To ask about the point of a will in this situation?

[WillConfusion]

I'm sorry I'm a bit naive about all this and will obviously speak with a solicitor about it.

I am 28, don't have a will yet. I am married with one DC, my husband has 2 older children as well. We own our home.

If I were to make a will now, what would I even put in it?!

Our house is owned as joint tenants so that means I can't leave a "share" of it to anyone in particular as it passed to DH on my death, we don't have any substantial savings.

I guess the only thing is I would like to make sure if if I ever do have any of my own assets, that they will go to my DC and not be split between all 3 children. The only thing I can think of is that I will receive an inheritance from my parents, in the form of both funds and a property which is in trust and worth quite a lot (I know about the trust because I needed to sign the paperwork). My DC is covered in the trust so if I die before my parents, it transfers to them.

Can you make a will for future assets? How would I even separate it anyway, our accounts are joint so any money I did inherit from parents or the property would go into a joint account anyway. Or would you make a solo savings account with this in mind to be used one day for this?

Sorry it's all a bit daunting, I've never done anything like this before. The only asset I really have now is our house, which DH would get anyway on my death.

Basically if I went into a solicitors now and they asked me what I wanted to put in my will I wouldn't know as I don't really have anything!

1. having a will saves your survivors having to deal with the extra hassle of intestacy.
2. making a will allows you to take advantage of all the tax benefits of marriage/inheritance. 3)making a will now can be done is such a way that any assets you acquire in the future are also covered. When your parents die will you want to be in a rush to write your own will urgently? Do you want that to demand your focus at that point in time?

You basically need to have a think about what you want to happen. There are no rules!

If your share of the house goes to your husband upon your death, then there’s nothing to stop him leaving it equally among his three children - so your ‘share’ would be split between his children instead of just going to your own. You can change this by leaving your share of the house to your child instead, but obviously this would have implications for where your husband would live etc. You might prefer for him to inherit it and then split it equally among the children.

In terms of your future inheritance, you will have to make provision for this once you have it. You can express your will in such a way as to ensure it’s still valid once you inherit, but you can only use a will to dispose of assets you own at the time of your death.

You may want to speak to a solicitor about setting up a trust for your child once you have that money.

Presumably you have a wedding ring and possibly an engagement ring and other pieces of jewellery. You might want to specify that those go to your child rather than stepchildren (if that is the case)? If you work, you may have in-work life insurance, you might want to specify that this, or a proportion of it, goes to your child if you were to die. I think it is worth doing and it is far "tidier" for the people that you leave behind to have a will in place than to die intestate.

You don't have to put specific "things" into your will, you can leave all or percentages of your Estate.

As you say jointly owned assets and bank accounts will pass to the other party.

You might want a survivorship clause, to cover the situation where you both died in an accident.

A will writer would be experienced in advising you to enable you to make decisions.

TBH as a young un-married couple with few assets I just wrote a basic will using a pre-printed format so that then DP would inherit everything.

Now older and with more assets and complications I've had a will properly drafted.

Think about what you would want to happen in the event you both die at the same time and while your child is still young. You can make your wishes known for their ongoing care and put money into trust for their needs.

I thought if we were joint tenants though that we didn't really have his share and my share and it just meant the other gets the house on the others death.

I think we'd probably be better off as tenants in common thinking about it now. I'd prefer to have a "share" to leave to my DC solely really.

What @Palavah said about intestacy/probate especially.

You probably have some forms of insurance to take into consideration too.

It's also a good habit to get into as long as you update it as circumstances change. One day it will be needed.

You could leave your share of the house to your partner and take out an insurance policy to pay a lump sum to your child.

You never know what could happen, he could remarry and all your assets could go to a completely new, random person.

I would never make another person responsible for ensuring my children inherited from me. If I die young my children's inheritance is protected.

It is easy to sever a joint tenancy and revert to tenants in common www.gov.uk/joint-property-ownership/change-from-joint-tenants-to-tenants-in-common although there are obviously things to discuss with your DH in relation to doing this.

You can sever the joint tenancy so you have a tenancy in common then leave that to you own dc. But your dh might not appreciate that.

You can of course only leave your ‘share’ of the house to your children if you own as tenants in common. As you are joint tenants you both own 100%. If you die the house passes to your husband and does not form part of your estate. The same rule applies to joint bank and savings accounts and anything else owned in joint names.

