Husband's will.

[Skinnywhippet]

Bit of background- we are relatively young couple in our late 20s and recently started discussing wills. We decided to get a free one in May on the final fling website. I'm on the website doing mine and husband announces that he's leaving 10% of his money etc to charity, but not to worry he'll leave his share of our house to me. Cue me feeling a bit upset. I hadn't even considered leaving anything to anyone other than him. Yes, we have a house, but that has a mortgage on it and it would be tight for me to manage the payments plus everything else.

I know I probably am being unreasonable, but I always want to feel like I am everything to my husband and right now I feel a bit displaced. I don't feel I can say anything to him because it is a charity that he wants to leave the money to and me complaining would be unethical. The thing is, although this is just a simple, free will, I want it to last for at least a year and in less than a year we will be TTC. If the unthinkable were to happen when pregnant then I would hate to think that we were struggling because he didn't leave us all of his estate. Oh gosh I really am over sensitive. Help me p,ease but be gentle!

Meant to add - you can name guardians as the beneficiary of the policy so they will get the money to take care of the children which makes it much easier on them to take on responsibility esp if one would have to give up work to take on your child/ren.

A former IFA writes: get life insurance. NOW. Whole of life with critical illness cover. It'll cost practically nothing at your age, and you'll be thankful for it one day.

And a solicitor says get your wills done profesionally. We earn far more clearing up crap home made ones than preparing them properly in the first place.
If you want an MN recommendation check out mumblechum who has an advert in classified. She is very highly recommended by those who have used her. Alternatively go to your high st solicitor.

It is far more sensible to get a solicitor draw up a will - they know how to avoid the pitfalls.

The only insurance you have to have when taking a mortgage is buildings. Some families have other means.

Oh i wouldn't be pleased. I think whats yours is mine and vice versa. 10% could be a huge amount of money, money that you and potential children might need.

Why would you want to give to charity at the expence of your family. If your very old then its a different matter. This money would be needed by you, he doesn't care because he won't be here.

I woukd ask him to have the will redone. When you get married your in it together and why is it his money? I would be insisting you split this family saving equally. If he wants to give money away it should be a small amount of money. If he's not happy to do this you need some expensive insurance to pay to you on his death.

I'd be very dissapointed with his priorities.

I would ask him to change his will to say that he gives everything to you but hopes that you will give 10% to charity at your absolute discretion ( so as not to create a legal obligation on you). He should trust you enough to comply with his wishes if it is financially feasible for you at the time, but if you are in straitened circumstances then you have the flexibility of not eg having to sell the house. That way you both get your wish :-) In a way, it is great that he wants to give money to charity but why doesn't he do it now instead of when he is dead (at which point he is basically giving away your money and not his)?

Hmm. DH and I's will leaves it all to each other. When we kick the bucket, whatever is left of our estate is divided equally between our children, with our nieces receiving a small sum each. No payments left to anyone while the other spouse is still alive.

PS. DH has given to a charity weekly, right from his paycheck, for 30 years. That is all they are going to get.

If I die before my dh then I will leave a portion to my dh & my share of my house & everything elsr to my kids. In the event of my dh remarrying I do not want another woman (+ her kids) benefiting from my house /money at the expense of my kids. Which could happen as a partner is entitled to a 100% unless stated otherwise. I have seen loads of people being cut out of their surviving parents will once a second wife / husband came on the scene.

I'm quite shocked by this thread.
While yes divorce is statistically more likely ?young? people die every day.
And do you know how much a funeral costs. . .

Life insurance and a will are just basic common sense, yes he/you as a couple might have enough to cover the mortgage now, but what if the bank fails, what if you use up all that money on something else???
what if you put it off and off because at least you have a will of some sort you have 1,2 or 3 children and then something happens?

PEOPLE MAKE A WILL.

Trust me having being through what we?ve been through in the last year with SIL dying without a will, would have you running down the solicitors in 5 seconds.

not to mention the very good point raisah made above.

OP search for Marlows Wills (or something) there is a member here who specializes in setting up wills this is her website www.marlowwills.co.uk/

Ah, just saw that mumblechum has already been mentioned.

Thing is, we have only sorted this stuff out truly properly in the last year. The cobbler's child is always poorly shod and that - eek

Expecting to be everything to your husband is unreasonable.

Glad to know its sorted OP - Y weren't BU

To all those who said YABU and 10% isn't much - is recommend that you speak to a solicitor about how wills work. They need to protect for the future not today and that 10% could be the difference between you keeping the house or having to sell it or having to work full time when you could do with more time off to recover from trauma. The point is you can't know what your circumstances will be in a future hypothetical situation so in my opinion, I will should do optimise circumstances for you.

