DH left me NOTHING in his will – devastated and fuming

Personal responsibility?

I’m willing to bet the vast majority of people getting married do not understand the legal implications.

every thread on here, nearly 100% of posters will advise a woman to get married “for protection” seemingly without any understanding of the wider implications.

i was advised the same. With no consideration to the fact I owned my house, had assets, was the higher earner, and dh had nothing. So marriage ultimately protected him, not me, and made me more vulnerable as now he was legally entitled to half of everything I owned.

i now have to be doubly sure my will as watertight and goes to who I want, which is not dh. There is every chance if I don’t make a will marriage will mean he, then his kids when he dies, will get my assets. If I hadn’t married not only would I have been way better off if we split, but my assets would automatically go to my family should my will get lost or I die intestate.

Agree with this. You're blaming him as though he did it deliberately...

Saying we don’t have an obligation to ensure people entering into a legal contract fully understand the implications of that contract is awful.

I believe that people who are not fully informed and aware of their rights and the legal processes which are directly impacted by the act of getting married, do not have the capacity to enter into a contract.

Ignorance of law has never been accepted as a valid legal argument.

The pre-marraige meeting with someone is an anti-fraud against the State measure, introduced to prevent fraudulent contracts which gave one party or both access to citizenship rights and/or State funded services etc.
There is a social benefit to preventing fraudulent marraiges at the point of entry similar having an obligation for land transfers needing to be in writing so that the State gets its cut via a contract tax.

The basic requirement of marraige is that the individual getting married has the capacity to enter into the contract. By extension that individual will have the capacity to seek out the information needed to establish who may inherit.

The rights are per legal jurisdiction.
As pointed out if a couple have property in Scotland, Scottish law overwrites the "English" written will. So with your system they would require a will for every country they may own property in or die in.

How did you discover the contents of the will? Did you all his solicitor if they held one and then they showed it to you? Unless your husband also left his children with a copy there is no reason to think they even know about it.

In any case if it was made before your marriage (unless specifically in contemplation if that marriage) it was revoked by your marriage. So unless there is reason to believe there is a second will, he has died intestate and the intestacy rules apply.

If the figures I'm aware of are up to date (and you are in England/Wales) then:
First £322k to spouse
Personal property to spouse (chattels, not land or money)
Any jointly held or nominated property also passes freely and is not counted in the estate. So joint bank account, jointly owned house (I know yours isn't though) and pension/life insurance if he named you as beneficiary.

The remaining estate is then split as follows:
50% to spouse
50% divided between children equally.

You need legal advice obviously but as a very rough illustration based on an estate (including house) totalling £500k:
£322k to you plus contents of house, joint bank account etc.
£178k remaining of which you get 50% - another 89k (total 411k)
The other 89k split between children (4 so £22,250 each)
You may be able to hold your own children's shares on trust as part of the house value until they are 18. If so that would be another £44500 to factor in.
It may not be as bad as you think, though I understand you are worried.

Don't forget you should also be able to claim Bereavement Support Payment from the government. The lower rate isn't means tested. You need to claim within 3 months of death to get full entitlement as it won't be backdated.

Well it is the fault of the law makers if the general public are not fully aware of the law.

Getting married is a legal contract. Part of that is meeting with someone to have everything clearly explained and make sure you’re entering the marriage of free will, fully informed. If you can mange to survive the ordeal of that, I’m sure you can survive the ordeal of sitting down with a solicitor and having everything explained to you so can can make an informed decision about who you want to inherit from you.

Absolutely this.

Not necessarily. Much depends on the value of the estate. The details have been explained several times by some knowledgeable posters,

Just to add to what @biscuitandcake said, I would assume that your stepchildren's silence is because they assume that you are sorting things out, don't want to appear pushy/greedy by asking what is happening and are probably wondering why you have not approached them.

Alternatively they might assume that your silence means they are getting nothing.

Best post on the thread @biscuitandcake

Agreed!

@biscuitandcake very well said.

In addition to the legal advice can I just make a suggestion regarding money/family.

