Inheriting large sum - can I protect it?

[El2El]

Not being purposefully uninformative but I just wrote an unnecessarily long post. I'm not good at filtering unimportant info out so I'll just ask my question and then if more info is needed I'll happily oblige!

I'm married and just found out I'm might inherit appx £500k. Life changing amount.

Is there a way to 'protect' this money if DH and I ever divorce? Not anywhere near on the cards, both very happy but I'm not naive and know things can change!

seems a bit unfair OP to say you want to protect your inheritance that you pay off your joint mortgage with, when if you were to divorce without inheritance you should and would be entitled to more of what your husband put in to the house

Not including your husband in the conversation already betrays a lack of trust - you’re supposed to be a team.

I’d feel quite betrayed as we are often talking about our financial position now, what would happen if one of us died, what we need to do to get to a point where we both have a comfortable retirement etc.

Why not put a big chunk away in a pension scheme for you? Then use the rest as joint money?

Mortgages are on fairly low % currently. Personally I’d put a fair wodge in investments or pension.

OP, it would really help people to advise you better if you could share some detail around why you want to protect it - is your DH really bad with money or prone to spending on silly things? Do you have different life goals? Or is it a case of the relationship being on thin ice already...?

My mum inherited a large sum of money shortly before she found out about my dad's affair and kicked him out. He cleared the money out of her account and spent it on his new missus to clear her debts without a second thought. £600k gone overnight. His defence was that he felt entitled to spend it as he had been the main earner while she gave up her potential for a high paying career to support the family. They spent years suing each other about money and it honestly put me off marriage in a major way! People can be so awful to each other.

If you can honestly examine your relationship and think that it may not be for the long term, for goodness sake get out now before you end up like my mum.

I do think your instinct to protect it must be indicative of something else going on. I’ve inherited a large sum and it is ours. It is improving our family’s security and enabling us to live more comfortably. I could never think of it as just mine. How would you feel if your husband wanted to protect his large salary from you? With that sort of sum, most people would be looking at mortgage, investing for the family, some holidays etc. You could think about signing a portion over to your children or drip feeding money into junior ISAs or even junior pensions if you wanted to make sure some of it went directly to them.

She has put herself in a vulnerable position by looking after the dc and losing her ability to earn as much through a career break. I do know a SAHD who is the main carer as his wife has the capacity to earn four times as much a year but overall men still earn more. My friends wife is very much in charge of that household. She wants to move and he doesn’t but he isn’t getting much of a say as she is the earner.

Some SAHP situations work out well but there are many that don’t.

Professional advice but look to your pension for sure.

It’s easy enough to just say you’d like to invest it, or a large part of it, and then perhaps split between a pension or stocks and shares (using isa allowances first) under your name.

That keeps the money within your control (so if the worst came to the worst you’d retain access and control in the aftermath of a split). That can also just be sensible tax planning as couple aim to maximise their individual allowances. It would still count as a marital asset though, so ultimately in the event of a divorce you’d either need to agree an equitable split or a court would determine what was fair in all the circumstances.

It is a whole other level though to say that you want to stop it from being considered a marital asset at all- effectively saying that even if a court thought it was fair to divide it following a divorce, you want it all for yourself.

Thank you for all the advice. It's been really helpful. I'll look into private pensions. DH and DF both have these so can ask them for advice.