If you are a second wife, do you expect to inherit everything from your husband?

[rickyrickygrimes]

… or do you expect him to leave something to his children from a previous marriage?

This subject comes up often on here: man is widowed, inherits everything from his wife, remarries, then dies - leaving everything to his second wife and his children inherit nothing.

this happened quite recently to a friend of mine, which not only did not inherit but also lost his livelihood as he was employed in his fathers business, which his second wife chose to sell as she wasn’t interested in running it.

I’m in France where (as I understand it) children cannot be completely disinherited from a will i.e. part of the estate is always reserved for children and the spouse does not inherit everything. This leads to some very complicated situations but does mean that all children will inherit something from their parents, no matter what the relationship between the parents / children is like.

we often hear from the children on here but not often the pov of the second wife. So I’m interested to know what you think? Do you expect to inherit everything from your husband (which is pretty standard between married couples in the UK)? Or would you expect his children from previous relationships to be included / recognised in his will - especially if he has previously inherited from their mother?

2nd wife/ we are leaving everything to each other for inheritance tax purposes. If he dies before me the house will be mine and ultimately go to my DS, the family business will be divided equally between everyone

As far as I'm aware there's no way that you can give the surviving partner free rein to use assets as they need while they're still capable, and at the same time put protection in place in case they become vulnerable to scammers.

Similarly, you can't give them the freedom to make appropriate decisions about using or sharing all the assets at the same time as specifying that each child gets an equal share. You don't have a crystal ball. For example, what if the survivor needs to move to a more suitable property, but can't find anywhere because they have to give the children a share of the sale proceeds? Or one of your children goes on to have a child with special needs, or otherwise need more support? The surviving partner may be unable to give this on your behalf if you've restricted what's available to them.

All these objectives are desirable but the bottom line is that they are incompatible. There isn't an answer that's right for everyone, it depends on circumstances, ages, health, size of the pot, family relationships, trust, degree of risk you're comfortable with and many other things. I don't think it's reasonable to infer that people are wrong or thoughtless if they make a different decision to yours.

I’m a 2nd wife. Neither of us had a great deal of assets when we got together, but we have built a good pot between us. DHs will leaves everything to me, with a specified (fairly hefty) sum to each of his dc. Which is as it should be and, in the event of the worst happening, I would probably give them each a bit more than what he has specified.
My will leaves everything to DH (I have no dc but I have made smaller provision for other family members) but I have also specified the same amount of money to go to the DSC in the event of my death, just in case DH looses the plot and shacks up with a gold digger 🤣🤣🤣

I recently had our wills reviewed and the guy pointed out that although there is protection for step-son in DH’s will, there is nothing in mine as everything goes to DH. Something for me to think about.

No. My husband is leaving me 1/4 of his estate. His 3 children (2 of whom are mine) also get 1/4 each. His share of the house is left to me for my lifetime.

I am leaving him nothing (except my share of the house for his lifetime). Everything goes to our 2 children.

We are both retired and have decent pensions (his is better than mine, which is why he is leaving me some money and I'm not leaving him any). All our children are adults. If we were younger with dependent children, we'd have done things differently.

Second wife. I'll inherit everything. I'll ensure my adult stepsons receive something while I still live and bring up my DD / their DS. My focus will be on providing her with a stable life, but I will not neglect them. My will shall include all 3 children.

What do you mean by "today's generation"?

There are probably people of all ages, and generations, on this thread.

I watched my mother be ripped off by traders for years but couldn't do much about it. It's sweet that you don't think people would marry to get their hands on an inheritance but this definitely does happen. The reason people have trust issues is because these things do happen.

A friend of mine's mother remarried. He was quite a bit younger. He was very unpleasant, tried to cut her off from her family. She died. He claimed there was no will, they knew there had been, and he inherited under intestacy laws. They got the police involved, somehow found the will AND discovered he had not divorced his previous wife so was a bigamist which meant nothing went him whether there was a will or not. That all took years to deal with. But it definitely happens.

But what is classed as someone's personal asset or joint asset when it comes to writing wills? For example an art collection aquired during a marriage.. does that belong to the person who paid, the person who chose it or is it a joint asset when it comes to gifting it in a will?

