What happens if I die?

[ineedamiracle]

I have a DS (8) with my exH who has a contact order issued by the Court. The contact works reasonably well and our son has started to enjoy staying at his Dad's house overnight once a fortnight (although there have been problems which are being worked on). I was on my own with DS between him being 3 and 7 and we moved in to a new home with DP and his DS (12). During the time when we were on our own (and before) my parents have been very supportive - stepping in with child care and financially when exH had episodes of scary behaviour where he attempted to take our son away and threatened that I would never see him again (our son and I ended up leaving our home suddenly (owned by me) and moved close to my parents). My parents are a massive part of our son's life and they adore him. As exH has built up his relationship with our son, things have not recovered between myself and him due to many factors. He has been very hurtful throughout a spurious court battle for shared residency (which he didn't actually want, but took advice from the receptionist at the court), and then through contact negotiations. He still lies to me on a regular basis and does not care for our son to my standards (hygiene and sleep are very big issues - our son does not wash, change his clothes or brush his teeth when he is at his Dad's and he is allowed to stay up very very late which often spoils the rest of our weekend as DS is too tired to join in). There are also some problems with exH's OW and her eldest DS (also 8) - for example, keeping our DS awake and petty things such as weeing in DS's slippers.
Anyway, I digress - I have been thinking about the future. If anything happens to me (not that I plan to die - but, who knows?), would our son automatically go to live with his Dad (away from school, friends, family) or would his Grandparents be considered? It makes me sad to think that they would probably lose contact as his Dad is not very good at keeping in contact with people. I an scared that our little boy would never see his aunties and uncles or his cousins (I keep in contact with his Dad's side of the family as his Dad does not even keep in contact with his own family).
If I were to make my wishes clear in my will - would these be taken into account, or would DS just be shipped straight off to his Dad's?
Thankyou for reading.

[mumblechum1]

The default position would be that your son goes to live with his dad. You can, however, appoint a Guardian in your will, and then in the event that there was a dispute between your ex husband and the Guardian, the court would have to consider your expressed wishes in the will, together with a letter of wishes.

I'm a will writer and normally in these circumstances I would write into the will a clause appointing the Guardian notwithstanding the father being still alive. I would also refer to a separate letter of wishes which would be kept with the will. The letter would go into all the reasons that you don't want your ex to have your son living with him.

The reason I recommend that there's a separate letter is because the will is eventually going to be a public document, and assuming that you die after your son is 18, it would be pretty unpleasant for him to have all the gory details on public record.

If you're interested, I have a paid for advert over on the Small business part of the Classified Section of Mumsnet, titled "5* Will Writing Service Recommended by Mumsnetters".

[northangerabbey]

I'm in the same boat. Will be getting in touch with Mumblechum1.

[mumblechum1]