Will - who are you leaving your money to?

[Werehalfwaythere]

We're a cohabiting couple who's been together nearly 20 years. Three young children. No immediate plans to marry although may in the future if we want to (not looking for advice on this).

I've been wondering how best to allocate our assets if one of us dies... we are still under 40 so realistically, if one of us dies, the odds are that the other will likely meet someone else, who probably already has their own children.

I'm hesitant to leave my money just to my partner in case, if I die, he does go on to meet someone else who becomes eligible for some of his (my) money if they divorce or he dies.

I would want him to be financially secure and in turn my children, but I don't want my money diluted by another family. I hope that makes sense! I want as much as possible to be spent on my partner and our children.

I feel the same about his money too, of course.

What do you all have planned in your wills? Does your partner/husband get everything? Or have you made trusts for the kids to safeguard some from potential future step parents etc?

Any other tips?

• we co-own a house with around £300k equity in it. We have life insurance so the house would be paid off.

• approx £20k in savings each, in savings accounts

• potential inheritance from my side in the future but irrelevant ATM as hopefully no for a long time and can change will then if required.

Going to visit a solicitor next week but want to have thought of all options before we proceed. Thanks!

I'm so glad you asked me that, @Werehalfwaythere and apologies for the delay in responding. It's been a bit of a day.

No tax to pay on any transfers between married people.

https://www.gov.uk/inheritance-tax

For unmarried partners, only the first £325k of any inheritance is free of tax.

I have friends who were in unmarried relationships who were caught out by this. They found themselves having to raise cash to pay the inheritance tax bill on the half of the house which they had inherited from their unmarried partner.

Just one more thing to factor in.

Everything going to DS.

I'm not married, never have been and never will be because I do not want what I've worked for going to some man. It is all for DS.

It’s really tricky and you always seem to hear of these situations with the man re-marrying and not the woman. My dad got nothing as his father had an affair and left everything to the other woman. It seems to be much rarer that a mother disinherits her children in that way.

That said, I’d still go for mirror wills because if anything happens to me my parents will specifies my inheritance goes directly to my children so they’d likely get something via that route. In the short-term I would want to make my husband’s life as easy as possible and ensure there was enough so money wouldn’t be a stress, he could get an amazing nanny/childcare and pay off the mortgage etc.

It's highly unlikely that he'll remarry at our age. We've already got one foot in the grave each.
Knowing my husband, he'd probably drown himself with whisky and bore the ears off the dogs rather than remarry 😂

My great uncle remarried in his 70s, to a woman who had been in his class at school, who was also widowed. They had 17 very happy years together and died ( in their late 80) within a few weeks of each other.

His son didn’t approve of his fathers second marriage at first. But he came to realise that his father ( and step mother ) were able to stay in their own home until the end ( with some carers visiting ) . She probably saved him a fortune in care home fees! And most importantly she made my uncle very happy .

Men are more likely to re-marry after their wife dies than women. As marriage invalidates any will, it really is important to specify how estates are shared. DH's grandfather was widowered at 65, and remarried 15 years later, then lived to be 95, but never revisited his will so the estate went to his widow, and descended to her sons rather than his natal son. FiL was completely cut out; the estate was worth two-and-six after funeral expenses, it meant not much was at stake.

My grandparents, after my parents' vicious divorce, rewrote their wills so that it was divided into shares: 50% between their children equally, but then each half was subdivided by the number of children. My parent, who had four across two marriages, found their portion whittled away and was (so I'm told) quite salty that it didn't come intact to them to allocate. In the event, the sums were less than lifechanging. About £3,500. I bought a painting and we went on a nice holiday. Money spent.

Single parent to one DC who gets everything although there are restrictions until 30.