AIBU to be hurt and offended by husband suggestion of changing will?

[honeylulu]

I wondered whether to put this in legal matters but it's really about how I feel and if I'm being unreasonable to think like this.

Background - married to husband for 25 years (together 30). We have two children together, one a young adult at uni and I've just started secondary. This is my first marriage, he had a short marriage/divorce before we met. Neither of us have any children other than the two from our marriage. When our first baby was born we made mirror wills leaving everything to each other or if predeceased by spouse then to the children of our marriage (worded like that as we knew we would likely have another). Those wills have been in place for over 20 years. If it's relevant I drafted the wills as they were quite simple (I'm a solicitor, not a probate one but know my way around the basics).

Our house is the biggest asset, owned as joint tenants and no mortgage. There is also an age gap - he is 65 and I am 51. I'm also the higher earner and a lot of the lifestyle extras we enjoy (holidays, home improvements) are possible due to my income. We've both had modest inheritances over the years and put them towards paying off mortgage so completely merged into family assets.

Recently my husband's younger brother died suddenly. Still early days but he has left H half his estate. Won't be a vast amount but maybe 150k or so. H dealing with probate solicitors and remarked last week that we ought to get our wills updated (I don't disagree with that as some of the details are now out of date). The shock bit was that he said he is thinking of changing things so that I am only left a life interest in his assets so that they remain untouched for our kids to inherit when I die. Obviously that only applies to cash assets and chattels though he seemed to think it also applied to "his share" of the house (I reminded him that as joint tenants we dont have shares).

I am sensitive to the fact that he is shocked and grieving so we haven't talked about it properly. I did express some surprise and ask for the reason and he said it would be to keep his money safe for the kids in case I got remarried or conned by someone or it all went on care home fees. I have said fairly lightheartedly that I was quite offended as I also have our kids' best interests at heart and there is no way I would remarry etc for those very reasons. Being a lawyer, I'm extremely practical and risk averse.

I did ask why this change now, as it would have made more sense to insist on such a provision when we made the first wills in my early 30s, when it would have been a more realistic possibility that if I was widowed young that i could have remarried/had more children with someone else. He didn't explain further but I think the change is the inheritance he will now receive. I also suspect (which is why I have not pressed it further) that it has been prompted by his grief and sense/fear of his own mortality.

Why is it bothering me so much? It's not the money itself, it's the feeling that he doesn't trust me to do the best for our children. And our marriage vows - all that I have I share with you. It also feels a bit of a slap in the face that all the time I've had more income/savings I've been happy to share the benefits with the whole family but now he's getting a chunk of money he wants to keep it safe from me.

I'm not even sure it would be the best thing because if (assuming i do survive him) if I wanted to give the kids a house deposit or wedding gift I can only do that from my own funds. I couldn't give them anything "from dad" because his money would be locked up until I died.

So, am I right to feel hurt?
Or is he just being practical and sensible (and I should cut him some slack while he's shocked and grieving) considering I won't be left "poor" anyway? To be fair he's also suggested I should do the same in my will which would leave him worse off if I die first.

Sorry it is long. I didn't want to leave out/drip feed anything. There is probably more detail if needed but those are the main points I think.

Agree with above - if you don’t need the inheritance, a Deed of variation and give it to your kids now. Invested well it could be a healthy house deposit for both.

Otherwise, I think he’s right to think about what would happen if one of you died. One of my distant relatives had the happiest of 40 plus year marriages, his wife died suddenly, he was remarried within the year! He then died a few years on and his kids got not a penny…it can and does happen.
Go and see a colleague who does specialise in wills OP.

As a starter, this. Why not have the brother’s inheritance money go straight to the children now? My MIL did this when her brother passed.

I've heard too many stories of sideways inheritance to dismiss someone's desire to prevent it

I wouldn't take it too personally. But check the IHT position too

While I think there is some sense in having his DB money put aside for his kids, what PP seem to be ignoring is that couples usually save for retirement together. DH and I are building a pot that will fund our joint retirement, but would probably not fund two separate retirements. And we are quite relaxed about what name we save in for tax efficiency/maximum returns.

If he died and I couldn’t touch the capital he had saved as it was put aside for the children, my ability to fund myself would be significantly hampered. His Will leaves those savings to me directly as the idea is that the survivor would live off the combine savings.

I’d only be happy with OP’s DH’s suggestion if there was a significant life insurance paid out to me on his death. Otherwise, if he wanted to do this with his Will I would need to radically rethink our joint finances and change how I’m saving for my own retirement and in my own name - which would mean less money overall for us as a unit (because I’m the higher earner, pay tax on interest and utilitise both of our ISA allowances, and so not saving in his name would cost us) and, in my case, would actually likely leave DH destitute after my death (ignoring lie insurances which would actually make him a millionaire) because he has no where near the savings capacity that I do.

