How does this work with a blended family?

[Muchconfused]

DH and I need to do our wills. We have two children together and he has two children from a previous marriage.

Our family home - if DH died, does half of the home go to me (and our 2 children) and the other half to his other two children, or is half of the home mine and his half is split between me (and my two children) and his other two children?

I hope that makes sense! 🥴

I would assume the house belongs to you both so would go to you else where would you live 🤷🏻‍♀️ the kids buy their own house when they are adults

We were tenants in common, so we already own 50% each, so on death we have 50% automatically.

My 50% goes to my children equally and DHs 50% is willed to his.

This way both sets of children have their inheritance protected.

If DH goes before me, I can still live in the house or sell it and buy something else, however the DC's still entitled to 50% when I go.

Neither of us can fritter away the other children's inheritance iyswim.

Your house deeds need to be set up as TIC for the will to be set up this way, but it's a simple job for the solicitor to do as part of the will writing. But it will add a cost, but worth it.

My plan, if DH goes first would likely be to sell up, down size to release the DCs 'half'. Then it's cut and dried and no one is waiting for a second person to die to get the inheritance from the first persons death.

DH will want to ‘protect’ step children’s inheritance if anything happened to him before me. There would be enough funds from his estate for me to ‘buy out’ step children but I’m just trying to figure out what the split should be.

If DH just owned the home then yes, 50/50 between me and the step children. But if I also own the home and contribute then should it be 50/50 as in my mind, that means they benefit from what I’ve been contributing (bearing in mind they also get all the inheritance from their mothers estate one day)

I just want it to be clear in mind and to also make sure my two biological children aren’t losing out

We divided the inheritance in 2. My half went to our children and DH's half was to be split between his daughter from his first marriage and our children. The house and assets were to go to the surviving partner first though.

You have 50% of the house, and your DH has 50%.

Your DH has 4 children, so should think about dividing his share over the 4 children (your two children together and his two children from his first marriage).

Then both sets of children can inherit from their mother (so you divide your 50% with your 2 children; your step children will inherit from their mother seperately).

@NextPrimeMinister do you share any of the children? DH wants to split the home down the middle - half for me and our two and half for stepchildren. I’m thinking half is mine and his half should be split between all 4 children.

I don’t quite get it, surely your own house goes to whichever surviving partner if you’re married. I have life insurance for my DH and life insurance policy for me for my children in case I went before they were adults. Any inheritance for anyone except spouse is just a portion of whatever is left after this. This is how it’s always worked in our families.

Split it into eighths.

You own 4/8 and he owns 4/8.
You split yours between 2 dc - they get 2/8 each from you.
He splits his between his 4 dc - each get 1/8.

3/8 each go to your two joint dc.
His dc get 1/8 each.

Sorry I’d be fairly pissed off if was married to someone proposing that our home should be split, by all means all our children are welcome to live here until they are adults (and longer if they need to) but the house is ours

@Aknifewith16blades @LovelaceBiggWither @SpringingJoy ok so I’m not wrong in my way of thinking. I really don’t want this to cause an argument between us 🙈 I just hope he sees it from my point of view

Did he own the house before you married him?
That would make a difference to me.

I hope so too. We had an almighty row on the bus on the way to the lawyer as he was planning to divide the inheritance in three and didn't see why I thought that was unfair.

The lawyer was very good though and talked him through why my way was more common than his way.

Surely your half goes to your two children and his half goes to his 4? Children equally?

Obviously with allowance for one of you outliving the other

@Miri42 it wouldn’t be very fair to stepchildren if I left the property to my children when I died though would it?

You need to get him thinking along the lines of 50% split and you two being individuals.

At the moment he's just thinking of 1 house and his 4 dc because that's his situation. But he doesn't own 1 house. He owns half a house.

Tell him you will be leaving your half of the house to your 2 dc. Ask him if he's happy with cutting two of his dc out of his will and leaving them nothing because that's what he's proposing.

@Muchconfused Yes we do have shared (I didn't want to addanother level of detail if its not needed!).

My 50% goes to our shared children (I don't have any others).

DHs half is split equally between our shared and his own children.

Our shared children will get 75% of the entire property and DHs own get 25%.

They will inherent from their mother, and in the end get similar amounts.

I've also ring fenced all my other assests so they go to our shared children only. I've inherited a very large estate and righly or wrongly want to keep it to my family.

Dh's own children won't be expected to share any inheritance with their step brothers / sisters. So it works both ways.

@MargaretThursday he bought it 2 months into our relationship. Obviously very new relationship and I owned my own property at the time. What are your thoughts? Really trying to understand and appreciate the correct thing to do.

Even if I didn’t actually own the house, wouldn’t I still be entitled to half as I pay for all things related to our two children and also contribute

Absolutely this. He has 4 children not 2 🤬🤬🤬🤬
Why oh why do some men insist on prioritising first children. Grrrrrr

Although this is assuming the house was bought by you both equally. If it was his house before you came along I'm not sure if any of it is yours to leave in a will.

I will be in the same position as your DH in that I have one child from previous marriage and one with my DP. In my mind my first DC will get 0.25 of the joint inheritance between me and my Dp and she will also at some point benefit from 100% of her dad's (large) estate. So she'll actually end up with 1.25 of an estate whereas my younger child will get 0.75 of an estate.

I may feel differently about it further down the line as it doesn't feel right to only give my first child a quarter of my current joint wealth, but I know it is the logical conclusion.

When my mum and dad bought their house his 2 children must have been about 8 and 10. They had lots of holidays there but never lived there or did every other weekend etc due to distance. My parents then had 2 children together.

When my dad died the house went to my mum. When she dies her will states all money is to be split 4 ways between the 4 adult children, but the house is to be split between me and my full brother as that was our childhood home. However, she said a few years ago, after my dad died, that she was thinking of changing her will so that absolutely everything is split 4 ways.

I told her I wanted her to do that. I don't want to inherit more than 2 of my siblings. I'd rather everything is just split equally. I don't know if she has. Even if she hasn't done that I will strongly encourage my full brother to divide everything equally if/when she dies.

My mum and dad were more wealthy than my half siblings' birth mum, so they're unlikely to inherit much from her. I suppose if that side of their family was loaded that might change my view of what they should inherit from my parents but as it stands I am happy to share everything with them and would feel really awkward if this wasn't to happen.

It should be your 50% split between your joint children and his 50% split between his 4 children.

We just did ours. If I die he gets everything. If he dies I get everything. If we both die then it gets split 3/4 to our 3 children and 1/4 to his 2. The lawyer suggested this - so that if I inherit everything off him then in my will I have left them his share. Same with his will it goes 3/4 to our children and 1/4 to his as a good part of it will have come from my share I left to him if that makes sense.

we leave everything to each other in the first instance as our children are minors so we will
need to keep the house and will need the insurance money to cover living costs. His children are late 20s.

Yeah this. Me and dp have children together but also children from previous. So I would want my half to be split between my children including the ones we share, and him do the same.

Surely your will would take account of that?