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

Equal split

Nailed it. It won’t be long before they’re too old to be adopted. And he most definitely is not their dad.

This. And forget trying to predict who may, or may not, get an inheritance from their other parent - that's never guaranteed. All you can do is make sure what you (both) do is equitable.

I think if your DH has raised these 2 children as his own then it would be brutal to make a distinction between blood Vs not blood upon his death via inheritance. And it is likely to cause bad feeling amongst the children themselves.

In your situation I would split equally between all 5, since you both only have one child each who has not been raised by the 2 of you.

In this case, I’d probably just go for an equal five way split. Your husband has brought your middle two up. He is their de facto Dad. Relationships are just as important as genetics.

Split equally by 5.
In theory DD1 should get a small inheritance (as she will get some from her dad)
DD2&DD3 More because no inheritance from dad
DH's daughter less like DD1 because of inheritance from dad
DD4 more because both of yours and no other parent

But then equally you don't know how much DD1 and DH's daughter will actually get from other parent.
Then also if DD 1 and DH's daughter get less because of other parent, then DD 4 should get more because she gets from both of you, but then you don't know and can't control what DH's daughter and actually get from their other parent. You could give DD2&DD3 less and they could get little from their dad and end up with less overall.

We are a blended family and went to see a STEP solicitor who specialises in Wills for blended families so that the wishes of the deceased partner are written into the Will.
Ours state that the other has the right to live in marital home as long as required or could downsize as long as children’s inheritance protected. Cost about £800 earlier this year.
To do this we had to change from Joint Tenants to Tenants in common. If you are joint tenants doesn’t matter what your Will says the other tenant inherits automatically.

I’m always intrigued that mumsnet posters often think the only thing that matters is biology. I guess I’ve been around lots of people with lots of different families and have friends who have been raised by people who are not their biological parents but have called them mum/dad and didn’t make any distinction. This was due to either a parent being out of the picture or in the case of one friend her biological dad died when she was 2. If someone has raised a child for the majority of their childhood and the child considers the person their parent then they are the parent.

Hi, blended family adult child here. I am late 30's and have had same step mum since I was 5, and same step dad since I was 10. I also have 2 younger full siblings so my step parents have been their step parents from a very very young age. Were really close to both our step parents and we also have, and are close to our step sibs. My dad and step mum have one child together also. The arrangement is (not that we expect anything as its our parents money to spend how they want while they can) each parent gets 50% of whats left and they split how they want to.
So my step mum is splitting her 50% between her 3 bio children (2 hers and 1 that is hers and my dads) and my dad's 50% is split 4 ways between me, my 2 full and 1 half bio sibling.
Mum and step dad splitting same way - 50% each to leave to whomever they choose.

We all think this is the fairest way to do it as its their money and they should be able to choose what they do with it without guilt or judgement (that includes them having fun with it too 🙂)

Equal split. I think any other way would lead to upset, especially for daughters 2&3 if they consider him their dad and he agrees. Is he open about this with his separate daughter? (SDD) or what she be surprised to learn this?
Are you happy for your money to go to SDD?

If you split 500k by your own biological children only it would look like this:

DD1 £62,500
DD2 £62,500
DD3 £62,500
DD4 £187,500
SDD £125,000

That just doesn’t look fair to me.

Or they get £100,000 each.

The thing is that you hopefully have a lot more years together by which time your assets will be more difficult to split - so you and DH each leave everything to the other and then it’s all split five ways when the second one of you passes away.

he's not their biological father, but frankly you don't know enough to say if he's their Dad in all the ways that matter.
I have a friend with 3 kids, only youngest is with DP. He hasn't adopted them because I assume whilst their biological father is alive it would be complicated. Her DP is every inch all three children's Dad without a shadow of doubt. They have no relationship with any other man. no one who sees that family would ever doubt that all three kids belong to both parents. it takes more than ejaculation to make a Dad.

Your wills need to be appropriate for if one of you died tomorrow. If you both live to old age, you can make new ones later on if you want.
Right now, you give a figure of £500k. Is that each, or between you? Does that include your home?
If the first to die has left their estate to children however many, whatever the split, where does that leave you/ your husband? Can they afford to live and to bring up the children?
So you first need to consider the house, and as has been said earlier, change to tenants-in -common( if you are currently joint tenants). Then a solicitor will draft the wills in such a way that the surviving spouse can stay in the property, and when s/he dies, the respective halves are inherited according to the individual wills. This must be done properly, no guesswork. Use a STEP* solicitor, as they are qualified and experienced in wills especially in blended family situations.
For the value of the house, obviously all the children have to wait until the second parent dies. So is there any other money that the first to die can leave? Possibly not a lot? Bear that in mind before being too prescriptive.
Of course if it is all left to the surviving spouse, s/he can rewrite their will and there is a risk that s/he may ignore some of the children. A solicitor can advise on whether creating a trust fund for the children is viable. If they are under 18 they cannot inherit yet, so some sort of trust would be needed.
It is also important to appoint guardians in your wills. Is it the step parent? Or other blood parent? The guardian does not have to house them, but makes the decisions about their future.

You have a lot more to think about than how should you split your money.
Talk to a good STEP solicitor.
*STEP = Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners.