Marriage law is outdated given the increase in second/third marriages

[Itsmyaccount]

I'm really interested to get people's thoughts on this as a friend has recently been through a very difficult situation with her dad and his decision over his will and it's got me thinking.

Her dad remarried when he was in his early sixties after having been married to her mum for 3 decades. Work wise he's a very successful man and as with any high flyer quite a lot of sacrifice had to be made by her mum and by extension my friend to facilitate him being able to build that career. Things like moving abroad when work dictated, limits on the amount of time he was around when she was growing up when the hard graft had to go in, all for the long term intention that the hard sacrifice would pay off in the end for the family. Sadly the pressures from it contributed to the eventual divorce.

That then leads me onto the current situation. As said above he went onto re-marry shortly after the divorce. Her step-mum has kids of her own but all kids on either side were young adults when they married. They were in very different situations financially and at the time he had made sure my friend knew that his will would be such that his wife would be looked after if he pre-deceased her but that the lions share would be protected for her (his daughter).

Her dad has continued on with his financial success, a few years ago even came into a large sum of money when he sold a company he started when my friend was younger. That triggered him to re-visit his will and he has since decided that his current wife is entitled to 50% of everything due to the length of marriage (of which the law agrees), he briefly had it that his wife would inherit everything trusting that she would divide it equally between her kids and my friend when she then passed (assuming he predeceases her as he's older). This has caused a great deal of upset. My friend isn't close with her step-family and is finding the idea very hard that they are effectively profiting off of something they've not themselves made a sacrifice for as by the time they married kids were already grown up and the hard foundational work requiring the big sacrifice had long since passed.

This brings me onto the thread title. I've tried to put myself in her shoes and honestly I think I'd feel exactly the same way even though the sums in my case would be much smaller.
It feels to me that the laws on marriage and inheritance were written at a time when second, third (fourth even!) marriages were so uncommon it didn't need to account for how you can legally protect assets for your children (or whoever) without having to do a serious amount of mental gymnastics to achieve it. I do actually know of another friend whose dad thinks it's so important to protect his finances for his kids he refuses to even live with his long term partner, let alone marry her. That to me seems sad that actually should he want to marry her (which who knows maybe he doesn't want to), he is choosing to not as the complication it would cause for him and his kids inheritance is so great.

YABU - yes the law is fine as it is
YANBU - things have changed a lot and law needs modernising to better protect everyone given blended families are on the rise, not just your spouse

It was always like that if you didn't set your will up well and make savvy choices! Look at the plot of Sense & Sensibility where the second wife and kids are left with nothing due to poor estate planning

I disagree with doing away with the spousal allowance. You’re worried that your children might have to sell the house if they inherit it, but it would be far worse if a surviving, potentially elderly, spouse had to sell the home they live in to pay IHT.

I'm saying review and improve things so that people aren't so restricted in how they write a will

I don’t know where you live, but in England people aren’t restricted at all in how they write a will (other than needing to make provision for someone who is financially dependent on them, but even that isn’t a legal requirement, it’s just that the will could be challenged if they don’t)

The answer is to earn your own money & not rely on anyone else !

Not everyone marries

Not everyone has children

People are aware of existing laws

The divorce laws ensure that estates are generally split fairly. A woman divorces a man, she gets half of the shared assets. Then they go their separate ways. It is then up to each parent, how they spend their money and whether they leave all/any to their shared children.

If they go on to have more children, it is perfectly possible to make a will that leaves their estate split however they wish.

So if anyone is disinherited, it is the choice of (or at least the neglect of) that parent, rather than a failure of inheritance law.

No, people are free to write their wills how they please. The law shouldn’t override this.

Your friend seems to see her inheritance as recompense for her mum and dad splitting up years ago. That’s not really what it is.

It's quite straightforward really. I just decided what I wanted and put it in the will. I'm in a similar situation as I live with DP but not married. We don't share any children and the house is mine. I've done it so if I die before him, the house is put in trust for my DC but he can remain living there until he dies, wants to move out or wants to cohabit with someone else. If he does any of these, the house goes to my DC.
This way, it's fair and everyone gets what we feel belongs to them.

I think that some people are very effective at rewriting the past - they never really loved their first spouse(s), they didn't really want children, had them as spouse(s) wanted them, it was expected etc.

So very easy for them to walk away from the past, and any guilt about children from first marriage(s)

I think it is very unfair when this happens, but not sure how to fix it - requiring parents to leave a minimum amount to adult children doesn't take account of cases where the relationship has broken down.

There have always been subsequent spouses, it's not a new thing. It used to happen because of death, not divorce.

People live longer now so maybe we have more chance to have multiple spouses. But is is common for people to keep what they bring to a subsequent, later-in-life marriage and pass it on to their adult children upon death.

By ‘today’s modern society’ do you mean one whereby adult children think they have the right to inherit everything their parents worked for?

DH and I are a second marriage for both of us. He came into the marriage with enough for his share of a deposit on our marital home, but he was otherwise skint. He’d given up 75% in his previous divorce for a clean break, and was paying school fees and CS for his DCs which left him very little left and he lived with his parents.

