Wills in blended family

[Sunderwonderland]

DP will soon have five kids, three with his ex-wife and twin babies with me. We share a mortgaged house as tenants in common.

How would you set up wills?

He divides his estate in five. You divide yours in two.

And here endeth the lesson!

This, but a discussion needs to happen about whether you can afford to take on the mortgage if the worst happened.

Well yes, I agree in the long run. But if I died, I want him to be able to afford to house the children, and he wouldn’t be able to afford the mortgage alone.

If he died, I could afford a home for me and the twins alone. He wouldn’t be able to afford to house five kids alone whilst paying CMS and being the only carer to babies.

I would keep assets accrued before your partnership separate. His would go to all his 5 kids. Yours would go to your two.

Then you take out life insurance to cover the mortgage

Then you need some life insurance.

He shouldn't be in a position where he couldn't support them all and surely 1-3 have a mother for financial support?!

Surely all mortgage lenders require life assurance?

Life insurance so the house is paid off.

He needs to work to get himself in a place to be able to support all of his children. He shouldn’t be in a situation where if you died, he’s had too many children to afford to care for alone. Retraining, progression at work, taking on a second job now to build a buffer in case the worst happens.

If we did that, I assume the money would go to the surviving partner, and in due course, form part of their estate?

Do you not actually have any mortgage protection insurance OP, as I think that is really important when you have young children. However, of course when money's tight, it tends to be things like insurance that have to go.

Do you currently have his other 3 children at your's at all OP, ie, does your DH and his Ex share the children 50/50? As obviously that would be more a problem for him if he were left on his own, than if he only sees them for a few hours at the weekend, etc.

I’m not saying you’re entirely wrong, but I think a lot of people would struggle to support themselves and their children without a partner, maintenance or government top ups, especially if baby twins are involved.

I do (beneficiary is next of kin so currently my parents), he doesn’t.

We do have his kids but just on weekends and holidays. So he needs to pay maintenance and for a bigger house, bigger car and so on.

I’d agree with life insurance that pays off the mortgage. You can get joint life coverage so it pays out only on the first death - and outs was declining cover (so it tracked the mortgage balance) as that was cheaper as my H has health issues.

We also then got a separate policy that paid me £100k in cash (on top of mortgage being paid off) if he died as I wouldn’t have been able to work FT with a small child - and PT wages would have been challenging even with no mortgage to pay.

Worth speaking to an IFA - ours was really helpful and the life coverage was in trust which I believe means it fell outside of our estate for inheritance purposes.

Given you have children together and want them to be adequately housed if you were to pass it may be worth changing that so your DP is beneficiary, at least he wouldn’t have the mortgage to worry about. He should ensure you are beneficiary on his policy for the same reason.

This is why your OP needed more detail.

so you each get life insurance to cover your share of the mortgage.

you leave your share of the house to your twins, with a life interest for your dh.

that way your half of the mortgage gets paid, yet it remains within your estate for your children, and your dh has somewhere to live until he dies/remarries, or chooses to leave.

So for illustrative purposes:

Imagine house is worth 500k and we have 250k equity when one of us dies, in unequal shares of 50k to him and 200k to me. If I died, does the insurance pay out mean he then has 300k equity and the twins 200k?

Please consult with a solicitor who specialises in wills and trusts.

So you both need life insurance that pays out the mortgage on the event of one of your deaths.
its upto you you could choose to leave your estate to each other and trust the other to leave it equally to the kids. Or you could leave savings/ pension etc to kids and the house to each other.
but if you choose to split it between kids - yours 50/50. Your dh 20/20/20/20/20 then give a life time interest to each other in the house. So each of you can stay there (mortgage free) and the funds will be released on your death.

Don’t mortgages require life insurance to be in place to cover this?

id take advice from a solicitor though as there are inheritance tax exemptions for leaving a house to children so it makes sense to consider this, particularly as you are not married

we had to organise life insurance for both of us as part of getting our mortgage. So if one of us dies the mortgage is paid off, and the surviving spouse gets a lump sum aswell. Also we have income protection insurance in case one of us can’t work /gets ill etc.
i’d speak to a solicitor to get things in order especially if you’re not married.

We have done this - life insurance to cover the mortgage and mirrored wills so whoever dies first leaves everything to the other and trusts them to leave it to the kids equally later.