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!

I never had life assurance before reading this thread. Now, after spending the last 20 minutes filling in a form online, I do!
£5 a month and DH gets the mortgage paid off if I die. Why didn't I do this before?!

because I didn't know how cheap it was and didn't think it was important. I was wrong

Well done MoD!!!!

I am leaving 10% of my money (if there is any) to homestart. Husband has no qualms about this at all. I think he is leaving some mney to charity too but cant remember. The house and everything else goes to whichever one of us is still alive.

I think your dh's will plans seem reasonable to me.

You are never too young to get a will. Anyone who tells you anything else is an idiot (sorry to all posters up thread).

Giving money to charity is the person who earned the money's perogative IMO. However they should consider the impact on their loved ones.
The point regarding % donations to charities is very interesting. I will store that away for future use.

Life insurance is essential IMO if you have kids/ a spouse. As a singleton I used to view it as a monthly lottery ticket (5 quid/ month for level term 150K when I took mine out aged about 28). You will die. The question is just will it be within the term of the insurance policy!

Don't think you only need Life insurance for your husband/partner either if you are a SAHM. Childcare is bloody expensive and recently bereaved parents again don't want to be stressing about needing to get back to work to pay the mortgage and then worrying about how they are going to facilitate that.

Funerals are fucking expensive. £2K is a conservative estimate. When someone has died you really don't want to be worrying about the cost and for me anyway having a naice funeral reception in a lovely venue was very important. That alone (for about 50 people) cost almost 1000quid and we didn't serve more than one glass of wine or hot food. You need to consider how you are going to pay for this - life insurance is one solution.

When you do have kids and have to nominate a legal guardian think about how that person is going to fund them. I am aware of a friend who inherited some children when her single parent sister died. Unfortunately her sister was badly advised and all of the childrens money is tied up in trust 'til they are 21. That has been really unhelpful as they have had to move house, buy a bigger car, drop her hours at work etc and both sets of children involved have seen a drop in their standard of living. Not really what you want when you are recently bereaved.

I was at a funeral this week for one of my friends. I'm in my mid 30s. There is a bereaved partner and dependent children.

No one likes to talk about it but young people do die. Often suddenly too.

I think if he wants to do something for charity, he should save from his personal allowance whilst alive (eg not eat lunch every Tuesday, for example) and give this money to charity. I don't think it is admirable that he left money to a charity in his will. It means he is not depriving himself of anything, but he will deprive his family, because when he is dead, he will not need any money anyway and the only ones suffering will be his family. He will look generous, but in fact it is despicable, because if you want to give to charity, you should do it whilst alive, so that you can take full credit of your own deprivation in return for recognition/good feeling etc etc

"He will look generous, but in fact it is despicable, because if you want to give to charity, you should do it whilst alive, so that you can take full credit of your own deprivation in return for recognition/good feeling etc etc"

He does this already.

Incidentally, if it weren't for bequests in wills etc, then very many charities in the UK would have to close down. Some charities receive up to 50% of their annual donations through wills. As a lot of charities in the UK are having to take over a lot of work the government used to do (think foodbanks, and healthcare research for example) because of the economic downturn, calling bequests "despicable" is an astonishing thing to do.

However, as an accountant, an ex-IFA and licensed will-writer, I would say it is better to leave a named amount of money to a charity rather than a percentage, as it is easier all-round. Otherwise you have to spend time working out the entire value of the estate before the bequest can be made, and it's shown to be very stressful for the families to have to do this at a time when they are grieving.

So, for example, instead of 10% of an unspecified total estate, leave £5k instead (or whatever the figure you had in mind was), because if there's not enough liquidity in the estate to cover the 10% figure when the final value of the total estate is arrived at, the charity can request that you sell things to cover the amount. For example, if you had a house worth £250,000 and no life insurance, and only £1,000 in the bank, the charity would be entitled to just over £25,000, (if you left 10% as per the OP) and where would the cash come from then? Another reason to get life insurance, btw.

A will is considered a binding legal document, and as a beneficiary, the charity is entitled to "their" share, just as any other person named in the will would be.

I don't call thinking of others after you're gone "despicable", but there is a lot more to think about when it comes to life insurance, and wills in particular than you think. See a professional (I don't write wills any more) as it's their job to help you see the things you don't ...

I said despicable, as the OP are apparently not too well off and she worries about the family coping if anything is left to charity. What's the point in leaving money to charity, leaving your family in a bad position, maybe needing charity themselves? I am not talking about rich people giving to charity. They give enough. The ordinary people should give in their lifetime - what they want and can afford and not make their family suffer in case of an untimely death. I totally feel for the OP!

I am also not talking about rich people.