You just lost your husband, your adult stepchildren just lost their dad. When you thought your husband had died without leaving any provision for you you were all over the place - not just because of the possible hardship it would put you in but because you felt "betrayed" by his "carelessness". Money should be the least important thing in some ways but it does matter, and especially post death it gets linked to how much the dead person cared etc. I wouldn't assume your stepchildren's silence means you are "walking into a storm" they might just be dealing with their grief by retreating. But if they are awkward/bratty try to cut them some slack because people are really weird after someone dies. Likewise cut yourself slack too and don't say/do anything hasty. If it turns out its all yours/almost all yours you can think about what your partner would have wanted them to have if he had updated your will - but I wouldn't even discuss it with them until you find out the exact situation and had time to process it. Otherwise you could end up with more bad feeling and a big family rift which would be sad.

Sometimes arguing about money/getting really angry about trivial things is a displacement activity for grief and its unnusual if at least one person involved doesn't do it at some point post the death of a loved one. It doesn't mean that person is awful/selfish in the way it would in normal circumstances.

Agree. The intestacy provisions already do this job for us.

The laws in the UK already providea a will for every adult and child who dies. It details who gets the property.

The fact that people dont agree with the distribution rules or choose not to find out about them is not the fault of the law or the lawmakers.

The chief danger is if you are married, your partner dies intestate with kids that are not yours, the house is in your partners name and the value of the house is high and the total assets less the house are low. And you are poor.

Then there is a probability that because of the way intestate distributes, it may be difficult to stay in the house as you might have to sell it to fund the payouts to the stepchildren. Then it comes down to whether or not you can get additional distribution (for example if you have kids that will be made homeless).

I think its an unlikely row of ducks to line up, but maybe not so much in places like London where a £1 million house can be pretty commonplace on the back of very low additional assets.

Its not about guidance its about the law in the England.
Most countries have rules on the division of assets where the dead person failed to make a valid will.
That is the legal obligation which recognises the contract of marraige (or other legally recognised partner) plus the regulation of divorce ( and its financial settlements).
Plus there is usually some legal obligation to provide for children dependant on their personal circumstance.

I would get a copy of the will and check the date is before your marriage. If so it would be invalid. I would speak to a solicitor with copy of will, marriage certificate and details of all his assets. It should be administered following rules of intestacy. Most will go to you some will probably be split between all children depending on exact size of estate.

Because he then decided to enter into a legally binding contract which included the stipulation of sharing of assets?

You have no idea when he made the will.
It could have been done as part of the divorce as part of a financial plan to exclude his then wife (now ex-wife) from any additional sharing of assets.

It sounds like it is very early days. Wills can wait. My suggestion is that once it’s all over you write them a friendly letter saying that your priority right now is keeping the roof over your children’s’ head on one income, but that you will be making a will and hope to be in a position to make provision for them in that.

Yes. Everything is yours.

What a vote winner that will be! We will introduce legislation forcing every adult in the country to make a will, whether they want or need one or not. We will not be paying for the legal advice they should obtain. They will have to pay for it themselves, e.g. by living on value baked beans for a month, or fill in a will form and hope it's valid and has no unintended outcomes. Anybody failing to comply will be fined. Illiteracy, poor health, learning difficulties, poverty and other similar excuses will be ignored.**

People saying that the only winners if wills were made a legal requirement would be solicitors need to realise that most solicitors make MORE money from dealing with problems arising from dealing with intestacy and dealing with wills that are invalid, and dealing with DIY disputed wills. For a couple of hundred quid a pop, getting a will drawn up and witnessed properly by a solicitor is probably the best bargain you're going to get.

I'd go further and say that in cases where the beneficiaries don't get on then it's probably best to appoint the solicitor as the executor. Again, people will say how expensive it is, but it may well be worth it for peace of mind that it's going to be dealt with properly and fairly and to avoid arguments between the recipients. My MIL died recently, and she'd specifically appointed her solicitor to be executor as my OH and his sister don't see eye to eye on anything - they don't argue as such, but are just very different people, and MIL knew that they wouldn't work well together if joint executors and didn't want to appoint one and not the other - her preference would have actually been me as I've done probate for my parents and have previously done the accounting/tax side of things subcontracting for a local solicitor! OH knew about the solicitor being appointed and was happy with it as he knew the reasons why. But his sister didn't know until death, as MIL purposely didn't tell her because she didn't want the drama, and she was right as his sister hit the roof and has constantly been sniping about it ever since. Perhaps if she'd been less argumentative and more rational, MIL wouldn't have appointed the solicitor instead!!