DO WE CUT THIEF OUT OF WILL?

Dear Coleen

We have many grandchildren and when we die we will be leaving them some of our money (if there is any left!)

My problem is, we don’t know whether to leave one of the grandchildren any of our chattels.

Many years ago he left home and came to live with us, and was going through a very bad time. He was smoking and taking drugs and, unbeknown to us at first, he was stealing things from us and selling them.

We have always tried to treat all our grandchildren the same but feel because of the hundreds of pounds worth of goods he stole from us, perhaps we shouldn’t be leaving him anything.

We love them all the same, but are unsure what to do.

Coleen says

It’s your will and your legacy, so you have to do what you feel in your own heart.

You don’t say what the situation is now with that grandchild, although you say the problems he had were many years ago. Has he made it up to you? Has he changed his life and moved on to better things?

He might not actually be expecting anything from you, given how he’s behaved.

You welcomed him into your home and he abused that generosity. So it’s up to you whether you decide to teach him a lesson after you’ve gone by leaving him out of the will or giving him less because of what he stole from you or attaching conditions to it.

But I don’t think you should worry about what’s going to happen after you’ve gone – you can’t control that.

If you leave him the same as everyone else, it might cause problems with his siblings and cousins. And if you leave him nothing, it’ll could still cause issues, I just don’t know.

So you have to do some soul searching and do what you and your husband feel is right.