I’ve seen it happen too. Many times.
My grandmother’s family had a cousin and the cousin had no siblings or children. When she died, she left her inheritance to my aunt (grandma’s next older sister) because those two were very close and the cousin wasn’t that close to the rest of the siblings including my grandmother. My grandma and all but one of the siblings had no issue with this but the oldest sibling threw a fit and didn’t speak to my aunt for many years.
I didn’t speak to my father’s sister for many years. My dad passed away before my grandparents and as a result, we didn’t get his share of their estate because my aunt took much of it after grandpa died and grandma moved to senior apartments. The things that I wanted weren’t even of any value, but my aunt took them anyway and wouldn’t give them back despite what grandparents had said or like the war letters wouldn’t even give me a photocopy of them.
I’ve seen fights over the silliest things down to stuff as menial as Christmas ornaments.
The two ideas I like the most are 1) some families will give each kid a pot of money and then tell them they need to have an auction to buy all of the stuff from each other. Secondly, I know an older fellow who flat out told his kids and step kids that whoever helps me around the farm when I’m old will get all of my money. And he left everything to the som that helped him!
That is why I decided to let my situation rest and move on, my wife was done with the situation and I needed to look out for us as we had just gotten married and were looking to set down somewhere and raise a family. No material thing or land for that matter is worth me not talking to my family over. Dad is the last one left from his side of the family other than my sister and I and his sisters kids who have not spoken to us for years. Death is real and can happen at anytime, as did with my grandfather, he was walking talking and getting around good for a 78year old man one day and fell over the next, so you really do have to enjoy everyday.
Dad obviously was not ready to let go of the property, even though he was initially on board with the idea and then stalled HARD once we started working on things. Mom gave me the green light to even bring it up as he took my grandfathers passing very hard and I think he was using going there and taking care of stuff as a way to cope with the loss. I was also a little blinded by " I have worked hard here my whole life, why wouldn't he want to let me keep it going" and " I gotta keep the family farm land farming" mind set. Dad is also a stone wall most of the time so talking about this stuff is difficult. He was considering selling me like an acre to build a house on but I did not want to do that as if it ended up getting split with my sister I would still end up with houses right on top of me and have to look at what once was everyday. He was going to let us live there in the house until "we figured things out" which I know from previous experience would've just been putting it off until the end of time. We did briefly live there and put a lot of sweat equity hours and cash into the house that was there to make it livable as it was a borderline hoarder situation coupled with age neglect and a cat that used it as a litter box wherever it wanted. A lot of people probably would've knocked it down and started over. We wanted to add on significantly to the house as it was pretty small even for just us two so we wanted at least the house and stuff in our name to protect our investment in it but that was not an option to be considered so we decided to move on at that point.
In the end it is his property, it was left to him and not me, sitting around and just waiting on it to be passed through inheritance is a crap way to be and live so I was not going to do that. Logically it just does not make sense looking at it all from the outside as there is an empty house, yard, and 15 acres with cattle on it there now that he takes care of on top of the 40 acres where I grew up plus a full time job, and I can see it wearing on him. He is retiring in a month so I guess he wants to farm both properties in his retirement, but he often talks to me about how he has a second job taking care of 2 properties, is always so busy that he has no time to do anything else, and how he has to make it look like someone lives there cause people will come there and steal stuff with nobody living there. I think he could've retired a few years ago if he was not trying to maintain the place on top of his own. I just enjoy the time I have now to spend working with him at either place or the place I now own, as Mike said, no expectations leaves no disappointments. Dad and I were inseparable when I lived at home, we did everything together and had a blast doing it including working with my grandfather there, so I guess that is where my disappointment in the situation comes from mainly. Now he is always busy at his places and I am often busy at mine.
My mom and sister was on board with my wife and I getting the property and working out some sort of deal to make that fair to her as she has no interest in keeping any land so maybe I can still end up doing something with it at some point.
