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?

Then get life insurance that covers the mortgage.
Also your half of the house would be held in trust until your dc are 18 or 21 when he would need to sell it or buy them out, same with his half if he dies

No, you can't get specific life insurance to pay off the mortgage surely you spoke about this when you took out the mortgage?
Also you choose who gets the money from your own life insurance

As pp said, if you die your children inherit in trust and the house gets sold whe they are of specified age. His kids would all be adults bu then. No way would I leave anything to dp and hope he carries out your wishes. He could marry someone else, get taken in by a romance scam, leave it all to the cats home etc.

No, you can't get specific life insurance to pay off the mortgage

You absolutely can. It was a condition of our mortgages that we did just that!

I guess where I’m unclear is, if I got insurance, would it give the lump sum to him? Or the twins? Would he then own the majority of the house to split five ways?

No it wont go to him or make him majority owner, you get special life insurance that pays the mortgage off in 1 lump sum to the bank
Make sure that you are tenants in common not joint tenants otherwise he gets all of the house when you die

You both need insurance to pay off the mortgage if one of you dies. Most mortgages require this

I would assume that they have at least set up life assurance to cover the mortgage should one of them die.

haven't you got insurance that settled the mortgage if critical illness or death?

Of course you can

Typo autocorrect turned can into can't

Life insurance pays the mortgage off, hopefully in full.

There is then a mortgage free house to be split in line with the deceased Will.

So your share goes to your kids but giving him a life interest (probably only until he remarries) so he has somewhere to live mortgage free and bring up the children.

Likewise, he could leave his share to all 5 kids giving you a life interest (again until you remarry).

This means you live mortgage free, if you choose to sell up the kids get their pay out and the surving partner can use their share towards their next home.

You need legal advice and financial planning advice by the sound of it.

That’s what life insurance is for.

I guess the point would be if your husband survived he would use it to clear the mortgage he couldn’t afford, then the value of the house is part of the estate.

Also if life insurance is written in trust it doesn’t form part of the estate as things currently stand if he didn’t pay the mortgage off with the lump sum.

You could look at a level term or decreasing term which would be more affordable, joint policy payable on first death or if you didn’t want to insure him as you could afford the mortgage then a single policy on your life.

It is quite common and I speak to lots of people in your situation.

Mortgage protection life insurance.

👍😂

You’re overcomplicating it.

When you die your share of the house goes to the twins. If he dies, his share goes 5 ways.

Theres also a mortgage, but life insurance pays that off on first death.

The above still happens though, just the bit that you left to your twins is now unmortgaged.

Yes it does mean his kids might indirectly benefit from your life insurance, but it seems weird to take active steps to prevent them from benefiting, when actually what you are doing is protecting your DH and his ability to remain in the house after you die.

You could take out additional life insurance that pays to your twins too if you wanted.

If you both contribute to the mortgage, you both need mortgage protection insurance. It doesn’t pay out to the surviving partner, it pays the mortgage.

Then the will takes effect. If you both own 50% of the house, that is what will be split between the children, as you are tenants in common. If you want the surviving partner to be able to continue living in the house, you need to put that in your will, in a trust, until, say, all the children are 18.

In fact if you care about his kids benefitting from your life insurance, then ask him to fund it. That way he is paying for something that benefits all of his kids if you die, to absolutely no detriment to you.