Lottery

[Alita7]

This one of those silly threads but ive got It in my head now so I need to discuss it :p I'm sure we will never win the lottery but it crossed my mind when buying a ticket that if we did we'd be in a bit of a predicament.

Dsd 3 lives with us and dsd 1 and 2 live with their (different) mum.

I was wondering what would happen financially.
DP has never been married, dsd 1 and 2 are twins and they weren't together when they found she was pregnant, he wanted to try so they got back together briefly after they were born but she left very soon.

We would obviously buy a house with a big room each etc and want to spend plenty of the money on the girls. But if they continued to live with their mum would she have a legal right to any of the money or even Increased maintenance? We would obviously want to pay a fair amount and I don't want to sound stingy but her and her husband have 6 other kids between them that live with them, we wouldn't want all our money spent on all of them, as there's no way she'd have dsds living better than them. We'd want to be paying for educational stuff, clubs, trips and holidays, better clothes etc (as well as basics like uniform and school dinners) on top of a reasonable maintenance amount, not showering her with more money than she needs for his 2.
So does anyone know what the legalities would be, and would it make a difference if I won rather than dp as again were not married.

I appreciate that this is totally silly :p

[Alita7]

I wouldn't feel we should buy her a house in our case. DP and her broke up 11 years ago and she has a husband and 8 kids between them. If it was just her and the twins (and maybe even her husband and 1 or 2 other kids If we'd won loads) then I'd think that would be reasonable. But I don't feel dp should support the other 6 kids in any way no matter how much money we ever have.

Tbh it's always me who buys the tickets on the odd occasion we get one so it would arguably be my winnings anyway :) I'd love to be able to buy everything the girls need which combined with maintenance would give her tonnes more for the rest of the family anyway!

[Alita7]

The other thing is she's really unpleasant to us and causes a lot of problems... If she was nice I'm sure we'd be more inclined to feel generous!

[catsmother]

We've had this hypothetical conversation too - it'd definitely be my ticket which won that's for sure, and to be absolutely frank, if the (vile) ex (who's caused very long lasting, unnecessary and negative effects on the way we live through sheer spite, manipulation and lies) pushed the issue if she got wind of our changed fortunes, then I'd actually split up with DP before she got her grubby mitts on (any more of) my money.

[ThinkIveBeenHacked]

Putting some money into trust for his three kids would be what I would do. For them when they turn 18/21/25
A family home for you and dh with enough room for all your children.

If it were your money she wouldnt be entitled to a penny. If it were your and his money (if married) then tbf you could donate it all to charity if you wanted - she wouldnt get a say! so why should she see any of it?

[WaitingForMe]

It'd be my money, no question. We'd buy DH's ex a bigger house as I would want too big a difference in lifestyle between their homes. We'd then offer her either a lump sum or generous monthly payment while stressing it came from me.

Luckily DH's ex is a decent person and can't have more kids so not too difficult. Daft that we've had the conversation, it's not as if we're likely to win the lottery!

[Alita7]

I'm glad I'm not the only one thinking this :p I just don't see why she should be entitled to our money just because she happens to have his kids. Even the kids aren't 'entitled' although there is no question we would give them all they need and all they could benefit from.

If we won the jackpot then I'd be spending a good amount of it on property and renting it out so that we had a solid income no matter what happened. So I would maybe consider buying a big house in their area maybe 5 bedrooms as currently the twins have them and the step sister who is their age sharing 1 room, and rent it out to them for much less than the average price so as to benefit dsds.

Ideally in that situation id want them to live with us as wed be able to give them a better life style (we disagree with many aspects of their upbringing anyway) and dsd 1 keeps asking to live with us. But I'd never want them to feel pressured to do so if they didn't want to, or like they had to in order to benefit from the money.

[Alita7]

Wow I think it's a big assumption from her that his parents would even give HIM any money :p

Now I come to think about it, would she ever have to even know? My mum always said if she won they she wouldn't tell anyone except those close that she'd want to help out, she'd just tell everyone she'd inherited some money and she wouldn't go over board with obvious spending so people weren't too suspicious.

Maybe we'd be able to manage without anyone outside close family (not telling the kids might actually be a good idea as they'd probably tell lots of people which could put the family at risk) knowing and just tell her I had inherited some of a rich grandparent or something.

[springbabydays]

We've also spoken about this! Would love to know if it's already happened to someone with a blended/step family and what happened!