Worried my Sons will be left with nothing

[JaffaCake70]

My Husband and I are both early 50s and have been married just over a year (together 3 years in October).

Before we met I had been renting private accommodation. When we married I moved into my Husband's house which he had been paying the mortgage on for around 5 years, he had also paid a large deposit when he moved into the property as he had sold a previous property. We now both contribute to the mortgage and all other household expenses. We re-mortgaged to the tune of £10,000 to pay for our wedding and honeymoon.

We haven't really had any serious conversations about finances apart from the agreement of how much I would pay into the home but now I'm starting to worry. I know I need to speak to my Husband about the things I'm about to discuss with you, but I just wanted to see if anyone can advise me where I stand legally before I have the conversation.

My Husband has an adult Son and Daughter, his Daughter lives with us, I have 2 adult Sons, neither of whom live with us.

We both have decent pensions, if anything should happen to him before he cashes his, I would receive it and vice versa (he would receive mine). This has all been put into place.

He has told me that if he should die before me, the proceeds of the house are being split 3 ways between me, his Son and his Daughter.

My worry is: What is being left to my Sons should I die first?

This is really playing on my mind because the way it looks to me on paper is that they wouldn't get anything.

Is there anything I can do to change this? Can I split my pension 3 ways so that my Sons get a 3rd each?

What will happen to my 3rd of the house if I were to die first? I am now paying into the house, surely my Sons should be entitled to something in the event of my death? How does it work though? For example, if I were to die in 10 years time (God forbid) but my Husband then went on to live for another 20 years, maybe even marries again, what happens to my 3rd of the property?

I'm really worried that I've put my Sons in the position of not receiving anything at all if I were to die before my Husband. I don't have any savings to bequeath to them, the only money I have of my own is my pension.

Do I have any legal standing in stating that I want my 3rd of the property to be divided between my Sons in the event of my death. I still feel it's a little unfair that my Sons would be receiving less than my Husband's children (as in his children would still receive a 3rd each, my Sons would have to share my 3rd).

I'm stressing myself out with all of this, I know I need to speak to my Husband but don't want to come across as money grabbing as I'm really not. I just want to know that my Sons will be provided for financially in the event of my death.

YABU - Your Sons should not be entitled to anything from the house

YANBU - You work just as hard as your Husband and are now paying an equal amount into the home therefore your Sons definitely are entitled to a percentage of the house.

But more than YA/YANBU opinions, please can anyone advise as to what I should do/say in this situation?

Mari9999

Had she said to her husband " when I marry you, I will expect any payment that I make towards my share of the food, you utilities, and household amenities (i.e. cable, car insurance, etc ) to be assumed to be me contributing towards your mortgage and an ownership interest in your existing property that will be entailed to my children. " It is quite likely that the husband would perhaps not have entered into a marriage if he had been aware of her expectation. Marriage should not be your plan for means of ownership or asset acquisition

What do you think marriage means?
The Dh’s house became a marital asset the moment he got married and whilst, if they divorce now there would be very little he would owe her, with every year they are married that amount grows, whether she has paid towards it or not.

If she is not entitled to anything then marriage isn’t worth the paper it is written on.

@Yalta
Sadly, for some, marriage is a strategy for acquiring those things that they never bothered to prepare themselves to acquire through education, training ,hard work and their own efforts.

That's my thought too. It would be better to put a certain amount into a mutual fund every month, as a direct deposit. Put your son's as heirs to that mutual fund. Life insurance is just so easy to miss a payment, or if you get sick. A mutual fund doesn't cancel on you.

The only thing I can think of, with the mortgage, that needs to be cleared up is this: If you have 20 years left on the mortgage and your DH passes away in five years and you can stay in the home until you pass, you will be paying the mortgage payments until it is paid off. At that point, it would be very unfair for the only heirs being his children. You need legal advice as much depends on what is outstanding on the mortgage and how many years until it is paid off.
There are equitable solutions but they are best laid out by a lawyer (solicitor).

That doesn't matter! She IS contributing to the mortgage, so she does have a vested interest in what happens to it. Every year that vested interst goes up. If the husband wants just his children to have the house, then HE needs to pay the full mortgage costs and exactly one half of all other expenses. The half the OP pays is her rent, since she is paying towards utilities and such, some which are usually included in rent. Then OP should put what she would contribute to the mortgage in a mutual fund and have just her sons as the beneficiaries. That way, each has something to leave their children. It most certainly isn't fair, if DH were to die in 5 years, that OP has to continue to pay the mortgage so that HIS kids get more. That is just silly and quite frankly, dumb.

