Do I need a will and can I choose who has my dc?

[ThisTimeMine]

I think this pandemic has got me thinking about what would happen should the worst happen to me. I’ve never considered a will before, I’m 30’s without any property but I do have around £40,000 of savings across various bank accounts. I also have two dc, I’m divorced from their father and in another relationship with someone who is the stay at home parent and very much a parent to them. Although they do have contact with their father and he has PR the care from him is poor and should I die, I wish for my dp to take over their full time care, is this something I could put in a will?

TIA

You need proper legal advice. And yes sort a will out. Anyone with kids should particularly get this sorted.

Yes you should always have a will and the children will go to their Father should you die.

You need to write a will either way now you have children. The children’s future guardians should normally be written into a will. But in your case your children will get given to their father, unless he refuses them

Unless he has been proven a potential danger to them I should add. If he has unsupervised access to them though, he’ll be first choice

Yes you should have a will. I imagine the children would only go to youthful with their father's permisdion. Do on think he would agree? Would your dp want to keep them in the event of your death?

Ok thank you, so basically regardless of what I say, their father will get them. I wouldn’t be surprised if he refused them tbh so I will definitely do it regardless

You do need a will. But a surviving parent would usually be the first port of call for children.

God the typos. Youthful meant your dp

Would your dp want to keep them in the event of your death?

Absolutely, dp is actually more in a parental role than me, and the SAHP as I work full time, so dp does meals, homework, after school care etc. Their father has weekly contact but can’t be bothered with them, doesn’t even get them dressed 😔

It would be worth putting a number of scenarios into your will in terms of who you'd like to have the children. So if their Father refuses them, you'd like X to have them, if X can't (same for example X is your current partner but, God forbid, you and your partner died in the same accident) or won't then you'd like Y to have them.

Also think about how X or Y would pay for looking after your children and potentially provide for that.

Whether you have a will or not, the children would legally become the sole responsibility of their natural father - unless it is proven that he is a serious risk to them, or he refuses to care for them (which amounts to the same thing I guess).

Your will can state your desire, but that would only be taken into account if either of the situations above applied. In the eyes of the law, they are as much his children as yours....

Is there any way you could discuss the matter with him?

Not what you asked but have you looked into getting PR for your DP as he’s such an involved parent figure?

My brother is a step dad, their father isn’t really in the picture and they don’t see him much, and he has PR.

Yes you need a will.

You can express your wishes for them to be with DP....but if biological dad wants them he has contact his there dad so not sure how much your wishes will count. You can’t actually leave dc to someone

Mumsnetter@mumblechum is a very helpful professional will person