AIBU to want my estate divided equally between all four children?

[Imdefonotmaddona]

I have 4 children
DD 1 and DD2 are mine and my late husbands.
DS2 - was biologically husbands and not mine but he is with me full time.
DD3 is mine with my current DP so the only one who hasn’t got the same dad.

on the passing off my husband everything came to me. I have always been financially independent and the house was paid for by both of us.
he had some money and a life insurance policy.

I am updating my paperwork and that Includes My will to include DD3.

I was discussing this with my best friend and she mentioned that I should seperate and not give equal amounts because some of what they will inherit would be technically my late husbands so should take than in to account for DD3.

I was thinking that It’s now my assets / money and that I should share it equally amongst the 4 children.

what would you do ?

The children are all still under 16.

Dss isn't the issue. He is the biological son of your DH so yes the decent thing is to ensure he inherits a fair share of his father's assets.

The issue is whether you are now effectively handing a share to younger child born to your new DP, whom your late DH presumably never envisaged and had nothing to do with. Would he have wanted his children's share to be reduced by sharing with a child that isn't his?

OP, I think you’re doing the right thing by the children. A PP said, “I know when my friend went to the solicitor she was told it was a common and fair arrangement in blended families for each adult to split their half between the children they are responsible for.”. This is what my solicitor told me when DH and I made our wills - we told him that we wanted our estate to go equally between all our DC and that we had agreed that between ourselves, so that the estate would go to the surviving spouse and thence to the DC equally, even though we do not have the same number of children. It’s what we think is fair. I am supremely unbothered by what anyone else thinks: DH and I have told all the DC that this is what we want to happen.

You could also argue:

Her dc are dd1, dd2 and dd3
Husband's dc are dd1, dd2, and ds

So her half is split between her three and husband's split between his three.

Dd1 and dd2 get 1/3 each
Ds and dd3 get 1/6 each.

I think that does depend a little on whether ds and dd3 are likely to inherit from their other side. If ds' mum is dead or no contact, then it does make a difference.

But I think if you give ds the same as dd1 and dd2, then you should just split it four ways as otherwise dd3 could be very hurt because she will be the only one with less (much less as she'd only get 1/8 (12.5%) as opposed to the others getting 7/24 (29%) - over double)

I do think that whatever you do, you want to leave an explanation and say that you have tried to be fair.

Thank you
it’s given me something to think about
maybe I need to work out a way to crunch numbers and see how much the impact would be.

Have you added to the Financial pot? Has your current DP added to the Financial pot?
Are all three going to inherit more from the current scenario then they would’ve from just their father alone?
Lots of questions

I would separate it so his money (i.e any money from his life insurance and assets) should be divided between his children, whereas your assets and LI etc should be divided between your four. It isn’t fair for the youngest to get any of your ex’s money because she will undoubtedly also receive money from your current DH when he passes.

their inheritance from me will be more than the amount I received.

This nails it. OP is treating all her late husband's children equally by raising them all and paying for all expenses. Despite the fact that DSS has a mum.
No one can predict what may or may not be left by other people grandparents etc as care fees may eat up these amounts and there may be other relatives in the mix.
She's rausing these 4 kids together and if she treats them differently this may then cause a huge amount of upset on her death. She will also have accumulated wealth herself since her late husband's passing so it's not "all" the inheritance she received from him. So the fairest and simplest thing to do is split 4 Ways

That definitely makes a difference
you could tie yourself up in nuts here trying to make things fair and they could still think that it’s not fair if it was me personally I’d just divided by four.
I have a similar situation where three of mine could inherit it from their father but he’s married a psychopath that could actually stop them inheriting anything
And then equally I have another one whose father is incredibly rich and could leave her a lot of money and then that would in court with the others. I can’t control what they do or don’t do so I’m only controlling what I do or don’t do and I’m doing it fairly.

I would absolutely stick with an equal four way split.

the issue with this is I’m still raising the children. So money is being spent which is why apart from the house which then wouldn’t be 50/50 anyway as I would have in the end paid more in to it.