Somehow, I am doubting that there are any women out there crying in their tea over you. I bet if some rich woman caught your eye and fell for you and she had a big house, you'd be all for moving in with her and wanting her assets when if she died. In fact, I won't bet because I know I am right. Luckily, that won't happen.

I really have never heard of adult children being able to inherit a pension. It's a spousal privilege and not something that is "passed down".

The OP REALLY need to see what is going on with the financials in her family. She has a right to know the mortgage balance, the payment amount and needs to be putting her money NOT into her DH's account but into the mortgage provider's hands. If her DH will not sit down with her than she needs to re-evaluate what she is putting in towards the mortgage. She could put money every month into a mutual fund and have her sons as beneficiaries. Then they WOULD have something when she dies, as long as she doesn't have to use the money for a nursing home or home nursing. I don't know if there would be a way to protect that from being seized or not.

Yes, because THAT would be fair. Said no one ever. You are actually suggesting that OP use HER money on vanishing returns for her DH and her while he uses HIS money to further his children's inheritance.

Sometimes I just can't.....

I hope you get it worked out because, you are right. There is much more to owning a house than just the mortgage. There is upkeep, maintenance, updating, renovations, repairs.

A PP gave the fairest compromise. What the house is valued at now, minus what has been paid on the mortgage and the deposit should be the starting point. If the house is valued at 300K now and the mortgage paid and deposit equal $150K, that is the starting point. That 150K get ring-fenced for his children and depending on the % each pays, they either both get on the deed/mortgage or he makes sure to give her joint tenancy. The only sticking point to that would be; if he were to die while there is still an outstanding mortgage, all the payments fall to her. But then, it was his house, so frankly, it wouldn't bother me. Then, after the last parent dies, the house gets split. So, if the house is now worth 400K, the first 150K is for his children. The remaining 250K gets either divided equally or in the % that each parent paid unto it.

Of course, this will be all moot if a nursing home or home nursing is needed, unless there are ways around it.

I know you are enjoying being nasty and goady but listen. According to YOUR rules, the house is ALL the stepmother's since she bought it PRIOR to the PP's father marrying her. So, sorry to disappoint you but according to YOU, the father gets NOTHING and his stepmother gets to give it all to her DD. OMG, a WOMAN owned the house first. Try not to let your blood pressure go too nuts.

Or are you going to change course midstream because it's a "man" who might get screwed out of leaving something to his children because SHE put the deposit down on the house? 😅🤔😂😲

I cannot fathom how miserable someone's life must be when they don't even read the posts but because it is a "woman" they get lambasted. Ugly and nasty.....😬😖🙀

Wow! I just checked and in the UK, you can leave your pension to your children or anyone you wish. It might even be tax-free, depending on the age at which you died.
There are some pensions in the US that can be "left" to your children, but you receive a lot less per month. If you don't designate any children, your pension stops either with your death or in some cases, after the remaining spouse dies. Social Security is a different ball of yarn.

Actually, as I have learned. She could probably leave her pension to her children and would have, if she hadn't married. Now her DH expects it all to go to him, which, depending on when she died, could be tax-free and a decent amount if she has worked all her life. So, that has removed the one thing she DID have to leave to her sons. If her DH doesn't want her to have any part of the house to leave to her children, then she needs to put only them to inherit her pension. She also needs to then not pay any of the mortgage, taxes, repairs, improvements, maintenance costs etc. If she cooks DH's food, does his laundry and cleans the house, that her "rent". She can take what she was paying to him towards his mortgage (so he says) and put it into a mutual fund or money market account or something for her children and see how she can protect that from seizure in case she has to go into care. That way he can have his precious house, though she should still have joint tenancy, to leave to his children after the last one standing dies and she'll have something for her children.
There are other things they could do to make it "fair" but too many posters are precious, so I will abstain.
Can you leave your pension to your child? - Pension Access

There is a poster in this thread whose father lives with his stepmother and the stepmother owned the house before they got together. I haven't seen anyone telling him that his father is not entitled to any part or parcel of that house.

I think it would be different if the OP's DH owned the house outright. But, it seems it still has a mortgage that won't be paid off for many years. That changes the equation and needs to be settled to be fair to both parties.

