How to add potential children to a will?

[LadyFidgetAndHerHandbag]

My husband and I are in the process of writing our wills. We don't have children and other than some charity bequests we're planning on dividing our assets between our nieces and nephews. At the moment it's easy just to list them but I don't want to end up in a situation where more children have been born but aren't listed in the wills and it causes family arguments or upset.
Is there some sort of clause where we can say "any future children" or does it need names? I'm reluctant to pay to update our wills every time one of our siblings sprogs up.

We have something like "any subsequent children in the family" in our Will, can't think of the exact wording now. "Children of X&Y" maybe

Our will just says to be divided equally between our children, it doesn't name them for this reason. I think that's usual, it would be awful for a new baby not to inherit simply because no one got round to amending the will.

Ours says first born name and children here after. We have three together. This covers them even though their names are listed.

I think the terminology is 'future issue' but obviously you need proper legal advice!

Thanks all. We have an appointment with a solicitor in a couple of weeks but want to go in prepared rather than waffling!

We have our wills with a will writing service who store the wills and offer an update once a year for £25. It's also a good idea to revise wills periodically as circumstances can change.

Yes the solicitor will be able to draft that easily, just make it clear that that’s what you want.
Something like “in equal shares to all children of my sister X or of DH’s brother Y”. A standard wording would then go on to leave Nephew A’s share to his children (if any) should he predecease you, otherwise it’s all shared amongst nephew/nieces living at your death.

There is some easy legal wording to cover this but I can’t remember it exactly. Something like “divided equally between any and all surviving future issue of X”

Another point to consider is what happens if you die before or after your DH. If you die before him, and he remarried, he could leave everything to his second wife. You may be ok with that, or might wish to protect some of your estate, to ensure it goes to the nieces and nephews

@LadyFidgetAndHerHandbag

Thanks all. We have an appointment with a solicitor in a couple of weeks but want to go in prepared rather than waffling!

The solicitor will word it appropriately. It could be - leave £x to be split equally between the childen of our siblings Sandra, Peter, John and Larry.

Just looked at mine and it uses the term 'future issue'.

Ours said 'and subsequent issue'.
We wrote it with a solicitor, which is the best way.

You should update your will every 5 years or so and certainly when you have major life changes (like having kids)…so leave it vague for now (future issue) but make sure you update it properly when you have them,

@DorotheaDiamond

You should update your will every 5 years or so and certainly when you have major life changes (like having kids)…so leave it vague for now (future issue) but make sure you update it properly when you have them,

We're child free by choice so that won't be an issue but good advice about updating/reviewing regularly, thank you.

The other advice (from a thread the other day) is not to tell the people you are planning to leave money to if you are childfree - as it can cause huge stress/resentment if you change your mind or decide to leave it to some extra people in future, thus diluting the share. If you really want to tell them, be very vague about the amount and that other people may be included in future - there was a thread about someone's nephew who was fuming the inheritance was split 6 ways instead of the 3 ways he was expecting, despite the fact of course that a nephew shouldn't feel entitled to any inheritance. It would have been better for him mentally if he hadn't known and instead just got a lovely unexpected windfall.

Our wills refer to "children of our marriage". We drafted it when our first was a baby and wanted to accommodate future children (we later had one more).

You could name your siblings etc and refer to their "issue at the time of my death" which would cover all children born to that person at that point.