The trust is to be divided among my sister, my brother and me, with my sister receiving 44% of the estate and my brother and I each receiving 28%. During a recent conversation between my brother, my wife and me, my wife offered — without consulting me beforehand — to provide my brother with an advance on his inheritance. Most Read from MarketWatchToday, my brother expressed that he would like to receive an advance on his inheritance without tapping into his own savings. I feel like this does us a disservice and does a disservice to my mother to allow him to draw solely from the estate without contributing any of his personal resources. It is not uncommon for an advance to be treated as a loan, accrue interest, and, most importantly, be offset against a future inheritance.