If you met your partner later in life (e.g. 60+), what proportion of your estate would you want to leave to your grandchildren or adult children?

[ChancerDancer]

Just that really. I'm curious to know whether, if you met a partner later in life, you'd still want most or all of your estate to go to your children and/or grandchildren?

Partner could stay in house, once he died it then goes to your kids etc condition in will. They can have everything else till then.
All should end up with your brood!

I agree with @Peppermint81. I'd want my kids to have everything.

Kids get everything, he gets to stay on in the house.

I too would want my kids/ grandkids to have everything.

I totally agree with @Peppermint81 too.
Would want to make sure partner had a home until they died then would all go to my children and grandchildren

Everything to the kids - and I'd expect him to do the same.

Yep, everything to my kids.

100% to my children.

This is nice in theory but ive seen enough threads in here to see it doesn't work well in practice.

the most recent was that the adult children didnt even have access to the house so not only didnt they get their inheritance from selling the house when their final living parent died, they didnt get any personal belongings either. What if they did no repairs and ran the home into the ground. What if they moved a new partner in. What if they live another 20/30 years? What if they outlived one of the deceased's children?

Everything to my kids.

We’re 51, we’ve been together for about 3.5 years. We’re leaving everything to our respective adult kids. We won’t marry. We’re buying a house soon.

The “til the other one dies” thing with the property though…if A dies at 62 and B lives to 92, A’s children will wait 30 years for their share of the house unless B chooses to sell up. I’m not sure that’s great. Especially in our case where my DP had his first child at 21. If I survive him and live until 90+ she mightn’t inherit until she’s 72ish. Something to think about I suppose. I wonder if 3 years may be a better option? The problem then is that if both parties live to 80+ you’ll have a (possibly) frail 85ish year old having to sell up and move.

leave it to your kids and grandchildren

don’t let a man move in with you if he hasn’t got the means to house himself without you especially at your age

Kids get everything.

We will leave everything to our respective children. We aren't married, and not planning to be, but if we ever did we would immediately make new wills clarifying that our individual assets would still go to our own children.

DP's father married his carer late in life and did not make a will, so she got everything. She is now elderly and unwell and we believe that she does not have a will either, so everything will probably go to her two estranged children, and not DP and his siblings, even though pretty much everything she has (house, artworks etc) came from DP's side of the family.

DP and his siblings may not even be able to get hold of family photographs and things of sentimental value before her sons clear the house, as there is no guarantee they will be informed of her death. It is a horrible situation and one we would never want to put our children through.

Life interest in the houses to DP and the rest to the children. On DPs death the houses will automatically pass to them as part of my estate.

Both DP and I have wills and trusts set up to achieve this.

Absolutely my children. I wouldn’t want to send my newish partner off in great grief so I’d let him stay 5 years before it had to be sold, either to him or someone else with my share going to my children. I would expect him to do exactly the same.

If a new partner moved in to my property with me after I was widowed i would say he could have a certain amount of time to find somewhere else to live, say six months, after my death, then he would have to move out so my kids/grandkids could have their inheritance. It would be clear that the property and all its contents will be theirs, apart from any personal possessions owned by the partner. I would not buy a property with a new partner.
I might leave him a token amount in my will, say 10 grand, but that's all.
I do not see why i should house a partner whom i met late in life for the rest of his life, should i predecease him.
DH and I have agreed to protect our assets for our family only, and not remarry after the first one of us dies. That's not to say the surviving partner has to remain on their own, by all means co-habit but remarriage would not be on the table.

L

I'm not sure if it's possible but I'd want them to remain in the house for a fixed period of time, maybe 18 months before they had to move out. My dad's partner has life interest in his house and she's already trying to move her dd and dgc in. My DF is very much alive but his health is declining. She burst into tears recently with my dB (he is inheriting the house) making him promise not to throw her out of the house when my dad dies. I would be very surprised if my brother ever gets the house.

Everything to children.

He would need to be solvent and have his own place no way would I leave a partner with a right to live in the house what if they lived till they were 100. My sister has done this. He has sold his flat and given 3/4 of the proceeds to his children. He has the right to live in her considerably nicer house till he dies if he outlives her.

@ArnieLinson. A lot of the Wills that I've seen stipulate that the partner must maintain the house in order to be able to stay there. Otherwise they can go to court and have them evicted.

@whiteroseredrose Yes, this was stipulated in my great-aunt’s will when she remarried. Her second husband could stay in the house but he had to maintain it. As it happened, they were both in their late 80’s and already looking into sheltered housing when she died. He moved into sheltered housing within a few months, he didn’t want to stay in the house without her.

I don’t know what, if anything, she left him, but my cousins didn’t contest the Will so presumably they felt it was fair.

My FIL remarried after my MIL died in his mid 60's, married a friend of the family also in her 60's.
FIL has two sons
StepMIL has a daughter

They lived together in DH's former childhood home. Their Wills stated that in the event that FIL died first (which he did), stepmil could stay at the house for 3 years - she owns her own property too. They both also had a mutual arrangement to give each other an amount (I think 30k) to ensure they were looked after - neither really needed it, it was more of a gesture. This was done on the proviso that the money was then written into the Will to be payed to that persons step child/children as on both sides it was family money.

I personally think it's quite a nice way to write a Will. They'd both very much had previous families, neither were financially dependant on the other (both owned properties that were let for income). It respected the children - esp in DH's case as most of the family money had come through his Mum's side (she died years ago), so it wouldn't really be "right" for stepmil and subsequently her daughter to be gaining that money.

I certainly feel if I was in that position later in life, it's how I'd do it

He can buy the house next door. We aren’t merging households or finances. Everything goes to my child.

This happened a couple of times in my family. Not making a will is very selfish act. Especially if you don't bother to make a new will if you get married, as a marriage invalidates an existing will.
(In England, before anybody jumps on me to say it is different somewhere else).

I would do everything in my power to protect my children's inheritance. 100% to them.