Guardianship

[secretscwirrels]

We have wills drawn up when the DC were younger. They are now 17 and 14.
The DCs are now older and choices we made when we drew up the wills I am not comfortable with now, in particular the choice of guardian.
We nominated a relative who I now believe would not be capable of administering the finacial side of things and would probably not really be able to cope with two teenage boys.
There isn't another obvious candidate, what would happen if there was no guardian appointed? Would DC1 be reponsible?

[Wanttowrite]

I'm in Scotland so this may be different but when we made wills and appointed guardians the advice was to review the will frequently as the children got older. My son will be 16 soon so we will review then as I would prefer he had responsibility of some kind as legally there are many other things he can do at 16.

[titchy]

At 17 probably unlikely he'd be made responsible for his brother, at 18 maybe. At 18 nothin would happen to your older one - he'd be an adult. Younger would become looked after by local authority. They may let ds1 be responsible but I think it would be up to court to decide. Disclaimer - ianal!

[StuntNun]

It would be up to the court to make the decision, your will is only to make your wishes known.

[secretscwirrels]

Wanttowrite good point about regular reviews. We were only advised to keep an eye on inheritance tax thresholds.

[mumblechum1]

OP, if you make new wills appointing no guardians, then SS would make an assessment and, if the younger child couldn't be accommodated within the family, they'd have to go into some form of care.

The 17 year old is of course technically a child still, but SS would, I believe, only get involved in a "hands off" sense.

You say, however, that you are concerned about the guardian managing the money properly; do you realise that the executors(trustees) are the people who manage the trust fund, not the guardian?

[secretscwirrels]

Thanks mumblechum, the trustee is also the guardian.
I need to think of who else I could ask, just to cover the next 3 years. Hopefully not needed, but the point of making the will is to protect the DCs interests.

[mumblechum1]

I'm a willwriter, and always recommend not using the same person in the two roles, partly so as to avoid a potential conflict of interest, but also to spread the burden a bit.

What some people do is make a will but not appoint a guardian if there really is no one at all who could act. Others prefer to appoint friends rather than family, as at least that way the children can stay at the same school etc, which isn't possible if the family are scattered.

Of course, who ever looked after the children would be able, with the trustees' agreement, to take money from the trust to cover the children's maintenance.

Between the ages of 18 (when guardianship lapses) and 21 (which is when most people are happy for the child to inherit), the child asks the trustee directly for funding from the trust.

If you're interested, I have a paid for advert over on the Small Business section of MN Classifieds ("5* Will Writing Service Recommended by Mumsnettrs")

[secretscwirrels]

Many thanks mumblechum. We will give it some thought.