I think it makes sense for money to shuffle down early to children do if he lives to an average 80 years old then the dc could really benefit from a leg up onto housing ladder etc.

Rather than be offended I’d consider what would be best for dc. In my family a cousins grandmother inherited everything from her DH. Then developed dementia and ended up spending 14 years in very expensive care. I know that they felt in hindsight it’d of been better for his estate to have gone to dc with a life interest in the house.

There isn't a "share" of the house per se.

OP says she and her H own the house as joint tenants. Effectively that both means they both jointly own the whole. On the death of one of them the entire ownership of the property passes by survivorship to the remaining owner. There is no "share" that can be left in a will. If H dies first, OP automatically is the sole owner of the property, so there is little risk here.

The other way you can own a property is as tenants in common. This does mean that you own the property in divisible shares - 50:50, 25:75, three thirds, any combination really. This means you can leave the "share" in your will to a beneficiary (such as your children) and the ownership of the property does not pass automatically by survivorship.

My feeling is this is probably prompted by the solicitor dealing with it, they are trying to drum up business

Exactly this

you can’t suddenly start doing separate finances when you haven’t before

and people seeing it as a way to dodge care home fees is morally dubious. My friend had to sell her mums house to fund the care home she went into but it gave her mum choice and she is in a lovely care home close to her family

Somewhat sensible re care home fees etc however yanbu. In light of this, perhaps you'd like to change how you arrange your own finances. Bit sad too really.

This in fact.

I'm a solicitor too and our wills are set up as your husband describes and we've severed our joint tenancy to facilitate that.

It's not because we don't trust each other, but because we want to prioritise our children financially. For example, say we were both in a car crash. One dies, the other survives but has very high care needs requiring longterm residential care. The surving spouse's assets can now be used to pay for that care, which with your current setup means all the marital assets. Yes, the house is protected for these purposes, but only whilst one of your children under the age of 18 is living there. In reality would they be living there in that situation? Or living wirh friends or family? And once they are 18 it will be gone. The way we've done it means that the deceased spouse's portion is protected for the children at that point, so at least they won't be orphaned without a good inheritance.

We used a very experienced solicitor to draft it all for us, so there's flexibility around being able to move house, downsize etc and provisions for what happened if we remarry etc.

I don't see it as any judgement on either of us, it's purely a mechanism for maximising what the children get in that situation.

You are being unreasonable. There is no end of trouble that dementia can cause. I don't agree with not paying care home fees but I do agree with a partner with dementia not giving everything away to a cats home or a charming scammer.

You do need to agree exactly what cash you would have available to spend if he dies before you.

IMHO people should leave their own money to whomsoever they like, including their children.

But, if they care about their DP, they should also make sure they’re as secure as possible when they die. For example, if it means they could be forced to leave their home (e.g. because the children want to sell their half or because they can’t afford the costs of remaining).

Losing a sibling (at any age) is an awful bereavement. Suggest he takes time to process it before changing his will. And he equally weighs up both yours and the children’s security/best interests when he dies.

However, the comments about you potentially being conned by a new DP (or putting yours or a new DP’s interests ahead of your children’s security/best interests), are incredibly patronising and disrespectful. Sounds like he doesn’t trust your judgement.

he’s grieving and will have been talking to people and this subject will have arisen.

there are many stories on here about a surviving parent remarrying and the kids losing out as the new partner leaves the money on their own death to their own kids.

take advice but in the meantime id leave the brothers will to the kids for when they are older if there is a way to do that.

with you being a higher earner i imagine that will open doors to all sorts of beneficial planning by the informed tax and will specialists to ensure money gets best dealt with for your family. take advantage of that.

Give it time and then discuss how he wants to deal with the money for the kids going forward, and what the full ramifications are for both of you.

You're not being unreasonable to be annoyed but inflating that to "hurt and offended" is a bit extreme. As a default strategy it's not massively unreasonable to choose to own the marital home as Tenants In Common and to leave the property to the children with a Life Interest to the surviving partner, and if your DH is getting himself clued up on why one might do this in the context of understanding his brother's Will he will have seen journalist articles recommending it. The annoyance is that none of those articles are written for a target audience of men who are married to someone as knowledgeable and capable as you, and he absorbed their advice without thinking "but xyz is less of a risk in our case because @honeylulu is knowledgeable and capable and is not going to do anything that accidentally disinherits our children"

There's often a mistaken base assumption to these articles - that anyone approaching their 90s would prefer to have arranged their finances to impoverish themselves as quickly as possible in order to be able to 100% rely on State care for their final years, so getting half the marital assets passed down to the next generation as soon as the first spouse dies facilitates that. However, it's equally reasonable to believe that the lifetime of marital assets should be entirely legitimately available to ensure safe and comfortable care in ones final years and if that means more than half the assets get spent then so be it - the legacy that goes down to the next generation being the amount that wasn't needed by you & DH.

