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?

I was widowed in my early 40's - we rewrote our wills when my late husband was ill - we became tenants in common & his half was left to the children, with me having lifetime interest. To ensure that their was never any chance of it being lost to a new partner.
This has created its own problems due to a subsequent special needs diagnosis for our youngest & they will never have financial responsibility
My partner (who is significantly older than I am) stays here but has no legal right to the house & my will reflects this.
He has his own property/investments - this will all go to his children. I will manage it but it is not mine & never will be.
We keep our finances separate & will never marry

I agree with this. I don't think that adult children are 'entitled' to inheritance from their parents. Your parents have done their job in raising you. Stop being so grabby.

What happens if he dies before you and you decide to downsize?

Say you lived in a £400k house and following his death you downsized to a £200k house, would the surplus £200k automatically go to his children as it’s “his half” of the house or would you use it to live on?

And then after your death the children would only get 50% of a £200k house instead of a £400k house?

When you say his kids will inherit half the estate after you die, is that something you have put into place yourself via your will? If so, presumably there would be nothing stopping you from changing your will in the event of your DH's death?

Another thing to be aware of with "lifetime interest" is what protections are in place for maintenance. If second wife lives 30 years, she needs to pay to maintain a property she holds no future financial interest in. If it were me, it would be done on a budget.

I think in general though most people want their assets and money to go to their children. Most grown ups think the whole point of inheritance is to provide for their children.

Wow. Massive sense of entitlement there. Not to mention the huge disrespect towards their person that your parent loves.

Since when was there anything 'fair' about inheritance? Some people get millions because they were born to rich parents, others get nothing.

There is no elegant or water tight solution to this I am not a second wife but a first wife with a terminal cancer diagnosis. Neither of the options is great. Leave our wills as they are with DH inheriting my half and kids getting everything when he goes. But if he remarries (which I sincerely hope he does) that will is null and void and I have to trust he will want to or even remember to, make a new will which provides for our sons. Or we go down to the route of putting my share in a trust for our sons with DH having a right to stay in the house except he's only 50 now, he might want to move and as I understand it, the trust is dissolved if the house is sold but if DH is buying a house of similar value then he'll have to hope our currently lovely kind sons haven't turned into money grabbers who want their share then and there.

Totally going round in circles on what to do!

I have been with h for 27 years so a long marriage, so I'd expect to inherit, yes. But of course he has arranged for all dc - his and ours - to inherit equal amounts too.

My DF died a few years ago and me, DB and SB/SS were to have the house split

Did he actually leave you a share of the house in his will? If so, then surely you should have got it when the house was sold? This sounds a bit odd.

We have mirror wills. We leave everything to the surviving spouse (for obvious inheritance tax reasons), then split four ways between my son and his three kids. We’ve been together 26 years and totally trust each other to do what we agreed together.

As a first wife who will be dying in my mid 50-s this year, leaving teenage kids behind, it is heartbreaking to me to think my boys could be disinherited from my share of our marital estate.

Of course there might be nothing left if we both made it to old age and it was swallowed up by care home bills but as it stands I will be leaving my children when they both still need me and will already be missing out on so much I do not want them to lose out on what I as their mother want them to have.

I also think there’s a large symbolic element to it, and what it means

I think often it’s not about the real/absolute value it’s about the division and what this is seen to say. If someone was leaving just £2000 divided 75/25 between two children, this would be likely to sting just as much as the same division of a much larger estate.

People can get very territorial after someone’s death, and I’ve seen people competing to claim one person has more right to a memento than another because the relationship was more special, etc. And unfortunately in the case of new spouses, this jealousy of children can start long before their partner goes anywhere

And by the same logic about children not automatically being entitled to something, why should anyone feel they are

I'm so sorry, you need legal advice here.

So sorry to hear about your situation 💐

Well of course life isn’t fair, but that’s not a reason to actively ensure unfairness in the way you behave.

Bravo

@Craybourne

I don't know exactly what the law is, but I thought that it was normal and expected that the married partner inherits everything, unless the person who died made a will to state otherwise. So from that perspective, the spouse would be entitled to it, but not adult children

@TwigTheWonderKid

If they are his children as well, then surely he wouldn't leave them out of his will? I think this would be more of a problem if they weren't his children.

I'm the second wife (or will be when we marry later this year). He has two children who are adults and who he's given money to for house deposits. That came out of their inheritance so they will get a small amount from his estate - few thousand and some personal items.

I get the rest which is his half of our house, pensions and insurance.

Haven't read the whole thread yet. When my DH split up from his first wife he got nothing from their joint house or savings. He met me with barely any savings and moved into my mortgaged house. He obviously paid his share of bills etc. Now 25 years and one child between us later we have moved into a new house. This was bought from the proceeds of my house and an inheritance from my parents. So I contributed at least 3/4.We are fortunate enough to now be mortgage free. Should his children from his first marriage really be entitled to half of this house's assets? Assuming that neither of us end up paying care home fees, if I die first and DH inherits house then on his death our child plus his 2 others inherit a third each is that fair? Presumably his children will inherit from their mother, so should they then inherit from me also? They would then inherit from 3 people, and my DC would only inherit from 2. If he dies first he should share his assets 3 ways( to our shared child plus his earlier 2). My DC would then inherit all my assets.

I've taken legal advice and those are still my options. As I said, there is no perfect way to sort this.

Look if your partner remarries into a blended family everything can change.

I've a friend mid fifties well off thanks to her first husband. She's had a boyfriend or two. Has absolutely no intention of letting them move in, marry her. She's safe financially now so won't rock the boat

I think in your case that sounds fair