I don't think it's the giving to charity part that is despicable. What is wrong with the situation (not sure I would call it despicable, either) is that the husband just 'announces' to the OP that he's leaving 10% of his estate to charity.

It would have been better for them both to sit down and have a full and frank discussion before doing anything.

Personally, I think it's "despicable" to only to give to charity for "the credit", but that's just my opinion.

If you want to give to charity, you should be free to give to charity any way you want, and at any time you want, whether you get "credit" or not. I wouldn't call anyone who gave anything to charity (either alive or dead) "despicable".

I would, however, call someone who didn't get professional advice on how to do a will properly - ie without leaving their family short, and whether they're leaving something to charity or not - rather foolish, I'm afraid.

I thought all mortgage companies insisted on Life Insurance?

Mine didn't. I remember being quite surprised. I took out one of those term ones anyway that cost about a fiver a month and cover your mortgage if you die, and that's it.

Gosh, I'm really surprised.

As I understand it, lump sums or bequests are no better than giving a % as they are paid first out of an estate. So if you leave 1k to a niece thinking your estate is worth 100k, and leaving the remainder to your family, then you die leaving just 1.5k then niece will gain more than family.

For me the key here is dependency - if you have dependents I think you should do everything possible to optimise their situation in the event of your death. Given that its not possible to change a will on a weekly basis nor to predict the future, the safest solution is to have those who are dependant take all whatever 'all' turns out to be.

Of course it depends on the amount of the estate :facepalm: but hey, what would I know?

This is why I KEEP saying, get expert advice (and bloody life insurance) before writing a will, so these situations can best be avoided.

You do NOT need to see a solicitor.
The final fling will is bloody fantastic and utterly 100% legal.

It's up to him if he wants to leave stuff to charity. Paying a solicitor won't make a blind bit of difference if he has made his mind up.

Well, you have to think about this. At the moment you and your ds are your dh's main concern. If he dies now, that's what he has to think about. If he dies in 60 years, then his priorities will have changed!

I'd recommend seeing a solicitor rather than a website, esp if you have children.

10% .

I think the very sensible point lozster is making is that unless you are really wealthy perhaps, it is impossible to know how much money there will be in your estate unless you make your will and you are immediately run over by a bus.

I know that going from having spare cash in the bank and living precariously from month to month can happen frightningly quickly and without warning.

My priority is to make sure in my will that my death does not disadvantage my husband or children any more than is completely unavoidable at a time when they will be devastated and vulnerable. I therefore give to charity when I can afford it now, rather than giving any family money to charity in my will and putting my family at the mercy of lawyers paid by the charity to extract "everything to which they are entitled" from my family.

Yes, I was talking about WHO inherits (not how much tax they pay).

seesense I am sorry for your loss. That must be tough.

I posted because I was mortified that you confidently asserted

"For a married couple a will is not essential - .... and everything goes to the surviving spouse"

when that is sadly misguided. It may have been true for you in your particular circumstances but could easily not be the case if you have children and a family house.

Newly widowed or not, you must not repeat that myth about married couples automatically inheriting everything if their spouse dies as I am sure you do not want to inflict financial difficulty on anyone already dealing with personal loss. Believe me, I have dealt with cases where mothers are beholden to their children about whether they can move house and/or what to do with any savings. It's not pretty to see control of family finances being ceded to teenagers, and a woman left with a financially insecure future.

Please don't give legal advice unless you are either a lawyer and/or are very very sure of your ground, like Anne.

PS I did not mean that YOU had talked about common law spouse, just that it is a common misconception. Where couples assume that they will inherit without a will as "common law" spouse, they get a very rude shock at a very tough time.

Frankly, if you don't already have your mortgage insured against death, you have a bigger problem than 10% of his estate... In the last 5 years, I have had 3 friends (young) lose their spouses. 2 were to medical reasons, one in an automobile accident.

For all 3 of them, the last thing they needed to worry about was that they could not afford to pay their mortgages. Thankfully, all 3 (2 who had children already) had their mortgages insured, so the mortgage was paid in full on the spouse's death.

Personally, I think YABU - but that is just my opinion...

As Madding say -first check your mortgage agreement. you may find the whole property would revert to you anyway and would not form part of his estate. Anyway you will probably have a long and happy life together before one of you dies - and it maybe you will go first.

Definitely ensure you have a proper will in place each. Definitely make sure you have level term life assurance each for however much you think your next mortgage amount will be until retirement. Definitely get family income benefit life assurance which pays out a yearly lump sum to cover your future monthly expenditure. Without it you may not be able to continue to run your home if one of you dies. It might cost you £40 per month for both policies between you but I can assure you that one day you may well be grateful. Especially if you have children.