Yes in your situation a will would protect your future assets and anything owned in your sole name. Jewellery? Your own savings?

A will could also specify a guardian to look after your DC should both you and DH die.

I think you definitely need a will. I think your circumstances are quite complicated.

If you die and your husband remarries, and then dies, his wife could inherit all of his assets meaning your share for your joint child gets watered down. But a solicitor will put all of those 'what ifs' to you.

@CayrolBaaaskin

You can sever the joint tenancy so you have a tenancy in common then leave that to you own dc. But your dh might not appreciate that.

I'm guessing we'd both need to agree anyway? I don't see why he wouldn't though.

@WillConfusion

I thought if we were joint tenants though that we didn't really have his share and my share and it just meant the other gets the house on the others death.

I think we'd probably be better off as tenants in common thinking about it now. I'd prefer to have a "share" to leave to my DC solely really.

This is estate planning. That's what you'd be talking to the solicitor about when you made your will.

You don't need the other party to agree to severing a joint tenancy - see the link I posted above.

Thank you for the link 😊

How old is your DC? I have a will specifically so if anything happened to me or my husband there would be specific instructions as to who would become guardians of our 3 children. If nothing is I'm place there could be a potentially custody battle between family members etc

You need a will, and you will need to review it on any major life events (more children/divorce/remarriage/inheritance received etc).

Three reasons off the top of my head:

• Catastrophe scenario whereby you both die in an accident. IIRC it's complicated. If you died and then he died shortly after, the money would go to whoever he has named in his will, if he has one. If you were both discovered dead and they couldn't figure it out, I think they assume the youngest died last, and so if he was younger than you, again your assets would pass to him and then to whoever he's left his estate to - which might not be your kids.

• Guardianship - you need to appoint guardians for your children, incase of disaster, and trustees to look after the financial side (i.e. make sure the inheritance / insurance pay outs are used appropriately for the children).

• If you did and then your husband later remarries, he could be persuaded to leave all your/his money to his wife/her own kids/their joint kids and cut your kids out.

I think we'd probably be better off as tenants in common thinking about it now. I'd prefer to have a "share" to leave to my DC solely really.

Think about what you want your estate to achieve.

If I went under a bus tomorrow, I'd be leaving DH as the sole parent of two very small children, so I would want him to have complete financial freedom to raise them as he sees fit. So every penny would go to him and if the DC ultimately didn't get a penny directly in their bank accounts but had had a happy and financially secure upbringing, then the money would have done its job.

However, in say 20 years time, I may well feel different and feel that some of the money would be better going straight to DC who would be setting up in life rather than DH who would be secure and through the heavist child rearing years.

Make your will to suit your circumstances now, and update it as your life develops.

Having acted as executor for a few people now, I can say that making a will is the one kindness you can do for the people who come after you, especially whoever sorts out your estate.

Everything, but everything, is much simpler when there is a will.

We did ours through @mumblechum of MN, www.marlowwills.co.uk/ And initial conversation by phone about what we might want to do, with help to work out the implications, then we saw the draft and talked through it again, to make sure we did both understand. All sorted.

Do POA while you are at it, you can easily DIY www.gov.uk/power-of-attorney so long as you have someone (non family) who can vouch for you, a friend or neighbour

I would not pay the inheritance you are expecting into a joint account. Get it paid somewhere else (not hard to open another account) and then you can transfer all or part to your dc straight away.

@FinallyHere

Having acted as executor for a few people now, I can say that making a will is the one kindness you can do for the people who come after you, especially whoever sorts out your estate.

Everything, but everything, is much simpler when there is a will.

We did ours through @mumblechum of MN, www.marlowwills.co.uk/ And initial conversation by phone about what we might want to do, with help to work out the implications, then we saw the draft and talked through it again, to make sure we did both understand. All sorted.

Do POA while you are at it, you can easily DIY www.gov.uk/power-of-attorney so long as you have someone (non family) who can vouch for you, a friend or neighbour

I also used mumblechum and would recommend.

I think that with tenants in common, the other person has a right to stay in the house but if they want to sell they have to get permission from the other "owner/s". For example, my parents were tenants in common, and after my dad passed away, my brother and I legally own a quarter of the house each but mum is allowed to still live there, but if she sells, she needs to get our permission.

Also used mumblechum-hoping we won’t die but wouldn’t want bil to get the children and she worked with us to achieve this (it was difficult for dh but if it happens we won’t be here anyway to witness the fall out).