Money Manners: No obligation for cousins to share inheritance

Dear Jeanne & Leonard:

My aunt’s will called for her sisters and brothers to share equally in her roughly $300,000 estate. However, my father, who was her brother, predeceased my aunt, so the money was divided among her remaining siblings, none of whom outlived her by much. What this means is that their children — i.e., my cousins — ultimately inherited my aunt’s money, while I got nothing. Even though my cousins were already affluent, they never offered me any of the money they inherited. Well, I now need extensive dental work and can’t afford it, so I want to ask my cousins to do the right thing and share some of their inheritances with me. How should I approach them?

— Margaret H., Sacramento Area, California

Dear Margaret:

What happened seems unfair, and you have our sympathy. But that said, your cousins have no legal obligation to give you any of the money their parents inherited from your aunt, and their moral obligation to do so is anything but clear. After all, if your aunt had wanted you to inherit your father’s share in the event that he predeceased her, she could have said so in her will. Moreover, once your father died, she could have changed her will and made you a beneficiary.

So unless your real goal is to let off steam, don’t go telling your cousins that they’re obligated to do what your aunt didn’t. A better way to solicit their help is to ask for it nicely and appreciatively, one cousin to another. Unless someone asks why you’re turning to him or her for help, there’s no reason to even mention your aunt’s money and the timing of your father’s death.

Back to homepage

Subscriber Login

Keep reading with a digital access subscription.

Subscribe now

Dear Jeanne and Leonard:

My classmate “Alexis” borrowed my calculator during a study hall because she’d forgotten hers. (Everyone is required to have this calculator, and it’s expensive — $110.) Later, when Alexis didn’t return it, I asked for it back. That’s when she told me she lent it to another student, who’d lost it. So my mother asked Alexis’ mother to pay for half the cost of replacing the calculator. But Alexis’ mother would pay only a third, saying it was the responsibility of the other student involved to pay the rest. I don’t even know the person Alexis lent my calculator to, so I wound up having to pay two-thirds of the cost of a new one. I don’t think that’s fair. Shouldn’t Alexis have paid half?

— Judy, Albany, N.Y.

Dear Judy:

No; Alexis should have paid the entire cost of replacing your calculator. She borrowed it from you, and it was her obligation to return it. If she was unable to do so, she should have given you $110. If the classmate to whom — without your permission — she lent it was unwilling to chip in, that’s Alexis’ problem, not yours.

Shame on Alexis’ mother for sticking you with two-thirds of the cost of replacing a calculator her daughter in effect lost, and shame on her as well for teaching her daughter that it’s OK to use phony logic to dodge responsibility.