What would happen to my partners money if he dies and we weren't married?

[grannyinapram]

Not a huge amount but we are saving for a house so he has a couple of thousand in his account and I have the same in mine.
We have dc and have lived together since being teens.
But getting married is a hard one because althoufh we are enganged, we don't want to get married yet. The 'wedding' isn't happening until after we buy the house anyway because we don't want to waste money on a crappy affair when we are renting.
Priorities and all that. Covid has pushed both further out of our reach.

I was just reading the will thread where the husband won't write one and it made me wonder what will happen to our money if we died?
We aren't even 30 yet so it seems a little presumptuous to write a will, however DH (not yet lol) has a fairly dangerous job so I'm always worried of the 'what ifs'

I was under the impression that when he died I could just go on his phone and put all the money in my bank and close the account, and vice versa. However I'm not sure now. is that legal? would anyone else have a claim? does it go to our kids? no idea.

@sicknote26

I was widowed suddenly in my 30's We never got round to getting married or writing wills. I was left with nothing but the house which had a massive mortgage that I couldn't afford on my own. We didn't even have life insurance. I now tell everyone who will listen how important getting married is for a bit of security. You think it will never happen to you, I had children and wasn't even entitled to the widowed parent benefit for my kids because we had never married.

♥️

Another poster upthread mentioned parents taking over in the event of his death. This happened to a very good friend of mine. Living with her partner for 12 years, he had a car accident and was badly injured in hospital. His parents were his next of kind as neither my friend nor her partner had thought about addressing the "what ifs". Parents stepped in, totally excluded my friend, partner sadly died and she had no say whatsoever in the funeral arrangements, the service, his headstone etc etc. In law she was simply a girlfriend, a flat mate. And the funeral wasn't the end of it, the financial implications were huge too.

^^ This happened to my sister - word for word (except they were together 20 years).

Get married op, just have it in a registry office (when allowed).

You're crazy not to have already!

@UserEleventyNine

It’s your responsibility as an adult to avail your self of information pertinent to you

Yes. People need to take responsibility for themselves. It's easy enough to find information these days.

But you have to know what you’re looking for in the first place or have exposure to people who are financially responsible to even know there’s information you’re missing out on.

It’s very easy to be judgemental if you’ve grown up with financially responsible parents or had exposure to people in work or otherwise who discuss what they do with their money. Why do you think there’s so much emphasis on exposure in giving lower income children greater opportunities? It’s simply because you cannot be what you cannot imagine. It’s important we don’t underemphasise this - financial planning and basic legal awareness should be taught in school, the midwifes should discuss such things with expectant mothers etc.

Why should they? When did it become the school's responsibility to train up functional adults?

Imagine we said the same thing about sex education, or food health, or careers advice?

The reason it’s important for schools to do this is because not everyone is “lucky” enough to have responsible parents who discuss important adult and life skills with them (or model the right behaviours through their example).

The lack of understanding on here of how other people live and how unfair life is to many children (hence why we need schools to do more to try equalise things) is astonishing. No wonder our society is so broken.

if you think that it's not worth a day off work to safeguard yours / your kids' futures, then I think everyone offering advice on this thread is wasting their time.

Even my 21 year old DD has a will - she did it at the same time as she bought her flat. The solicitor who did the conveyancing strongly advised that she do so and it only cost a small amount extra.

If you're buying a flat at 21, you're already luckier and / or doing better in life than a lot of folk will ever be. I'm not sure it's a useful yardstick for measuring what should or shouldn't be commonly known about.

@EuroTrashed

if you think that it's not worth a day off work to safeguard yours / your kids' futures, then I think everyone offering advice on this thread is wasting their time.

Quite.

I still can't get over that.

They can't get married as he would have to take time off and someone would have to have the kids.

Who said romance is dead eh.

Hi OP.
It doesn't matter if you don't have much to leave money wise, please please get mirror wills done asap.
Twice a year usually March and October diffetent charities offer free wills, in the hope that you might leave them something after you die.
We did ours with Cats'Protection last year It was brilliant and didn't cost us a penny.
Maybe a complicated will would incur some charges.
As soon as i saw an advert for it I rang up up and sorted an appointment out.Tbe previous year i had left it a few days to think about it, but all places were booked..Worth thinking about

.

I should add that they gave us a choice of local solicitors who were involved in the scheme.I rang and made an appointment the same day.
They don't expect a donation, but we left them a donation as a thank you..

I have, sadly, had to wind up two estates (both my late parents) and the difference between an estate with a will, and one without, can be chalk and cheese.
My DF put it off; it's an odd "superstition" that contemplating one's end brings it closer, and he was one of those dear souls who would have benefited from a "round tuit" such as I was gifted when I bought my first little house. DM's understandable grief was made worse by having to disentangle the legal side of things, and I ended up dealing with quite a lot of it.
When she later died, I was able to deal with most of the form-filling without paying solicitor's fees, as she had a clearly written will. A friend lent me a cheery little volume from the Consumers' Association called "What to Do When Someone Dies", and the only thing I left to the professionals was the transfer of the house deeds. It's one legal area where matters are made easy for the lay person.
One a purely practical note, I was given the choice of opening an "executor's account" by the bank, for immediate expenses like arranging a funeral; although her account was frozen, it was clear that I was a beneficiary. As it happened, I had enough funds in hand not to need that, but imagine a bereaved partner having the additional grief of having to raise funds for a decent send-off.
I think one day off would be time well spent.