It also seems as if HE has expectations as he has told her that if she dies first, he gets her pension and vice versa. That should be her choice, not his. He is also getting someone who will cook, do laundry and clean, much like his last "partner" did for 10 years. Maybe that "partner" wised up to the diminishing returns of a relationship with him? hhhmmmm.....

@Nanaof1 the key question in whether a pension can be inherited is "who is bearing the risk in the event that the person receiving the pension lives to be 110."

With old-fashioned defined-benefit schemes the pension provider took that risk - the scheme offers a set income until death and thise ones will generally have a term that gives half that income to a surviving widow/er after death but that can't be assigned to a surviving child instead if there's no widow/er.

Modern pensions are basically a tax free savings account and are a big, defined pot of money where all the risk is borne by the pensioner. If you don't buy an annuity then your pension fund is no different from any other capital sum you've saved so of course you can leave it to whoever you chose. The only difference between a pension and other saavings is that money in a pension pot hasn't been taxed yet so you pay income tax on it at the point of withdrawal. But if you withdraw from it at a rate that assumes you'll be dead by 80 and then you live another 25 years to 105 the pension pot simply runs out. And if you die before the pot runs out then yes you can leave the leftover money to whoever you like but that doesn't mean they get an income for life at the same level - the money will still run out once it is spent.

If you use your pension pot to buy an annuity (guaranteed income for life) then that can be single life (just your own lifetime) or joint life (for the duration of the life second person to die in a specific couple) and the rate of income you get is calculated based on the age and health of the specified named people. You could theoretically buy a joint life annuity with the second named person being your child but the income rate would be tiny!

I’m a woman who worked to achieve degrees and work in STEM. I’m sorry you find this in 2023 hard to believe. I thought the SAHM status has shafted clearly not. Also, you clearly have low expectations of yourself hence wanting someone else’s asset.

Nanaof1

Why do you think someone's life must be miserable because they don't read a post correctly?

Thank you! That is very interesting. I hope most people do an annuity so they don't outlive their pensions.
The annuity sounds a lot like many pensions on this side of the pond. Our is last person standing, though if I died first, DH would get a nice little increase in it. We also could have named a child/children as a third/fourth beneficiary but like you said, the pension amount would have been so small that one couldn't live on it.

Oh, it isn't because of one post. Not even the slightest. LOL!

I think inheritance from the house is probably a big ask at this stage.

I'd leave my pension in your kids if I were you or take out life insurance

In this case marriage is a strategy for a man to acquire a wife/housekeeper who also works and pays to the mortgage.

Men don’t marry from the goodness of their heart, they do it for sex, , housework, companionship, children, sharing costs etc.

Up until 2015 there was a regulation that anyone with a "savings pot" type pension was required to buy an annuity when they retire. However, because of low interest rates and increasing life expectancy the annuity incomes that you could buy were getting really low. The removal of the regulation meant that people could either just live off the money or use a different investment tool to provide an ongoing income but it also means that people who are less financially savvy are ripe for exploitation by those who want to convince them to sink their pension funds into something worthless.

YAB unwise to take for granted that because your dh has said he put you on the mortgage, that he actually has, please ask to see it because if he had, you would have had to sign something and probably provide proof of salary. Did you ?

@Jaemoon
In this case the man seems to have reached a somewhat advanced age, acquired a mortgage, lived in a home maintained to his standards however high or low, and eaten regularly enough to be healthy enough to continue working, what is there to suggest that he would need to marry in order to continue doing any of those things? In this day and age ,few men or women need to marry for sex. We as a society have long moved past that stage.

I wonder then what people will make of my situation.. I was a single mum to ds 6 and dd 9 when I met dh. He raised them as his own as their dad wasn't interested. I had very little equity to offer and wasn't working due to a disability. Dh's business was in a bad place at the time and he wasn't earning much but had a few assets.

He became successful after we married and now has substantial assets. At dh's insistence our estate is split equally between my two and his 3 (similar ages)

Is this unfair? I can imagine most of you will say yes as he earned almost all of all we have.

Sorry didn't meant to be this long and probably should've started my own thread.

Ibizafun
whether ‘fair’ or not when two people properly join forces they’re a team. You’ve possibly helped him out at times, whether in business or support, so I do believe you deserve a share, and if he’s thinking of your children as his too then same. Nice set up, glad you worked out, it sounds like you both compliment each other X

Is this unfair?

He can leave his money to who he wants. Like the OP’s DH.