To appoint trustees as well as guardians in our will?

[CoffeeMum]

DH and I are making our will - all very straightforward, everything goes to the surviving partner, or 50/50 to the two DC. If we all go, 50/50 between my family and DH's family.

We have also appointed our wonderful friends as guardians, a couple, who will take our DC if the worst happens.

However, i am starting to find that it might be standard practice, or at the very least, sensible, to also appoint a trustee for our estate. I am really struggling with the whole concept of this. I feel like we'll be telling our guardian friends that we don't trust them, if we also appoint a trustee. However, i tend to think it would be negligent not to have a trustee to. For example, our [potential guardian] friends would have to move house to accomodate our DC, and in London that would not be cheap. How do you make sure that the whole inheritance doesn't get spent?

I am finding this whole process very difficult and confusing, so any advice about the whole business would be very gratefully received. Also, any tales of what you have all done about this?

Thank you all

Oh yes, and am also worried the friend we would ask to be the trustee [extremely responsible, intelligent, single woman] might be miffed at not having asked to be the potential guardian.

Am i overthinking this perhaps?!

we have different guardians and trustees, I don't see the problem with that. Family member is guardian, 2 good friends of dh are trustees.

I think you can't worry about the inheritance being spent - they would be raising your children, and that costs money. Really - you can't put conditions on how they spend the money - esp if they would require a bigger house ( and would use some of the money for that) maybe put some money in a trust for your children now that can't be touched until they are a certain age, and any other money from your estate goes to the guardians

I am a named guardian for 3 lots of children (I don't let the parents travel together ). Each of them willingly discussed the set up with me, so I knew what I was taking on each time. With 2 sets I am guardian, trustee, executor (you name it, it's my responsibility!), with one set my friends Dad is also an executor of the will, as although he wouldn't be able to care for them, by doing this, he felt he'd still be able to 'look out for them' - this was done mainly to make him feel better that he wouldn't be able to have the children. Over the years, and for various reasons, we have at times discussed things like moving, buying a new house, education, inheritance etc and all of my friends have said that they just trust me to do the right thing by their kids - they trust their childrens future to me - not just making sure they are housed/fed/clothed till they are 18 - I take on full parental responsibility.

You should discuss it with the friends coffeemum. Personally, we have asked my parents to be guardians, they had me in their early 20's, so are still young enough at the moment for that to work okay. We have agreed that if one of them starts getting some health concerns, we will change our will to ask someone else, as we have 4 DC including a baby, so its a big ask. We've made the trustees my mother and DH's sister. This is partly to keep DH's family in the loop, and partly to make sure that things that are important to us (such as keeping the DC in good schools, and doing everything that can be done to make sure they go to university) which aren't are high priorities to my parents, get taken into consideration.

We chose DH's sister who gets on with my parents ... his other sister is strange and although more qualified perhaps (a lawyer), she has never made any effort with me or my family, so we felt it would make being co-trustees difficult. Do your guardian friends and trustee friends know each other?

I purposefully set seperate guardians and trustees. Sorting out the financial side is time consuming and lengthy and ongoing, I want my guardians just to concentrate on the emotional welfare of my dc should the worst happen. Perhaps it helps that one of the guardians and the trustee are also good mutual friends.

Thanks everyone - you've all given me a bit of context.

The guardians and the trustee have never met. Maybe that would complicate the matter further?

Cargirl - were the guardians okay with you appointing separate trustees? I like your argument about the guardians focussing on the upbringing of the children rather than the financial nitty gritty.

Also like the idea of putting aside a certain amount in trust for DC to inherit at say, 21.

Say we left £500,000. Could we put something like a £100,000 upper limit on funds to be used to buy a bigger house? Then earmark a further £250,000 that must be put in trust for the two DC. Anything else is at the disposal of guardians for upbringing of DC - ideally leaving some for their inheritance if possible.

God, this is doing my head in

I just asked one to be guardian and one to be trustee, there rest of it really isn't any of their business!!!! You could ask them to be guardian and say so and so is going to be executor and trustee.

TBH the best investment is probably to put the money into housing. You could look at putting more into buying a house but that a %age of what is put in comes out again.

I would also put the inheritance at higher than 21 - it's every young to inherit a large amount.

How can you put a price on someone bringing up your kids especially through the teenage years? My stipulation was acutally that my guardians make the best decisions for them at the time, I want them to stay together as one unit but am open to them being adopted not necessarily that my guardians will bring them up.

i really don't think you can put a limit on what they spend on housing - you have to trust that they will do the right thing if it even comes to it. leaving money for your kids is a nice thing, but the most important thing is that the guardians have enough money to raise your kids

I would say speaking from experience that you do need to make sure that there are funds which your guardians can use for the upbringing of your children otherwise it gets very difficult to have any money released from the trust.

My mil is ds's trustee and the only times they can release money is for school uniform (needs to be an itemised receipt) and for school trips (again headed paper from school) and university fees.

I get nothing to bring up ds at present which without sounding like i am throwing my toys out of the pram I am skint and could do with some help.

Okay, thanks all - am grappling with a baby here, so can't reply properly but will be back when i have more time to digest what you've all said - some very useful stuff here.

LittleMarshmallow, don't know the full details of course, but it sounds as if you are in a tough situation, wishing you the best with that x

Be very careful of the Tax implications of trusts especially if property or other non cash assets are involved. The IHT hit can be huge.

Does taking the role of a guardian for a child mean that you take that child in if anything untoward happened to both parents? It is just that my DH has accepted the position of guardian for our niece. He did it without checking with me as he says that being a guardian doesnt necessarily mean our niece would come to live with us. We just have overall care of her.

I was a bit miffed tbh that he didnt dicuss with me first.

Rocky12 yes that is correct you have the responsibility to ensure that she gets cared for not that you bring her up yourself IYSWIM, hence why I made it clear to my guardians that I was not expecting them to take on my 4 dc long term more take them on initially whilst long term solutions are sorted out whether that be foster care, family care or adoption. I didn't want my PILs feeling obligaterd to take them and then resenting it, hence I chose guardians who know how I would like them brought up and will do the best to arrange this somehow!