If you transfer money from his accounta, that’s theft and you could get arrested. Date/time of death will be on the death certificate which the bank will eventually see, it would be very obvious what had happened. Also there’s a £10k limit on some internet banking transactions.

Make wills.

I understand where you are on the wedding thing but you need to accept that it is foolish. If he gets run over then you’ve thrown away a huge amount of legl protection just to better time your party. The sensible thing to do is get legally married now and gmbave a big celebration later when you can afford it. You don’t even have to announce it if you don’t want to.

But it doesn’t sound like you want to be sensible and hey it’s your life if you’d rather lose all your rights / risk getting arrested for theft when you’ve just lost your partner and are trying to comfort kids etc that’s your call.

I am a lot older than than the OP, and although I am married we do not have wills - off the back of this thread I have just instructed a solicitor to get them sorted out.

Please write a will and if at all possible got the registry office and get married.
Winding up an estate where couple are married and have joint accounts is a doddle that even If with a little help was able to do.
When a young relative of mine discovered that they were terminally ill with an aggressive cancer be and his partner left the hospital and immediately posted banns. They had a beautiful wedding arranged in only 3 weeks ( yes it can be done) and when the end came life was so much simpler for his wife.
Please sort things out. It's hard enough finding yourself alone without legal hassles

MAKE A WILL!! You have no right to go into each others phone and take money, dead or alive. The Wills will set rules and determined who gets what under what circumstances. Before I was married I made a will, I was 36 when I did my first will and Ive just reviewed it each time there should be an amends if my circumstances change. So, when I did get married I adjusted the terms of the will to include my husband and my sep son. I had assets and money to divide out should I die. If a will is in place then its an easy job for solicitors to then allocate your money to who YOUY want it to go to instead of causing problems in your absence. Its never too early to make a will if you have assets so PLEASE DO ONE! Its easy and costs very little.

@334bu

Please write a will and if at all possible got the registry office and get married. Winding up an estate where couple are married and have joint accounts is a doddle that even If with a little help was able to do. When a young relative of mine discovered that they were terminally ill with an aggressive cancer be and his partner left the hospital and immediately posted banns. They had a beautiful wedding arranged in only 3 weeks ( yes it can be done) and when the end came life was so much simpler for his wife. Please sort things out. It's hard enough finding yourself alone without legal hassles

Brilliant!

Please for the love of God do not do a DIY will or a will writer will. Go to a solicitor and get it done properly. You also have full indemnity insurance if it goes belly up. You never need a Will till someone dies and all hell breaks loose, like when the survivor gets kicked out the house, owns the house with the nearly brother in law from hell or finds they cant make a mortgage payment because the cash from the life insurance has went elsewhere

Wills are not just about money and possessions but also about what you wish to happen to your children should the worst happen to one or both of you.
Please for the sake of your children get a will, don’t shrug it off because it’s “expensive” and you don’t have a lot of money in the bank right now. It’s about more than that.

If you want the advantages and commitments of marriage, get married. You don't have to splurge. Otherwise at least make out 'everything to him/her' wills.

You absolutely have to have a will - do it now. My sister died suddenly aged 45 without a will and it was a total nightmare. No one needs to go through that extra hassle following a bereavement it’s not expensive please please sort it out.

Bloody hell, sounds like you are planning to top him.

Money goes to whoever is in will, if no will, married or not it goes to intestate.

Dementedmummy agree with DIY will but using a will writer who has PL & PI insurance is no different and they often do far more CPD so are up to date with changes in the law.

Interestingly, Prof Stephen Mason has said that he specifically used a will writer over a generic solicitor.

Consumers should definitely research the company they choose and ensure they are comfortable with who they instruct.

OP by far the easiest thing is to get wills done, much easier than getting married. The money thing is one thing - if one of you dies intestate then your children inherit everything, the surviving partner gets nothing. If you have life insurance or pensions you can name each other as beneficiaries on that and that would not count as estate money. But you do need the wills in case, God forbid, you are both in a car crash or something - the law needs to know who would look after your children. You can't just assume your family will step up. Or that the person you would like to leave them with will be willing. You don't even need a solicitor to do it. There are online companies that will do it. But for heaven's sake make sure you know where the copies are kept.

The money in his account is the least of your worries. You are not his next of kin If anything happened to him. Look up re inheritance tax. It’s a legal minefield. No such thing as a ‘common law wife’.

Will kits £10 in WHSmiths. £20 and an afternoon of filling them in, copy them on your printer and send a copy to the people you want to look after them in the event ( your 'executors'. Grow up, get this sorted.