This. I think you need to find a way to ringfence your late husband’s money from your assets and spilt it between his 3 children.

Your 4th DC will then inherit from their father while the other 3 won’t.

We have the same sort of situation but the other way around. Myself and dh have 3 children together, he has another child from before meeting me. He wants his half to go x4 ways but also wants my half to go x4 ways, but I only have 3 children so don’t really see why I should have to split 4 ways to account for my stepchild, as nasty as that sounds, it’s just me being factual, as my stepchild will inherit from her mum too. Dh doesn’t see it that way, he says well it’s not her fault she comes from a broken family, and I say no, it’s your fault, so why should my children get less because of your broken relationship? Might make me sound horrible but it is true.

Before your husband died, he could have set up something that meant that his assets were ringfenced for his child/children. He didn't that so the money becomes yours to distribute anyway you want. If I were you, I would split the money cleanly and evenly to the people I consider to be my dependents.

If the child from your existing marriage inherits more because she inherits from your husband, whereas your children from your first marriage don't, then so be it. You can't possibly control all variables and the main thing for your dependents is that they all know that you tried to be fair to all of them with the information and resources you had available at the time.

If I did this though
DSS would get way less than the other 3. He would get more from “ his dad “ but overall less.

Is your husband doing the same? Because if not then this isn’t 4 siblings - this is two sets of siblings. In which case you’re disinheriting your older two. It seems super problematic that the 4 kids will inherit £100K or whatever from you and then the two youngest then inherit £50K or whatever from your husband.

Will ypur current DP split everything 4 ways too?

I would do something to acknowledge that your late husbands children are in a different position to your youngest child.

they have lost their father and will now inherit from one parent (you).

your youngest child will inherit from two parents (you and your current partner) using your late DHs money to ultimately out your youngest DC is a better position than your late DHs DC is likely to cause some resentment.

I don’t think the split needs to be total, but for example i might be inclined to frame it as “your father had a life insurance policy which means you 3 DC get £100k each from that”.

It’s tricky because unless there was specific ring fencing (it sounds like there was not) money goes in the pot and it’s difficult to untangle what was his v yours and what’s been used for what purposes to date. I’m sure you’ve used your late DHs money to bring up the DC for example.

but this is about optics rather than reality. His DC deserve to know their was specific
provision for them

You need to work out roughly how much of your current assets came from late DP. That should be split amongst his children. Your assets, should be divided by 4 (and you sound fab for treating ex child exactly as your own btw). This will appear to be unfair on upper fourth child… But. Your fourth child stands to inherit way more due to inheriting from current DP.

There is obviously some back-story to explain why OP's step-son lives with her rather than his own mother. I think that what OP is doing is admirable and I disagree with the posters who are berating her for splitting the inheritance equally between all four children.

OP's step-son will get an equal share of OP's own assets and will probably inherit more than if his share of his father's assets had been ring-fenced to exclude OP's youngest DD but OP then excluded him from inheriting from her.

Edited to add that OP has confirmed that her step-son would inherit much less if she did what other posters are suggesting.

I think, seeing as your deceased dh’s children will inherit from their grandparents, and your youngest will not, it seems like a great solution. I would hope your dh would agree, after all, you have taken on his child. You sound like a lovely stepmum and are giving a portion of your money to his child. And in turn, some of your dh’s money is being given to your youngest. That all seems very fair to me.

Whatever you decide is fair now can always be reviewed in future once they've grown up and the amount you have to share out & the likely amount of money DS & DD3 will inherit from their other parents (maybe grandparents will have already died & their inheritance already been shared??) it's complicated & horrible to think about (🌷).

You don't whatever you want, OP, and it's none of your friend's business.

Otoh the 3 from dead DH will likely inherit from those grandparents which previously would have gone to dead DH and then passed down.

The more you write OP the more I think 4 ways is best. You're right to consider the cost of raising the children as they are still young. Not like 4 adult aged DC.