It seems to me that the only watertight way to fully ensure your wishes are carried out is to follow Jane Eyre’s resolve and ‘To keep in good health, sir, and not die.’

For these purposes, there are 3 types of asset in a person’s estate:

Those they own absolutely (although they may not own the whole thing) - example - money in a sole account, part share of land held as tenants in common with someone else - this passes as part of the will.

Those they own jointly that pass by survivorship (money in a joint account, land owned as joint tenants). This passes by survivorship to the joint owner and does not form part of the will/intestacy.

Those that they have a life tenancy to (ie are owned in a trust where they have rights during their lifetime). Those pass according to the terms of the trust.

Then there would be other sorts of assets (eg pensions, life insurance) that are likely not to form part of the estate at all.

I don’t think chattels (art, furniture etc) can be owned as joint tenants so I presume either they are owned wholly by one person or in part shares by a number. I presume ownership would be determined by who bought it (if that could be proved).

Chickenrunning thank you so much for your answer. Going by what you say though, as dh bought our furniture, he would be able in theory to gift it away, meaning his adult children could walk in and take our sofas, bed etc? I'm wondering if this has happened to anyone!

I don’t think chattels (art, furniture etc) can be owned as joint tenants

I always understood chattels are assumed to be owned as joint tenants unless evidence is shown they are owned in specific shares or outright by one party. An invoice for the original acquisition will normally be helpful.

My parents only had a joint account and all furniture etc was paid for from that. So it must have been jointly owned. Not that it's an issue, just interesting.

A quick google on ‘jointly owned chattels’ shows that it appears quite complicated!

https://www.5sblaw.com/uploads/2018/05/2018-June-19-Joint-Ownership-Delegate-Pack-for-website.pdf

I assume in the vast majority of cases the value of the chattel over which there may be a dispute is far less than the costs of going to court over it.

Well William Shakespeare gave his wife the second best bed and the bulk of the chattels went to his daughter Susanna!

This has confused me even more! I'm asking as in our case we have a valuable art collection on our walls most of which i chose, dh paid for but there's no doubt in either of our minds that we own jointly.

I'm now thinking dh would have to gift them to me in his will if he wants me to keep them.

@Belovedbagle A simple declaration of joint beneficial ownership while he is alive is the thing to do, if in doubt. His Will may leave items directly to you or on trust for life, but to be sure tackle it now rather than wait.

Thank you LaSoleil.

I can imagine the law isn't clear, for example if a piece of art was bought as a gift to a spouse. Very hard to prove.

Avoid anything contentious if possible. The legal fees alone can sometimes outweigh the benefit of the resolution. It is easier to contemporaneously document something. I have seen an estate drawn up by executors that showed past gifts as debts owed, obviously with some legal manipulation in the background. This led to the donee having to obtain a mortgage (in retirement) in order to resolve the dispute. The executors (family members) simply exploited a weakness in the documentation. This would never have been an issue until the donor died.

The normal thing is to preserve some for the kids as you can't guarantee the second wife would honour any wishes on her husband with regard to his kids. A trust type situation is the norm. Any solicitor would strongly advise against trusting a second wife to provide for kids that aren't hers

Zephyry I am the second wife and agree with you completely. I will happily share out the art between the children whilst we are around, I just don't want any added stress were I to outlive dh. Thank you all.

Ours didn’t. Neither of us would dream of defrauding one another’s children. In fact, we both have one another’s kids as executors.

Neither would I.

however I know dh is crap with paperwork and shit like that, so I wouldn’t 100% trust him to get married, nullifying his will, and just not get round to another.

not maliciously, or intentionally, it simply wouldn’t cross his mind.

no will, rules of intestacy means wife gets first £322k, children get half of anything left.

on the other hand, I am very sure dh’s ex, and therefore his kids who are very influenced by her, will be calculating inheritance based on dh’s assets being half of our “joint” estate. In reality, I own the house, have bigger savings and ISA’s etc, all from before the marriage. Dh has very little as he had to start all over again at 40 post divorce, and was never in a financial place to save or buy another property.

so no doubt I will be the greedy second wife who cut the kids out.

It’s not ‘defrauding’ the children.
And having their DC as executors is no safeguard because firstly executors can do nothing but execute the will as written and secondly a new will with new beneficiaries and different executors can easily be written and the previous one means nothing.