He Refused to Share His Inheritance With His Parents’ Foster Son — Then the Family Fight Turned Personal
A man who had just lost both parents in a sudden accident said he was still trying to understand what had happened when another painful question landed on him: what did he owe the teenage boy his parents had fostered for more than a decade?
The man, 35, explained in a Reddit post later preserved on BestofRedditorUpdates that his parents had died unexpectedly and left no will behind. They had been fairly comfortable financially, with properties and investments, and because he was their only biological child, the estate was legally set to go to him once everything was handled by solicitors.
But his parents had also fostered a boy named Ben, who was 16. Ben had lived with them since he was 5, and by the poster’s own description, his parents treated Ben like their son. The problem was that Ben had never been adopted and had not been made a legal heir. That meant he was not automatically entitled to the inheritance, even though he had spent most of his childhood in that home.
The poster did not describe Ben as someone being left with nothing. Because Ben was a looked-after child in England, he had an ISA in his name. The government contributed to it, and the poster said his parents had also been adding money to it every year. From what he remembered, they had been putting in around £8,000 to £9,000 annually, which meant Ben could have around £100,000 when he turned 18.
To the poster, that mattered. Ben would have money. He would have social services involved. He had not been legally adopted. And the inheritance, once finalized, would legally belong to the poster.
But his girlfriend saw it differently.
She had grown close to Ben over the years and felt the poster was looking at the situation too narrowly. In her view, Ben had already lost one stable home before entering foster care, and now he had lost the couple who had raised him for most of his life. She argued that the parents had clearly considered Ben their son, even if the legal paperwork had never been changed.
The poster admitted he felt guilty, but he also said he and Ben had never been especially close. When Ben came into the family, the poster was already an adult and living away from home. He had been polite to him, but they did not have a brotherly bond. He also said the inheritance could help him buy a home, invest, start a family, and secure his own future.
That tension became the heart of the conflict. Was this about what was legally his, or about what his parents likely would have wanted?
The poster tried to clarify several points after commenters pushed back. He said Ben’s biological parents were not dead and that Ben still saw them weekly. He also explained that Ben had been long-term matched with his parents under the foster system in England, meaning he was a permanent part of their household but not eligible for adoption in the same way some readers might assume. The foster arrangement also meant the poster could not simply take Ben in. He was not a qualified foster carer, and even if he started that process, Ben would almost be 18 by the time it finished.
Still, those details did not erase the emotional reality. Ben had lived in that family for 11 years. He had lost the adults raising him. And because there was no will, the legal system had created a clean answer to a situation that did not feel clean at all.
According to the Reddit post, the poster eventually came back with an update after reading the responses and having more conversations.
He said the comments forced him to think about more than the legal side of the estate. He started asking what his parents would have wanted, especially given how they treated Ben while they were alive. He also had a long talk with his girlfriend, who had been closer to Ben and helped him see the situation from a different angle.
After speaking with solicitors and getting a clearer picture of what had been set up for Ben, he decided to keep contributing to Ben’s ISA until he turned 18, just as his parents had done. More importantly, he said he would set aside part of the inheritance in a trust for Ben.
He was careful to say he was not giving away half of everything or acting only because people pressured him. He framed it as a decision that felt right after he thought more seriously about his parents’ legacy and Ben’s future.
He also reached out to Ben’s social worker to make sure the teenager was getting support, and he planned to stay more involved in his life. He still was not ready to become a foster carer or take over Ben’s day-to-day care, but the update showed a major shift in how he saw the situation. At first, he had focused heavily on what belonged to him legally. By the end, he was thinking about what it meant for Ben to know he had not been forgotten.
Commenters were divided at first, but many pushed the poster hard on the difference between legal entitlement and moral responsibility. A lot of readers felt Ben had been functionally part of the family, and they did not think the lack of adoption papers should erase 11 years of being raised by the poster’s parents.
Some commenters also pointed out a practical issue with Ben’s ISA. They argued that if his parents had been putting significant money into it, they may have been planning to support him after he aged out of care so that the savings could be used for something meaningful, like housing, instead of being burned through on expenses he otherwise might have received help with.
Others were more sympathetic to the poster. They noted that he had just lost both parents, had not been close to Ben, and was suddenly being asked to make major financial and family decisions while grieving. They did not think he should be forced into becoming Ben’s guardian or giving away a large portion of the estate without time to think.
By the update, most commenters seemed relieved that he landed somewhere in the middle. He protected his own future, but he also recognized that Ben had been part of his parents’ family and deserved more than a technical explanation about paperwork.
