To leave my house to my children and not my husband

Sounds like he'd have a decent case ti challenge the will. If he's paying the mortgage the house isn't solely yours no matter who is on the deeds. Plus he shouldn't be worse off by your death than he would be upon divorce. You need to see a lawyer and get a will drawn up that both protects him and also passes on your share to your kids. Otherwise you're setting things up for a bitter and expensive dispute between them which I'm sure you don't want.

I think it might have been easier to get useful responses if you had led with the scenario you're worried about in your op.

Basically:
If you die, your dc would not live with your husband, they would live with their father who is much poorer than you and wouldn't be able to keep them in the style to which they are accustomed.

You want to prevent them experiencing the double whammy of losing their mother and their lifestyle, so you want them to inherit your house. Your intention would be that the house be sold in order to provide a new house for your dc and their father (or pay for school fees, or allow your ex to work less in order to care for dcs, or whatever the financial concern is).

That seems much more reasonable that potentially making your elderly husband of many years homeless in the future. As long as your husband is aware of this, and you say he is and also in full agreement, then making up a will to this affect with the help of a decent solicitor, and your dh making his own plans to mitigate any hardship to himself should this scenario come to pass (unlikely hopefully) is reasonable and sensible.

Knowing all this, why did you decide to get married, rather than simply living together in a committed, long-tem partnership?

Love and/or religious faith are all very well, but in the cold light of day, the only thing that materially changes on marriage is your legal and financial relationship to one another, which seems to be the thing you are actively trying to unwind.

My husband's ex did this with her partner. In the end, he became ill (terminal cancer) and she had him placed in respite and then refused to have him back in the house.

He died just after the respite period ended.

If your will leaves your house to your Dc in trust with your DH able to remain there until death, care home or cohabiting/remarrying, then he cannot leave it to anyone in a will as it’s not his. So he can’t be forced to do so by a scheming second wife!
Surely when you drew up the Will you currently claim to have your solicitor would have discussed all these scenarios with you?

100% get will drafted by lawyer. Presumably with your DHs and DCs full knowledge so no nasty fall out with kids in event you pass.

My DF left me and my siblings his ‘half’ of the house in his will. except that wasnt his to give and it went direct to my DM as his wife of 30 yrs…and she couldnt afford to sell and give us half at the time to honour his wishes. It was very unfair of him to leave her with that mess to clean up. His children got nothing in the end and one oy siblings took this very hard. That was 20 yrs ago, DM is still thiving and living in the house. I wasnt angry about not getting anything but I was so mad at him as his lack of thought and planning had a much worse impact on my sibling. Dont let that be your legacy.

You mentioned earlier that you could afford the mortgage on your own but he wants to contribute. Maybe as a gesture of goodwill, and to show you do truly love and care for him too, you could save his mortgage contributions (without telling him) to leave a lump cash sum to him in the event of your death.

Whether he needs it or not, being left an inheritance from someone you believe truly loves you, is so much more than just the money. Being left nothing punctures what he thought to be true. It’s hurtful.

Get it set in a will but add a ‘right to reside’ clause for your OH so he has a home if you die before him.

That is no explanation for why you are not both listed as joint owners.

I'm joint owner of my house. I did sod all when we bought it except sign the papers put under my nose, the same as the previous 4 purchases.

This is what I have done for now as my dc are young.
death in service (10x) -so just over 500,000.- 50% of this is ordered into trust to their dad to care for them. The rest is split between dh(not dc’s dad)and the dc.
life insurance policy -300,000k will be left half to trust and half to dc also.
2nd policy- pays off mortgage- dh stays in house until his death. (House worth 500k)

so dc will have 625 or thereabouts split between trusts etc and the house on dh’s death. Dh will have the house paid and 125k.(which will be instead of my pension etc)

and that’s not including any cash savings which will be split also.

In my opinion, if you agree to marry someone, you’re also agreeing to look after each other whether that’s in life or death. Of course I want to make sure my children have enough, but I am also obliged to take care of him as he is to take care of me. If my DH dies everything of his goes to me and therefore to my dc. He has no DC.

things will be revisited as time goes on, obviously.

My mums ex husband tried to make a claim on her house that she had bought before him. She had bankrolled him for years too before he cheated and left.
My mum thankfully is quite organised for that sort of thing and he wasn't on the deeds and had been paying her rent before marrying. He wasn't entitled, but it was stressful for a while, so def get advice

Just looked up this case again and see the final settlement was in fact Havers got a substantial sum of money (and not the house - value of which not stated) and jewellery.

So you seem to be worried that he will remarry someone who won’t have your chlldrens best interest at heart ? Have you been reading a few Grimm fairy tales to the kids 🤣

If you have large assets you should look at proper estate planning. There are options like Trusts which would ring fence assets and death in service income. Your husband could be one of a number of executers to oversee the interests.

If you don’t trust him enough about a house, do you trust him to look after your kids if something happened to you, or would they go somewhere else. In that case, those people should be the trustees

Help is help, even if not needed.

My dad has a will stating his house is to be left to me. His wife (not my mum) is fully aware and supportive of this. She has 2 properties of her own that she rents out, so won’t be left homeless (I of course won’t kick her out until she’s able to move into one of her properties!).
His will was rewritten after he married, as marriage invalidates previous wills.

Really? Wouldn’t you want them to continue living in their home with their step father, with life insurance for support. I mean, even if the house belongs to the children I wouldn’t want it sold at that point to create more upheaval in their lives.

I think it's easy for him to make all the right noises now, but he probably also knows that if you die before him he has the option to contest any will that you have made. I don't think you can trust anyone to keep their word, even if they say they understand that you want to leave everything to your children. You may have paid the deposit for the house but he has paid 50% of the mortgage payments, so it's not like he's contributed nothing. Also, his life insurance won't really help much for him unless he's already dead.

You can leave it in your Will but he may challenge it under the Inheritance Provision for Family and Dependents Act or claim an equitable interest on the basis of contributions to the mortgage.