AIBU to want our wills to prioritise children over grandparents and siblings

[LauraTheExplorer89]

My DH and I are writing our wills. We have a 3.5 year old and 1 year old and have decided that the best parental guardian for our children would be my mum. She already lives a 2 min walk away, has the kids a few times a week and is an excellent grandmother. My husband's parents are 10 years older than my mum and live 3 hours away and although they love the kids and are great at reading to them and playing, they are not as engaging/hands on with the tougher routine stuff and we agree that they would not be the obvious choice compared to mum. Despite this, husband has said he feels guilty and wants them included in the will as wouldn't want them to feel left out. What do people usually do here? I've explained to him I feel like it's better to be as clear as possible as we don't want all of the grandparents debating who will be responsible for the children if the worst were to happen to us. Further, I definitely feel like what is best for the kids would be to have my mum care for them with her being much closer to them, logistically and in relationship.

In addition to this, he's said he thinks he wants to leave some money to each of his 3 older siblings in our will. For context, my husband is only one with children and it's likely this will remain the case. All of his siblings work and now have decent jobs, although, none own a house and his oldest sibling actually still lives at home. My husband and his siblings are all very likely to inherit a decent amount of money from his parents (probably £200k each) so at some point hopefully they'll all be able to get on the property ladder if that's what they want to do. My husband and I own our house with a mortgage and took out life insurance policies when we had children. We would not have as much money as his parents in comparison to pass on and I would like all of what we have to go to our two children. Is it normal to leave money in your will to siblings? I also have a younger sibling who with his wife (they don't have children yet) is in a similar financial situation to me and my husband and I told my husband that we would definitely expect to be included in each other's wills to which he agreed that we shouldn't leave money to my brother as he doesn't need it. I think I reacted quite strongly which upset my husband but I'm just not sure where he's coming from on this one.

Leaving to your siblings isn’t the done thing. Usually all assets are left equal between your kids.

You are over complicating it.

It makes no sense to leave money to siblings when you have living children - they're the ones who are financially dependent on you.

Re. who looks after the kids, can you name your in laws as substitute/backup guardians?

Have you actually asked his mum? Would you expect her to move into your home or have the children at hers?

wills like insurance, you hope they won’t matter for another 50 years!

Not usual to leave money to siblings.

Could you split the money 50:50 and he bequeaths a portion of his half to his siblings, and you bequeath some of your share to your sibling?

or every sibling get 5% (?) which seem fairest if you want to give money to siblings.

You leave everything to the kids.

Oops your mum. Preffered sibling could be important to nominate

Have you spoke to both sets of grandparents? I think you need to ask someone before you put them in your will to look after your children and his parents might not want that responsibility anyway.
Also yes I agree with you that you have to do what's best for the children and unfortunately people's feelings have to come second to their needs. Hopefully this will never be needed but if it did happen your children would already have suffered so much and the priority would be them and what is best for them. It would be insane to prioritise someone's feelings over the needs of a child who had hypothetically just lost their parents.

Also re the siblings again your DH is trying to be kind but thinking logically of course your responsibility is to your children not his siblings. I'd assume whoever would take on responsibility for them would need some of this money to raise them and provide for them so unless you are very rich you will need to leave everything to them in trust. Your mum might even prefer to move into your house with them if that happened and how would that work if your in laws had a share in the house?

Everything I own will go to my husband or children. Nothing to anyone else! I have put my sister as their carer if we die and with that comes reasonable expenses from our estate.

Just seen typo on my OP - i meant to say my brother and I would definitely NOT expect to be in eachother's wills!

His parents won’t be left out. They won’t even know.

And no you don’t usually leave to siblings, if you have kids.

Your husband is being weird.

Have some kind of letter written, and kept with the will, that acknowledges his parents are loving grandparents, and states that you hope his parents will always have that role in your children’s lives.

If he wants his siblings acknowledged, some token amount could be left to them (<£500 apiece), perhaps with a suggestion that they buy something to remember him by. Alternatively, if he has something that could be a keepsake for them, he could leave that to them.

My husband is leaving £10k each to his siblings, as one is disabled and one is working a minimum age job. But no it’s not the norm leaving anything to siblings at all other than a small amount

If there is not a huge amount of money surely you'd just leave it between your DC equally or leave some to your Mum if she is caring for your DC full time.

your husbands parents don’t seem to stand a chance when they live so far from you so I can see why there would be hurt. However you do have to put your children first.

you can’t dictate who your husband leaves things to in his will though. You can only decide what you do with your half.

