to ask about equality of wills in blended families

[LittleLionMansMummy]

Partly inspired by another thread.

Dh and I don't have a will in place, partly because we don't know how to begin to do things fairly.

A brief background:

Met 12 years ago, married for 7. He has 2 daughters (one went nc at 14 and is now 18, the other is still very much in our lives but lives with her mum and is now 16) and we have a 5yo ds together. When we met I wasn't earning much but as dh is 10 years older he had a reasonable job and had owned his previous home so had a large lump sum to put down when we moved in together, 40% equity in the house. Over the years my career has taken off and I now earn more than him (twice as much) and pay proportionately more for mortgage and bills etc. The savings all come from my salary but are put in a joint pot with equal access.

He's clear that we are equal owners of the house and our estate should we both die should be equally split. Then we're less clear.

Although he no longer sees one dd (at her instigation), he wouldn't freeze her out and would still wish to see her provided for in his will. I understand this. So he's talked about splitting his 50% two ways for his daughters, leaving all my 50% to our ds. I suppose my issue is one of principle really - he has three dc in total so shouldn't his half be split three ways rather than two? I know ds would receive a larger total chunk of the joint assets but dsds do also have another parent's estate to benefit from whereas ds doesn't. I really don't want to be mercenary and want to try to do things fairly, so wanted to see if there's a consensus among the mn jury. I'm fully prepared to take advice.

I love and am very close to dsd2 (as I was to dsd1 before she went nc) and always ensure she's provided for over and above dh's maintenance. She receives a monthly allowance and gets the same spent on her for presents etc as my ds does. We're also going to continue paying her maintenance directly to dsd when dh is no longer obliged to when she turns 18 as we want to support her through uni.

What have others done in this situation?

Is his rule (a) his 50% gets split between his prior children or (b) that children with one biological parent in the marriage should get half as much as those with two? Both rules would give the same result in this case, but the first is poor while the second is the vicinity of reasonableness.

Let's suppose his rule is (a), and compare his rule with hers. Then he wants SDs to get 25% each of the joint estate and DS 50%. She wants them to get 17% each and DS 67%.

Let's extrapolate. What if there were 10 SDs. Then he would presumably want each of them to get 5% and DS to get 50%. She would want them to get 4.5% and DS 55%. Neither rule seems fair, the DS gets about ten times as much as his half-siblings.

Let's suppose his rule is (b) and repeat the extrapolation. Each of 10 hypothetical SDs gets 8.3% while the DS gets 17%. That's seems fair to the children, but possibly not to her, if she's not keen to provide for SD's.

Extrapolating in the opposite direction, what if there were 10 joint children and one SD? The numbers actually work out pretty similar under both his and her rules, so no lesson here.

So overall, I'd say interpretation (b) of what his rule is gives the best result.

Also consider the effect of his first divorce and assets. Has he already provided assets to be handed down by their mother? Or did she work full time too?

I think your suggestion seems fair, it makes sense for each parent to divide it amongst their dc. I'm in a blended family with DS1 (not DH's) and DS2 (mine and DH's) and we chose to split things equally between both of them. But in our case both boys live with me and DH, and there is no contact/financial support from DS1's dad, so he won't be getting anything from his other parent. So our family situation is a bit more like a non-blended family in that DH takes on all the responsibility for DS1 and treats both boys the same, and DS1 doesn't have another home somewhere else.

You married him knowing two children came as part of the package, I think his figures sound fair but maybe not look at it as his half going to his daughters and your half going to your son but sharing your joint money out to recognise he is father to all of them and although you are only mother to one you have a relationship with his daughters as well.

I think your way is fairest, I know il be flamed for this but I do hate the idea that stepchildren should always get something extra.

Same. Stepparents/grandparents leaving something in their will should be seen as a bonus and not an expectation.

Your more immediate problem is to figure out what happens if one of you dies first - that's much more likely than both dying at the same time.

You might want to look at getting trusts drawn up. A solicitor can run through all the ramifications with you.

We decided to ignore all the permutations of the fact that the children could inherit from other places. We have 5 (soon to be 6) children and we each have our 50% willed equally to them.

