a front office career in a volatile or structurally declining atmosphere) and contributed to my early habits where I spent everything I earned and didn’t save anything. Nowadays I’m more of a saver.
There is “old money” in my family, but it’s on the Jewish side (and my surname is about as unjewish as you can get). My father’s side are technically athiests but come from an Anglican cultural tradition. And there are real socialists on my fathers’ side (my aunt and uncle), who my mother always thought were angry at him for marrying outside of his class (I’m not sure if she was actually right on that one, but it’s possible). My father himself was not socialist.
There are interesting stories from the moneyed side. One was the US Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, another couple went down on the Titanic (and even have a story about them - as well as cut scenes about them in Cameron’s film, though they left the scene on the floating bed, even though the reported reality is that eventually a wave washed them off the deck). Another served directly under President Truman. I have a personalized thank you letter from Truman for birthday presents they exchanged in which Truman says he always loved Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata but he hasn’t practiced in years so can’t play it anymore.
So there is this tradition of public service and noblesse oblige from that part of the family that undoubtedly informs the idea that government is capable of doing good things for society, and which presumably irritates the libertarian contingent here on AF no end. My view is not exactly Burkean, but I do agree that the state can overstep and that there are problems with governments who add restrictions and laws just to prove that they are doing something rather than out of a sound analysis of what the problems are. The challenge is tha as I age and see more, it becomes harder and harder to figure out which analyses are genuinely sound vs those presented as political cover for other purposes.
Yes, the amount of squabbling over unknown quantities that may or may not actually be there, forcing people to put up with people they loathe. It’s fascinating if you can view it from a distance. I imagine family office work must be incredibly political.
lol inheritance. When I get older, I’m probably going to be the one who will have to take care of my parents with my own income. I’m stressed out about this and was actually going to start another thread.
Bchad, that is probably the fifth time you have talked about your parents on here and each time I read it, I get angrier and angrier for you.
The story about the kid with the chip on his shoulder is a boring one. I tried working on a pitch for it once… It’s like Goodwill Hunting except replace the genius intellect with lots of hard work and studying, the chick isn’t as hot, the job offer wasn’t prestigious, your mentor isn’t as funny as Robin Williams. It generates about as much interest as the one about the kid that was an “entrepreneur” working for the family owned business, but not as relatable with the clients.