It's insane to leave money to grown adults when you have dependent children. Unless you're millionaires.

You ask your mum to be guardian. Money goes to children and the care of the children. Token letter/sentimental items to everyone else.

It would genuinely make me rethink DH's parenting if he wanted to leave money to his sister over DD. Who would be a bereaved child.

I think you are correct about you mum. You need a back up though in case she becomes unable to do it. You DH leaving money to his siblings is bonkers.

I know my Sister has left a piece of Jewellery to my daughter, and she is leaving me a couple of items that were my Nana’s (not hugely valuable)
She has a Daughter, she will be getting everything else.
I think leaving sentimental objects to siblings and others is fine.

How old are you and your children, and what age are yours and DH parents?

When appointing a guardian it is only until the kids are 18. I would appoint a sibling rather than a parent - who could be rather elderly (I'm 70 myself BTW) in the event of the demise of both of you at the same time, which is a rare occurrence. But anyway bear that in mind. And I agree with pp, when you make your decision, ask the potential guardian first.

No need to leave anything to siblings at all. Children are your priority now.

Would the siblings leavey YOU anything I wonder, not that it matters. You have your own family now.

What we have is

Kids go to BIL
ALL money / assets from house sale go into a trust fund for the kids
BIL and my brother control this, obviously with money from it being available to BIL to raise them. They each receive 25% of what is left at 25, and then the remainder at 30. There are also financial instructions for university and if they continue in education beyond Bsc.
And we mention that we want my family to have a full, supportive relationship with the kids, and expect BIL to support this (not exact wording but you get the idea). That way my family are included / mentioned, but BIL gets the kids.

people tend to leave everything to their own children - maybe with provisions in case you die before they are adult and you leave a fund for the people raising them, but that's a "just in case".

Most people don't gamble on being gone before their own parents anyway.

If you are really wealthy, of course you share, but you can just will the equivalent of a house each to your own children, why would you leave anything to siblings.

children first, even before grand-children frankly.

Unusual to leave to parents and siblings. In this situation I would expect everything to be left to your children. Your mother to be appointed to care for your children until the age of 16 or leaving education and that she will have access to their financial estate to care for them until the age of 18/21 or whatever you think appropriate (if your and their father should die before this)

Not usual at all. This is actually where it's worth going through it with a solicitor, as they'll help go through all the different what ifs. In particular my will (and DH's, we have mirror wills) is written to cover any children including those that may not have been born at the time it was written. It also specifies what happens if the nominated person pre-deceases you (you can have as many levels as you like but we stopped at 3).
We did choose a sibling to look after DC if the worst happened, but that was mostly because both mine and DH's parents were over 60 when they were born and they would be 80 by the time the kids were grown up. It does appear to be a sensible decision (though obviously hope it's never needed) as the kids are now teens and all grandparents are starting to have serious health issues.

We're 37, kids are 3 and 1. My mum is 61 and in-laws are 73/76.

The back-ups I would like to suggest would be my brother and his wife who are 2 hours away so not ideal but they absolutely love the children (like all our family so we are very lucky) but I haven't mentioned yet to DH as he seems so sensitive around it all and, although I feel like i'm thinking with the best of intentions, I don't want to offend him more by just choosing my family and excluding his. His siblings have all said they don't want children and so it wouldn't feel right to choose them as guardians.

My mum has asked me who we would want to look after the children if the worst happened and has said she would definitely do so if that was our wish.

Do to their financial situations and them not having dependents I doubt his siblings have wills anyway at this point in time.

The more usual arrangement would be to split your assets between your DC, with them being held in trust until they reach a particular age eg 21 then name someone to act as guardian until they are adults. You could include your PIL by naming them as guardians in the event that your DM is unable to act or chooses not to. You could also name them as trustees to manage the financial assets of your DC until they reach the age when they take over. Leaving something to siblings is unusual when you have DC. Of course its your DH's decision what goes in his will and your decision what goes in yours, they don't have to be the same. The contents will also stay private until after your deaths so hopefully by that time your DC will be adults, the GP's will have gone first and you will probably have drawn up more up to date wills.

Typo again *due to
My spelling/grammar isn't usually this bad!