Blended family & Inheritance. How the hell do we make it fair?

[WeWereDoingSoWell]

Me and DH have been married for 5 years, together for 12. We have 5 children between us. I will try to make this as simple as possible whilst including all the relevant information.

I have three children from previous relationships. He has one child from a previous relationship. We have one child together.

DD1 : her dad is involved and she will probably get a small inheritance from him. She was older when I got with my DH and doesn't really view him as a father figure

Dd2 & dd3 : they have the same dad (not my DH) he is not involved, is in prison and they won't get any inheritance from him. They were young when I got with my DH and they think of him as their Dad.

DHs daughter : her Mam is involved and she will get inheritance from her (not a massive inheritance but likely to be bigger than DD1s inheritance from her father)

DD4 : mine and DHs daughter together.

How do we make our will fair? Would you just split it 5 ways or do we make allowances for the fact dd2, 3 and 4 won't have any inheritance from anyone else but DD1 and SD will?

Do we split our inheritance in two (mine and his) and then split it between our children? So mine would be split 4 ways and his 2?

Hopefully this won't be an issue for a long time yet but I don't want to leave things until we're old and the kids will all want to have their own opinions.

Any advice welcome

Well if he adopts the middle 2, 4 of the children are his ‘actual’ daughters aren’t they?

Let's imagine you have £100k to leave.

Option 1 - Split equally. Each child gets £20k.

Option 2 - you and your husband each leave your 50k share to your own children only. Your children get 12.5k each, his get 25k each. Of course the shared child inherits from both and would receive £37.5k.

Option 3 - If your husband does adopt dd2&3 then you both have 4 children. Dds 2,3 and 4 would now inherit £25k each and the 2 non-shared children would receive £12.5k each.

Whatever you decide, it's good to get it sorted now.

He hasn't adopted them though.

She's not though, is she? She's one of her father's two children. His children should inherit his estate. The OP clearly wants her children to benefit at the expense of his child.

No but we have to assume that from what the Op has said that this is a likely possibility before he dies so therefore that is the basis they are making their decision on.

Even split.

My daughter will likely miss out on an inheritance from her father. He is older than his new wife. They each entered the family with a child already and had 2 more. They currently all inherit equally. As he’ll likely go first his wife can then decide to leave it all to her 3 children and cut my daughter out.
her dad has already acknowledged this and for some reason seems ok with it!

Same amount to each. This assumes that there will be an inheritance of course. It also assumes that neither of you will be inheriting much, if anything, from each other. I mean, you can have a will that splits things nicely between the kids but if that's only on the second of you dying then that second person can do whatever the h3ll they want with whatever they've inherited. Say he dies first and you get the lot. Well you might know that he wanted his kids to get a fair split but you could change your will so only the ones that are biologically yours get everything. Or you might give it all to your new toy boy.

This. Unless he wants to leave a share to his SC and you to yours?

What they get from their other parents is irrelevant.

This seems to be the consensus, but this treats the husband and wife as separate entities. If they are separate entities why do they each have half of joint assets? Shouldn't they be keeping what they had to begin with and splitting that? If their assets are merged, shouldn't then the children also be seen as joint?

I realise that in this case it's not very relevant because they brought more or less the same into the marriage. It's just a hypothetical question.

You cant really think out all the eventualities and make it fair. What if your DDs that aren't inheriting from their dad marry very wealthy partners or get big inheritances from that side of the family? What if one of your children is unable to work for some reason that's not their fault? You just cant work it all out and cancel it all out. That's why 5 way split is the only fair way.

Thats not really how that phrase works but sure 😂

Split equally 5 ways.

Any other inheritance your children or step children may or may not receive is irrelevant and completely hypothetical.

Yes and as others have said - unless the kids inherit directly, they may not inherit at all. You pass away first and your husband gets a new wife and they have 50/50 wills - then he dies before her and she could give the whole lot to her kid.

My dad left all to my stepmum on the undertanding it would be split between his 2 kids and her 2 on her death but she's already changed her will for only her two to inherit (and kindly let us know that she felt that was 'fairest'!) I blame him tbh not really her, because he knew that could happen and he knew her personality. So be careful assuming any joint assets will go the way you think they will.

Unless you are planning dying together it's not as simple as deciding who to leave what.

Presume whichever of you outlive the other won't want to be left homeless or penniless.

Definitely worth paying for a good solicitor and not listening to MN advice.

Divide equally,it will save a lot of problems long term !

It doesn't sound likely at all.

I am going from my own experience. My parents are still alive and we have had frank discussions about wills, assets and legacies. They have 3 children (including me, obviously). They have financially supported one of my siblings considerably and were going to will them less to compensate. Both my other sibling and I said no, please just split it 3 ways. Which they have done, thankfully. It just didn’t sit right with me.

I think it’s all very easy to talk about the money, but different siblings coming into different amounts can cause a lot of hurt and resentment towards their parent(s) and their siblings.

They said they have talked about it so has the potential to happen and given the children’s ages and that they see him as their dad it would seem A Reasonable thing to do. Where does it say unlikely? Have I missed a post?

but regardless if he is raising them as his daughters then he is their dad.

I would split it equally between all 5 in this scenario. Seems the fairest way imo.

Or cause them. His actual children may take issue with their father considering unrelated children equally to them.

If he hasn’t done it after 12 years together and 5 years married, it sounds to me like he’s just paying lip service.

This.

With blended families isnt never going to be financially equal. Financially equal isn't necessarily fair. One of the childrens other parents might become bankrupt or win the lottery. You cant account for what other people might ir might not give. Things change.

This us what I think is fair:

You divide your estate in half.
Your half of the estate is divided in 4 equal parts. 25% each.

His half of the estate is divided in 2 equal parts. 50% each between his bio kids.

Your shared child inherits from both pot because they are both biologically yours and the children from prior relationships inherit from their biological parents side of the wealth.

Don't leave the estate to your spouse. You make provisions for the chldren. I know two people who's bio parent died, and the step parent left everything to their bio kids and nothing to the step children.

Divide equally in the main, I have more assets than my DH, however he has better life insurance. We each have 2 children each. We’ve agreed to combine and split equally amongst the 4 children regardless.

However if we’d had a child together, I am honestly not sure whether we’d want ‘our’ child to get a better percentage or not and I’ll never know. But knowing my DM and step father who have been married for 40+ plus years and had a child together still think equal across 5, I lean towards wanting my little brother (ok he’s in his 40’s) to get 50% and then split 12.5 amongst the other 4.