My OH did a similar thing - he was offered some free life cover in a former job and allocated it to his mum and sister as he said it 'would be nice' for them to have something to remember him by. I was hurt as we only have minimal cover to pay off the mortgage so i saw an opportunity to hrlp me maintain stability in a difficult time being passed to people who would use it as a treat. He just hadn't thought it through like this so when we went to a solicitor we made mirror wills protecting each other first. The solicitor we saw was very candid. I thought I should, in the event of joint deaths, leave my half to my patents on the basis that it would eventually go down to my sister anyway. She pointed out that this would potentially bring tax and care home fee problems. Hadn't entered my head at all. So, talk to an expert!

So many typos above. I do apologise

I must say my feelings are against the majority on this. DH and I have written our wills so everything is left to either one of us if something happened then as we would still have 2 children to support. If something happened to both of us then we have life insurance etc and everything would then go to our children/guardians.

I would hate to think that either of us would struggle or that our children's guardians would if we gave our money elsewhere. At the end of the day DH and the DCs are my priority.

However we have discussed that once the children are independent then we will change the will to reflect charitable donations and more specific items we may want to leave to friends and family.

Well, having recent personal experience I can say the following:

For a married couple a will is not essential - a grant of administration if the deceased is intestate takes about 10 minutes (the same as probayte) and everything goes to the surviving spouse;

A will would be necessary to cover the possibility that you both die together (e.g. if you were in a cra crash)

Life insurance is essential - it's not just the mortgage, continuing to live in a house with sentimental value is expensive - rising utility and food bills, only having one wage instead of two - it all makes a difference

You will need to make a will or change it when you have children - you should actually name all your children (and other beneficiaries) in your will so it needs updating with each happy arrival.

Death in service benefits are available from large employers but not alays from smaller businesses so again, life insurance should be taken out

When my hubby died, I gave 10% of his life insurance payment to charity - he had always paid 10% each month so it seemed the obvious thing to do.

Funerals are expensive and you only bury someone once so you want the available cash to do a good job.

Planning your wills in your twenties is not a bad idea BUT life insurance is more important, really, it will cover more than just the mortgage. It's a whole lot cheaper when you are younger.

The fact that SO many points have been raised here should tell you one thing: go to a solicitor and have the wills (you can have mirror wills etc) professionally drafted. Please. Many high street firms will have fixed rates for straightforward wills. Worth it.

Life has too many permutations for it to be safe to rely on something 'free' off the Internet.

I think that's a lovely idea to leave 10% to charity. Why do you need 100%? What you feel is valid... It's impossible to say this nicely but it sounds like your self esteem might be a bit low? Just because he wants to support a charity does not mean that you are not everything to him.

seesensepeople. No, if you die intestate, it is NOT true that it all goes to the spouse. The spouse inherits personal possessions and the first £250,000 of the estate. LOTS and LOTS of people these days have a house worth significantly more than that (and not all are in joint names), and the spouse not inheriting it fully can cause many problems. PLEASE get legal advice and please seesensespouse never give people that misinformation again Also, for these purposes, there is NO SUCH THING as a common law spouse.

Actually, Notasaint, I believe that it is more like £325,000 as a nil rate tax threshold AND a spouse's allowance is transferable to their spouse so whoever dies first if they don't use the whole rate will be able to transfer what's remaining.

In addition debts are deducted against assets so the remaining amount left on the mortgage comes into play.

Finally, on the tax front if you leave 10% or more to charity then the rate of tax payable is reduced.

As far as my advice I actually said a will would be essential (because they might die together) and I never gave the impression that common law spouse was equivalent - the OP mentions her "husband".I also advised them to get life insurance.

Can I suggest that you don't order a grown woman (especially one recently widowed) what to do or not to do as that is not going to be well received.

OP, I wish you luck with getting this sorted.

I think you are talking at cross-purposes, seesense and nota.

nota is right when talking about the intestacy rules. If there are children in a marriage then the spouse only inherits the first £250000, plus a life interest in half the remaining estate.

Seesense, you are referring to inheritance tax thresholds, which are a completely different matter.

As I wrote about above, giving a percentage of your estate to a charity can put your family in a very difficult position, because the charity is obliged to maximise the amount it receives, and will not be sympathetic to the feelings of the family.

Thanks Anne - at the moment the OP does not have any children, and she is married.

Of course this is an internet discussion forum, mainly consisting of mums, so I would hope no-one would take any comments on here as professional advice on their own specific circumstances...