Step children and inheritance

[WineBeforeWhine]

I have two step children who were adults when I married their dad. We then had two children. My parents left me considerably more which went into the family pot while we were married. My husband died and I was left everything. I’m now having to redo my Will. My question is should all four children be treated equally or is reasonable to leave my own children a higher percentage of my estate something like 20% for the stepchildren and 30% mine? I’m struggling to get it right.

OP i would take out your inheritance from the pot, split that between your dcs, then the rest of the pot that is made up of yours and your late DHs estate is split 4 ways. There is an argument for taking your inheritance out for your dcs, splitting what’s left in two pots, viewing one yours and one your late DHs and then splitting those, DHs share between his 4 dcs and yours between your two. This would mean effectively you leave nothing to your step kids, they just get a portion of their dad’s share. But I think I would want to give some of my money to step kids as well.

There’s no right or wrong answer to this. As long as the step kids get something from their dad’s estate (assuming there’s something to inherit!) then how you split it is down to how you feel and your relationship with the step kids.

That’s exactly how I have organised it with my dcs and sdcs. My half goes to my dcs and my late dhs half is split between all his dcs.

Exactly this. Just split the inheritance equally between all the children / siblings.

Unless, of course, you want a bomb to go off after you pass away and for everyone to fall out.

I think it’s lovely that you are considering this so carefully as those children sound as though they could miss out altogether if people werent being so considerate, as their nuclear family has now split into quarters with another four siblings and new marriages.

I was actually going to suggest the same thing. If you can, you could give your step-children their inheritance now, as they are already adults. Then you leave your own children 50% each in your will.

I think it would be fine to give your stepchildren 25% each of what was left to you by your late husband and rather than leave anything additional in your will, I would help with one off costs where you can as your husband would have done.

Completely agree you are being reasonable to give your own children more - both on the grounds that some of it came via your parents into the pot, and on the basis that SC will inherit from the other parent too.

I appreciate there is nothing you can do about this now, but for anyone else reading - please ensure that these discussions are had whilst both are still alive and that the wishes can then be communicated to the children (e.g your husband could have written a letter before he passed explaining the decision made, the letter to then be given to SC after your death. There is a risk now that they could feel you've gone behind their dad's back and changed your will after he has died. Hopefully not the case, but always best to try and prevent such issues!)

Life interests in properties also cause problems later though. You might think you’ll want to stay in the house until death, but sometimes you need to move. It limits the step mother to staying in that location, when work /family might relocate. It could be the property is no longer suitable, (step parent needing a flat or bungalow, or just a house with a smaller garden) but not having the money from the sale to buy something more appropriate - rarely do life interests in property allow for it to be sold and a new property with a life interest in that be bought.

Consider distributing what DH brought into the relationship at the beginning to his older children now.

Then you have more freedom to use the remainder to pay for your own nursing home etc.

Keep the value of your inheritance for your children only.

What you amassed and earnt together could be split between all kids -1/8 for each SC and 3/8 for your shared children - reflecting that DH had four children and you had two.

It's a bit simpler for me because we have one "ours" baby and one of his.

We have discussed this and decided that the fairest way to split inheritance will be 2/3 to my daughter and 1/3 to my stepdaughter.

However, my parents have floated the possibility of paying off our mortgage, in which case we would consider the house separately and leave that to our daughter, with the remainder of our estate being split as above.

We would be looking at this completely differently if it wasn't for the fact that SD stands to inherit a lot from her Mum and Grandmother, and already being likely to inherit at least half of a property worth about 3x the value of ours.

Why should step-kids get equal shares of OP’s parents estate? Thar’s ridiculous.

What a terrible father to leave his children nothing and rely on you to do it. He should have had provision on his will and yours should have had it too on how they should receive their money. Yes of course you need to live but the proportions of how all the money should be split on your death should have been laid out.

If it's what your DH wanted, then that is what you should do, and explain why in the will or in a letter. It's simple, and easy to justify - the remaining assets of each partner of your marriage will be split equally between that partner's surviving offspring. Trying to do anything else based on multiple factors (inheritances, the financial history of the marriage, expectations from other relatives) is too difficult and bound to create an opportunity for someone to feel aggrieved if they're that way inclined.

I also strongly believe that saying they’ll inherit from the other parent is utterly irrelevant, that’s nothing to do with you.

I'm in almost exactly the same situation in terms of adult step children and this is what we've done too.

My step children have their Mum to inherit from.

At the end of the day though, it's your money now to do what you like with.

Only in so far as the inheritance the DSC should get from their dad.

OP is allowed to take their other potential inheritance in consideration to decide if they should get anything extra from her own estate.

Whether or not they’ll inherit from their other parent is irrelevant. Not your business, and not your problem.

It isn’t ‘unfair’ that your DH left his estate to precisely whom he wanted to leave it to. His older children haven’t been denied anything they were entitled to.

Remove your half of the joint assets, and your inheritance, to ring fence for your own children. What is left divide by the number of children your DH had.

MN always acts like every household is really an aristocratic household with a presumed entail keeping the property in the hands of the family and excluding in married women. Instinctively they act like joint marital property should be understood as “.really” belonging to the male line or at a pinch staying in separate female and male lines.

You can do a letter of wishes alongside the will only to be opened in the event that the will is contested, which would explain your rationale but only if someone was unhappy enough to go to court. That’s what I’ve done; I’ve left my estate to a friend’s child rather than DB or his child and if DB wants to challenge it then he’ll know what my rationale was; if he respects my wishes there’ll be no need and the letter will stay unread.

Agreed.

We don't know if the children will inherit their mother. If her will is similar to your husbands then if she goes first her husband might want to leave everything to his children. I would not use potential inheritance from mom as a baseline for anything. I do think husband did a very risky move and I would not encourage anyone with kids from different relationships to just trust their partner. It is great that you op are leaving something to your step children. I know too many people who won't.

But yeah, it is fair that step children get less cause husband had 4 children and you have 2. So "your share" should be divided by 2 and "his share" in 4.

Yes but when you and he bought the house together did you each contribute equally to the deposit and repayments?

I put in more as I had a flat to sell.

My FIL is leaving everything to his second wife. She is younger and healthier so itnis expected that she will outlive him. She doesn't have children so she will be giving everything to her nieces/nephews. While I don't necessarily agree with this decision, I at least appreciate that he has been open about it.

I'd subtract your parent's inheritance first, and leave that only to your children.

Then, for you and your partners wealth, I would divid that in half.
Your partners portion is divided 4 ways between all his kids.
Your portion is divided just between your 2.

I think that's the fair way.

The step kids presumably might inherit from their mother and maternal grandparents. Your children will inherit nothing from step children's mother, right.

This is the way things currently stand with us. Although I do think DP needs to make arrangements to leave them something.

his kids DMs got huge amounts of money and property when they divorced and it’s important that he doesn’t leave ruinous amounts but they will expect something.

they will inherit a trust fund once I’m gone too.