What do you think about this will?

[GlassTumbler]

Man dies aged 81.

He has 5 children aged 54, 48, 32, 30, 28.

The first 2 children are from his first marriage.

The next 3 children are from his second marriage. He was married to someone 17 years younger than him for 35 years. She was 65 when he died.

He left everything in his will (£650,000 house, savings and generous pensions) to his wife. She was able to downsize a bit (to a £500,000 house) and live comfortably off everything else.

She is leaving everything in her will to her 3 children (the 32, 30 and 28 year old).

The only grand children this man had when he died were the 2 children of the 48 year old from his first marriage. He left them £5,000 each. But nothing to their parent or the older sibling.

Would appreciate any general thoughts! Thanks so much.

Yes I'm sorry I worded that badly. One would hope that she would include all five in her will, but I'm sadly not surprised that she isn't intending too. If I've got it right that she's still alive and you are anticipating this, or has it now come to light because she has died.
Sorry I'm tired I don't know if I'm making sense.
It's a sad business, but like a lot of the other posters I'm not surprised. But 'of course' was too strong.

If all the kids are the mans.
Then yes it all should be split equally.

Are you in Scotland? You can't disinherit your children there.

I would feel pointlessly angry, more so with the Dad.

I can see why he wouldn't want to leave a lot to his children, as his wife has/had potentially many many years to live and will need that money to support her for what could be 30 odd years! I also understand why she would leave her estate to her children only, but I suppose that might be different if she had a particularly close relationship with her step children.

When it comes to wills I'm not sure there's such thing as "fair". Ultimately no one is entitled to anyone else's money in their will (in England anyway, unless you are a dependant and contest the will - even then it's often not won). The fact the 5 children had knowledge of the terms of his will before he died suggests he was confident of his decision.

This will be almost the exact situation in my family when the time comes (even down to age gaps which is weird) except one child from first marriage, 2 from second. But my parents will is that dads half will be split between 3, mums half between 2.

My parents decided this was fair because eldest has another parent who they can inherit from.

Jesus @GlassTumbler this is awful!

"I fear you hit the nail on the head here ArcticSkewer. He even got his wife to phone the older children and tell them about the will when he was still very much alive and in full capacity."

My mam died recently very suddenly and they had mirror wills dividing everything between the 4 of us..my dad is not my two older siblings biological dad and could change his will I suppose.. except it's always been the 4 of us kids together!! And my dad feels that even more so since my mam died!

That's a real man! Sharing equalling among siblings!

Sorry op that you have a selfish, spineless father.

Just to clarify? They were married for 35 years so she was in the older children's lives and helped raise them? Or were they not really involved in new family?

It's not fair of course it isn't.

Unless there is some massive back story.

There is nothing intrinsically bad with his will, often people think the people they love are trustworthy saints... Maybe he assumed she would include all of them.

Never assume, get it nailed down.

A basic understanding of the law should come into play in school!!

We don't know if he was selfish he may have assumed she should share.

We also don't know what the younger sibling are like they may have been bullies but nothing went to them either..

I think it's more likely he thought she would share

I think as his last act to you ever it's incredibly hurtful. It feels like he's shared his love out and you've got none, I really feel for you, it's rotten.

I’d think he was a bit of an arsehole.

In a similar situation a will I know was left like this:

Child from first wife (who died)
Children from second wife (divorced)
Children from third wife to whom he was married for 40 years
All left equal shares.
Third wife was also left house and his pensions.
When she died she divided her portion equally between all the kids.

Nowt as strange as folks.

We found my (step) grandmas will after she died and she had left all her belongings to her 9 other children who she never really saw. As the only (step) grandchild who she saw every week I was slightly discombobulated. Very sad!

I'm so glad she died before my grandad and that we didn't have to have any awkward conversations about inheritance 🙈

We've just spoken to a solicitor to re do our wills. We were advised to do a trust will which leaves 50% of the main residence to our son but with a lifetime interest for the surviving spouse. That way if one of us should remarry after the other dies then everything doesn't go to the new spouse if we die first. It remains protected for our son.
Any good solicitor would have advised provision for all the children and facilitated the wording of the will to protect the step children.

I think the three younger ones should share the money with the two older ones. I mean, they won’t, they will say things like “we want to respect their wishes blah blah” but they should share.

deeply unfair to the older children

My father is doing this to me and my brother and they're not even my half siblings and it hasn't been 35 years. It's been 7. And he's leaving everything to her. And she came with nothing. Literally nothing. And she will get the house my mother contributed the most to. And was bought partly with her inheritance from her parents.

And then his wife will leave it to her children.

Legal. Yes. Moral. No.

Then it's hers, and of course she's going to leave it to her kids.

I wouldn't do this

We have mirror wills, most of the capital in our marriage it came from me. Although he’s been the main earner.

We have agreed that the remaining partner leaves the inheritance my half between my two kids his half between his four kids.

you have to provide for the remaining partner, you can’t leave it all to the kids and leave your partner destitute. Plus to put a life interest means that the remaining partner may not be able to make the most of their final years. I’ve told them all not plan on inheriting anything because it might go on carehome fees.
if I think anyone is totting up how much I’ll be worth dead, I think the cats home will be getting it.

It's cruel to his older dc and he could have easily avoided it by including them in his will. So the sad conclusion is he didn't want to.
It's so common though and a lot of these marriages obviously mean nothing to the second spouse. It might also mean they were manipulated with false promises.
I hope that people learn from these threads and make sure that they sort their own wills out so that dc can't be excluded in the future. Ours are watertight leaving substantial amounts to our dc/gc on the first death, house is tenants in common with life time interest then left to dc if either re marries.

Oh I meant to add that it's another reason to give as much as you can away to dc/ gc while you are still alive. House deposits, help with driving lessons, first car, wedding etc then at least they had something. Don't hoard more than you need in case it ends up in the wrong hands.

My thoughts are that he did a huge disservice to his oldest children. They should’ve been included at the same level as his next three children, irrespective of their mother.

she should do the right thing. And if she doesn’t, the three step siblings should bring the others in at the same level split five ways.

They won’t.

It’s a rotten thing to do. I’ve made dh promise that if I go first and he gets together with someone else - which I wouldn’t mind - he will not even think of disinheriting dds. If he does I’ll come back and haunt him. 😈

He protests that he wouldn’t dream of such a thing, but I do worry about early, undiagnosed dementia, and some bitch gold digger getting her claws into him. Because I’ve known that to happen - and it was a very substantial estate.

She's already said she is leaving it to her kids.

I should've been clearer.

My dad is terminally ill so it's imminent.

But mirror wills have a huge flaw in that they can be changed by the other spouse once you pass away

It is absolutely crazy to not put the property in trust so that A the will cannot be changed and B so that the house doesn’t go on care home fees!!