When we moved in together after a couple of years, I was paying all the bills, food everything, including holidays/trips out and Christmas/birthday presents for his DCs. That continued for years.

Eventually we set up a business together that made us a lot of money, and have been married almost 20 years - as long as his first marriage.

Yet people still assume that I brought nothing to the marriage, and I’m somehow less worthy because I’m a woman. I’m sure that his DCs would feel more entitled to our house than I am, if anything happened to DH.

I'm not finding the odea that your friend is entitled becuase of the sacrifices she suffered as a child particularly palatable and if DW has been in his life a long time isles right that she gets her share. Presumably, if OP's mum's support for his business was a reason for his successes, so is his current wife's.

I'm widowed and will never remarry to protect my assets for DC, but if I were to be married for a long period of time, I think I'd see making sure my partner was well looked after was more important than adult DC, who (hopefully) I've raised to earn their own money.

It sounds like it got resolved in the end so it's now split 50/50.

So the new wife has 50% and the daughter has 50%.

I think it's perfectly fair that new wife has 50%, like you say they have been married a long time.

My DF had a new partner and after many years together they got married. There is a will where the house is in a trust between (partner, me, DB), so we (DCs) couldn't make the new partner homeless if DF passes first, not that we would think of doing that.

Can see how the partner wanted peace of mind (DF would have carried on unmarried I think as parents marriage was quite traumatic in the end!). Am happy as think it was worrying her and DF is happy too. I think a trust is the way forward with these things as takes out any uncertainty.

I guess this is just personal perspective, she herself didn't facilitate it, that was her mum and I don't know the details of the divorce settlement so can't comment. I do think where kids might not be the facilitator of something for their parents it doesn't take away that they may have to sacrifice. In her case her dad was hardly there so he could pursue the career that largely led to the breakdown of her parents marriage so I can understand why it's an emotionally charged thing.

She will have already received the compensation for that though, in having a wealthy upbringing. That’s the pay off. No one is entitled to a continued payoff in their adult life for having had an absent parent.

Yabu

What is needed is better understanding and education of what marriage is and what it means. Equating marriage with being a way to declare love is what causes people to enter marriage contracts without fully understanding the consequences of the contract. Changing the contract is not the solution to that.

YABU. It's up to individuals to protect their families interests, not the state.

It's a difficult one. I think you should be able to do whatever you want with your money. I also think that you need to have these conversations with your partner about it, especially if you plan to have children. It's weird that we put more thought into basically every aspect of our lives except when it comes to being in a relationship with someone and having children with them

I'm not even sure what her issue is given its still 50% if I've understood correctly and it sounds like a substantial amount of money. Of course the father is likely to change his mind the longer he's with his nee wife as the relevance develops. That's seems fairly obvious

This. I don’t know about Scotland, but in some countries, a certain percentage of the estate is due by law to the deceased’s children, although it is possible to grant the surviving spouse a life interest.

To me this seems both straightforward and fair.

I don’t agree. You should be able to exclude children if you wish.

what is one is a career criminal, or an abuser. A serial killer? Or financially abused their parents for years.

one of Dh’s children was complicit in the financial abuse of his parents. They were vile when dh got PoA and stopped it, and haven’t spoken to him since. He absolutely does not think they should get any more money. It would devastate him to think his money may be given to them against his will when they’ve already had thousands.

sometimes there is a valid reason for cutting children out of a will, and you should not be forced to leave them anything.

Exact same situation here

Please ignore this, I can't even remember which person I was quoting before my pad had a glitch itch!

I kind of agree in practical terms: second, third, fourth marriages are daft, but anyone who expects to inherit money is an idiot. Inheritance is a privilege not a right.

I think anyone who gets married again after a divorce needs their head examined. There's no value whatsoever, it's all downside.

I disagree that getting married after divorce is always detrimental.

if you leave a marriage with little financially, and find someone to marry with property and assets, then it will most definitely benefit you.

it doesn’t matter whether it’s first, second, or 20th marriage. If you are the weaker party financially you will benefit from marriage.

He's chosen to treat his wife and his daughter equally. He's made provision for your friend when he needn't have done, but it was wise to do this as your friend has no right to inherit from her dad's second wife. I think no one should expect an inheritance. I'd rather my parents had a comfortable life doing what they wanted to. If they choose to spend all their money then that's fine.

Making it illegal to disinherit your children is not the panacea you may think it is. No doubt your friend had a comfortable upbringing with a wealthy father? She didn't contribute herself therefore why should she inherit more than 50% of her father's estate?

@Mustbethat

if you leave a marriage with little financially, and find someone to marry with property and assets, then it will most definitely benefit you.
it doesn’t matter whether it’s first, second, or 20th marriage. If you are the weaker party financially you will benefit from marriage.

That's true. Marriage is basically designed to benefit the weaker party in a marriage so if you've been left without much in your first marriage it could be worth it.

I guess I'm thinking that if you've got a decent divorce settlement from a first marriage, a second marriage is probably a bad idea, particularly if you have children.