Rather than changing your Wills, I would suggest that DH applies for a "Deed of Variation" on his Brother's Will to redirect the share that has been left to him to instead be directed to your children, hed in trust by him until they reach age 25 or whatever. That will do your children way more benefit than the arrangement he is suggesting.

My DH's parents did set up the arrangement that your DH is suggesting and it's a very mixed blessing now that he is a 25% co-owner of the property that widowed MIL is living in, and it would be much better all round if she was just in full control of her assets. It's not like we want to hurry up the day when she's considered too poor to support herself.

There is a difference though between "dodging" care home fees when elderly with adult children, and protecting against the risk that your minor children end up orphaned and penniless because one parent is dead and the other is in a care home.

I think you're over-thinking this. I agree with your husband. A trust protects half of the estate when one of you dies. None of us knows what illnesses/accidents may befall us, what care we may need or when. I've seen relatively young people (forties, fifties, sixties) ending up in care homes and their savings are swallowed up by fees. Giving DCs large sums of money and then finding yourself needing care can become problematic.
Try to put your emotions aside, pop your solicitor head on and think about what advice you'd give a client in your situation.

He's being very sensible. Protecting the assets from care home costs is a winning idea from your childrens point of view.

Usually pensions fall outside of the will and therefore aren't impacted by this structure, as usually on death the sum is held on trust and then paid straight to the relevant beneficiary outside of the estate. So people should check their individual arrangements to understand how it impacts them. Obviously ISAs are different.

I suspect he’s catastrophising in the face of shock. “What if I’d died” “what if I died and was forgotten and honeylulu moved on and married someone else” “what if I died and my children were unprotected … because honeylulu had squandered all the money on something or someone”.

Maybe it’s worth considering a sensible happy medium - a way to make sure the children benefit but ensure whichever of you survives to old age has a comfortable independence. I’d be considering giving the kids his inheritance right now if you don’t have another pressing need for it, but there must be loads of other options.

would he be happy with you also taking your share of extra higher income that you contributed and will contribute into a separate pot but with a similar arrangement for the children?

I've only read the first post, but what he is asking for is sensible planning. When one of you dies the other could remarry and die before making a new will, or the assets could all go on care home fees. If you each leave the other a life interest in major assets, you can guarantee that, if you die first, those assets will ultimately go to your children regardless of anything that happens. This isn't about trusting you. If the wills stay as they are, you cannot absolutely guarantee that nothing will happen after he dies that will prevent your children from inheriting. He wants to make certain that they inherit something.

He is likely feeling his mortality and thinking that if you were widowed in your 50s you might marry again. This is ridiculous. Firstly, he may well live another 20+ years, by which time you will be on your 70s. Secondly, you are sufficiently savvy to prioritise your own children over some new man. Thirdly, you need security in your old age. Fourthly, you are the major contributor so far, so all this inheritance does is even things up. If he wants to go down a route of taking what’s rightfully his, it will lead him to a sad and lonely place. With all of the above in mind, a combination of reassurance about his longevity and your commitment to your kids is needed, combined with a form telling off for revealing such awful doubts in you and for treating you like a second class ticket holder in the family, which you have always treated him as a first class ticket holder.

I don't think he's being unreasonable although I also understand why you feel like you do. I think he's just trying to make sure his assets go to his children rather than cutting you out.

It's actually quite worrying fo a lot of people that if they die their spouse might get remarried and all their life's work in terms of assets would then go to a 2nd wife. I know this worried my mum a lot when she and my dad were drawing up their wills. She was convinced my dad would probably remarry if she died because he was hopeless at looking after himself. And it made her quite upset thinking the house might not come to my sister and me if that happened. It's not about the money, it's the thought that everything she worked for might go to a complete stranger.

You're quite a lot younger than him so he probably thinks he will go first and what happens if you remarry. It's not unreasonable of him to want to ensure that everything he leaves will go to his children eventually.

I think it's good that he's considering these things and planning accordingly. So many people don't think it through properly and their money ends up going somewhere other than where they would have wanted it to go.