DS could (actually probably will) inherit from his maternal grandparents and my twin girls could inherit from their father, but we decided to just ignore the ifs, buts and maybes in that respect and go equal. We've always been adamant that as soon as any of the kids cross out doorstep they are all equal and we didn't want to change that in the will. The older kids also know this.

My girls and the younger kids might be a bit miffed because DS has some money in trust from his mother's death, but I hope that we'll have brought them up well enough to recognise that a few pounds by no mean balances out what he lost (and the younger ones should realise that without that they wouldn't be here!).

Can I suggest you write to/talk to all three children if you do the split in unequal amounts? I can see how this is fair but it could come as a nasty surprise and make DSDs feel less loved and valued by their dad.

I think it's really vital that they know they are equally loved and the will is explained well in advance of it ever being needed. With DSD1 this might not be possible in person but at least try to communicate it.

granny when I got together with him I don't think I had any thought about wills or even having a child with him. It's the kind of thing you only have to consider as you get older and your circumstances change. I currently only have a relationship with one of his daughters, not both. While I understand he wants to provide for her too, I don't feel that I personally have an obligation to her. But I totally understand that he does.

We have one DS together, DS1 is from a previous relationship. Our will states that if I die he gets the house and savings, if he dies I get everything. If we both die everything is split 50/50 between the DCs.

I think our situation is quite different, though, especially as DH has been part of DS1's life since he was 2 years old (DS1's Dad left when he was 5 months old), DS1 has little regular contact with his Dad and often refers to DH as Dad. Plus he has lived with DH for a huge proportion of his life, it wouldn't feel right that DS2 inherit more simply because DS1's Dad walked out when he was tiny. I've never even thought to ask DH if he wants DS2 to inherit his 50% and mine be split between them both, we just sat down and wrote what we wanted (well, probably what I wanted).

As intertia says the key thing is what happens when the first parent dies. I know someone whose wife left her half of the house and her assets on trust for their children with her mother and sister as trustees (even though she was still married to her husband!) as she did not trust her husband after she died to spend the money on the continuing children's school fees or not to spend it on a new partner. He accepted that well but even happily married couples like (sadly his wife was dying of cancer) may want their half to go to the chidlren not their spouse. My father left us his assets - he did not leave them to his wife our mother (had he died first).

My dh has 4 dcs from previous marriage and we have 2 dcs.

when the 1st one of us dies the other inherits everything. When the 2nd one dies my 50% goes to our 2dcs whilst dh's 50% is split 25% to his dcs and 25% to our 2 dcs.

We trust each other not to change the terms of the will after the 1st one dies.

Dh and i have one dd whos 3 and he has 2 children from a previous relationship who he does not see.

We have just done our wills and his children from a previous relationship are not in the will. Everything goes to our dd or any other natural children that we have together within the marriage. If me, dh and any natural children we have within our marriage die together then everything is shared equally between my sister, mother, dhs mother and brother.

He has had to put an excursion in his will to help prevent it being contested.

If dh dies then everything comes to me. If i die then everything goes to dh.

I'm a step child and luckily my dad and step mum are alive and well. I also know that their will is split absolutely equally between me, my sister and our 2 step siblings. Personally I feel that this is the fairest way. My sister and I won't inherit from our mother, she hasn't a penny. I have no idea what my step siblings will inherit from their father, it's irrelevant. The message they are giving to us is that we are all equal and that's absolutely the right way to go about it. What may happen outside of the blended family is irrelevant IMO.

I really recommend you talk this through with a solicitor. They are impartial and are used to dealing with all sorts of situations such as these. The fee really isn't that much.

It's well worth it. That way, when you see those news reports that say 'X% of families have no wills in place' you will get a warm smug feeling rather than a horrible cold shiver of 'shit, that's me'.

You say that from the outset your DH straight off put down "a large lump sum" amounting to "40% equity of the house".

Therefore I think that what you are suggesting would only be fair if your DH's 'half' was significantly more than half. That it took that 40% into account, and so he had a proportionately larger share than you, to split between his three children (while you had the proportionally smaller share to leave to your one).