Another wills one…

@graygoosesorry to be stupid but why wouldn’t you put your house into trust to avoid care home fees thank you

Also I want to clarify - the life interest trust would only exist when you die, it is created by your Will. DO NOT fall for those schemes where you put your home into trust during your lifetime to avoid inheritance tax or care home fees, please please don’t 🙏

People are getting confused between mutual Wills and mirror Wills. Mutual Wills are specific instruments where the terms of one persons Will cannot be changed after the death of the other person. They’re a pain in the arse and no decent advisor would ever recommend them. They only exist because English law is so old we have all sorts of hangover bits of law from back in the day.

Mirror Wills means that your Wills are on the same terms (e.g. leave everything to surviving spouse on first death, kids on second death) but as you say, nothing stops the other person from changing their Will at any time and leaving their estate to the cats home or the tennis instructor.

Wills and estates lawyer here - I would seek legal advice because you can put your share of the house into a life interest trust for DH. Means he can live in the property but your half isn’t his and on his death it passes according to the terms of your Will, not his. This is very very common and a good lawyer can talk you through proper structuring that will give DH security in his living arrangements and you comfort in providing for your kids.

As others have said, you will need to severe the joint tenancy into tenants in common if you haven’t already.

All this talk of mirror wills. They mean nothing. As soon as the first parent has died, there is nothing stopping the surviving parent from changing their will. If you want your children to inherit, write it into the will.

My DH is from an EU, Napoleonic law, country, and we live in another EU country with the same regime, so our DS is protected. In the UK, our house (which is in DH name) is left to our DS, with myself having the right to live in it, unless I remarry. I can also sell it and buy a smaller property but again only in trust for DS. I am totally fine with this.

My own UK will leaves everything to DS. DH has properties back in his home country and doesn’t need my money.

🙄 you pay inheritance tax on amounts ABOVE the threshold not the whole thing. So if you are amongst the privileged 4.72% who pay any IHT its only a small fraction of the total. Entirely fair IMHO and well worth it to secure your privileged childrens future, surely.

I agree. DH and I have decided to do this in later life - we’ll rewrite the will anyway when the kids are both over 18. But it’s a mutual
decision to do with care… not potential and hypothetical distrust of a future partner

In my opinion OP, what you want to do is perfectly normal and understandable. My DH and I have done the same thing, because as other's have said, many men do end up re-married, and the last thing I would want, is for some other woman to get her hands on my hard earned cash, and then end up leaving it to her own kids, while leaving mine out in the cold. No one is ever going to look after your children in the way that you would, you gave birth to them after all. So, I would make sure that your home (assuming you own it) is registered as 'Tenants in Common', and then just make your own Will, you don't have to tell your DH what's in it, if you think he'll kick off, as at the end of the day, it's your money and he isn't entitled to have a say in who you leave it to.

I would definitely look to add something like this. An ageing parent in a house that's rapidly becoming too much for them, without the capital to afford something more suitable due to owning only half is a tremendous pain in the arse.

And for those talking about divorce- my parent left it in a trust fund, with their children as trustees- and the trust paperwork setting out what happens, and it doesn't count until my other parent dies- when the trust will be desolved... Dad had a friend who remarried and 3 days later died- new wife's family got it all as no new wills, and the children got nothing he wanted to ensure that didn't happen.
This also ensures that half of the property doesnt go on care home fees....

So my parents did this and dad died. However they wrote in the will they could sell the house and buy another- with leaving half the house still in trust for their children. Slightly more expensive for conveyancing- but ensures they could sell if necessary, as well as protecting half of the house ...

You both own half the house. If he wanted to will his house to a cat charity, he can. You can do the same.

I think it’s a very sensible idea to make sure your half goes to the kids. At least they’ll get something.

Yes we have done this too. I know personally two people who inherited nothing from their dads as the dad remarried and left everything to his ‘new’ wife.

It gives me peace of mind. It was a fair amount of faff to arrange and cost a fair bit.

My dad died over 10 years ago. His 2nd wife survived him. I have absolutely no idea what was in his will. I occasionally wonder about it.

I totally understand why you’d do that and why it’s very sensible.

But he’s right, you don’t trust him to do right by your kids. You can’t deny that’s exactly what it means. And you can’t argue that it’s the stepmum you don’t trust or that you want to protect it from being used for his care etc but those are just side arguments to the fact that you don’t think he’d be able to prioritise them no matter what.

I do trust my DH with that. He’d prioritise the kids over me even. He’s already done many things to protect their inheritance from us both that don’t benefit him or me. So this is not a concern I’d have about another woman. He’d also be very hard on a woman who tried to manipulate him even softly.

But there aren’t too many men I’d trust to 100% do the right thing with this so I think you’re right to protect their inheritance. I have two friends who lost their mum as a young adult and both have had their dad treat them not well and in both cases he quickly moved on to a friend of the mums as a replacement.

@Dontasksillyquestions as long as you’re happy for him to do the same set-up then it’s fine.

Whilst I think this set up is common, I’d be pissed off too, like your DH. You can dress it up all you want, it’s you effectively saying I don’t trust you to do the right thing by your own children (presumably with zero evidence that he’d fuck them over).

Fundamentally, you don’t trust him and if that’s the case then yes, it’s the right thing to do.

This is how DH and I have set our wills up. I’ve yet to see if SM is going to try and change the will trust my late DF set up.

We have been married 52 years and we changed our wills from joint tenants to tenants in common a few years ago. We've both left our own particular halves to our daughter with the surviving parent having a life time right to live in the house or sell and buy another property.
If the surviving parent ends up in care then his/her half of the property will go towards paying for that care... But not the whole property. We both worked hard for it. If I need care fair enough, my half will go towards that care. But if dh does before needing care, why should his half go to supporting me in care rather than to our daughter?

I trust my dh to think about his children if I was to die. @Dontasksillyquestions Wouldn't you just be reassured if you had a hypthetical conversation about inheritance in case you died and he remarried?

I suppose the big question is what happens on your death in this scenario. If it is that your half goes to the kids and they can do what they want with it (including forcing a sale), then it’s not a great idea and I’d be pissed off if my spouse suggested it. If you are going to give him a life interest to stay in the house and the kids get it when he dies then it works.

Married people can leave everything to each other tax free.
if you don’t do this and leave half the property to the children, you lose that tax allowance. Your £325000 stands and if half the house exceeds this, you pay inheritance tax.
leave everything to your married partner - he/ she gets your allowance too. When they die they now have £650,000 to pass on, without paying IHT.
You can leave the property, up to the value of 1 million, tax free.
In other words, get tax advice!

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