to ask ex to put DD into his will

[sevenkeystomysoul]

Ex (DDs father) owns a house outright (inherited after his wife, the mother of his DS, passed away). His DS is in his will to inherit house. But now he has DD also, AIBU to want her to have an equal share of the house should anything happen to ex or myself?

maryz the op hasn't said (anywhere) that she expects her dd to have an equal share to her ex's ds. You have made that up.

alicet - she says in the OP 'AIBU to want her to have an equal share of the house should anything happen to ex or myself?'

She said equal - if she had said a share or even a fair share she might have had a different response.

OK yellowdaffodil I stand corrected - you are right in that - sorry maryz.

However at multiple other points in the thread she says that she doesn't expect an equal share - just for her dd to be provided for.

chippingin - voice of reason. Why so many people have been nasty to the op i have no idea.

Although i do recognise (again) a little posse of posters on this thread that are 'friends' and seem to enjoy ganging up on ops. Nice.

The son is 12 or 13 given that OP has said her child is 2 nearly 3 and there is a 10 year age gap.

Maryz - can you please try to explain to me (as, at page 400, I am still unable to understand this way of thinking and you sound level headed enough to explain your reasoning!!), why you think that if you died, the assets that you AND your DH have accrued become yours to distribute. Why shouldn't your DH 'take' his half of the assets into another relationship and share these assets, and any more he accrues, between all of his children (current and future)? Your insurance might be the thing that finishes paying the mortgage off - but surely you have both paid the deposit, the mortgage payments, the insurance policy for many years - why does your DH dip out on his say over his half of your shared assets?

maryz - not talking about you, I'd skipped a couple of pages, it was much nearer the top

maryz - I am friends with the daughter of someone in a similar situation. Her dad is very ill and likely to die soon, and all his assets will go to his current wife. He has five children, none of whom I expect will see a penny. None of them are grasping types and I can't imagine any of them will contest the will but it does seem a bit wrong.

And it is not the first time I've seen this happen - my parents friend did exactly the same thing when his wife died. My parents have made their wills so that if one of them dies, everything they jointly own is held in trust until the other one dies and then it passes to their children. So basically the surviving partner cannot leave all their assets to a new partner should they remarry. Obviously they are far too old to have children so maybe not directly relevant to this situation.

maryz - I understand where you are coming from, but the 'faults' I see in the way you're looking at it are that if you died and your DH remarried and had more children he is older, he's still supporting your children and now his younger children, you can't create a level playing field when he's a good few years older & he (as well as you) has worked to amass his 'share' of your assets, why should they not go to all of his children? Why shouldn't the years he has worked hard help all of his children, not just your shared ones? Your share would only go to your children.

Can you try thinking about it from this angle...if your DH died now and if you remarried and had more children when you die you'd give your 'first' children the amount that would have been their Dads share at the time he died (so half your assets at the time of his death), then would you want all of your children to get an equal share of what you have worked all your life to amass or would you give your elder children a bigger share because the way you are suggesting it is handled would mean that your younger children would then only be entitled to a share in what you have gained since getting together with their Dad?

Clear as mud!

Your friends case isn't what I am advocating, not at all. I actually have friends in an almost identical situation and it is incredibly sad that the assets their Mum worked hard to amass will only be going to their step siblings - in my case, they aren't even half-siblings.

Maryz - a vasectomy is reversible, new wives have existing children and no-one plans to die young, but sadly, sometimes, they do

It is so sad that we not only have to think about what would happen if we both died, but what would happen to our childrens share if only we die...

yes, i've seen a few examples of this kind of thing. in fact, i'm married to the son of the 'wicked stepmother' - the second wife, who will inherit everything from dh's stepdad, leaving HIS daughter with nothing.

fortunately, we are talking pennies, not even pounds, but anything left from the first wife (even any trinkets) has either gone to dh's mum or been thrown out. dh's stepsister was also thrown out when 18, and 'never existed', even though as a teenager she was made to take care of dh (several years younger) AND the house!

in spite of the fact that she 'never existed', WE get on really well with her, spent last Christmas with her, and she has no financial needs. however, her dad is elderly & v frail, when he dies, it IS going to be difficult - dh's mum will inherit everything, and won't even acknowledge that her step daughter exists, so won't let her go to the funeral.

the lesson is, IF you have specific wishes about what will happen to your money after you die, you need to write it down v clearly in a will. You can't take it with you, and once you die, you don't get any say in what happens to it either.

Kiss - how can she stop her going to the funeral?? Disgraceful isn't it... does your DH see his Mother? How does he feel about it? It really is so important to have a will, so if nothing else good comes out of this thread, then hopefully it will have made at least one person get off their chuff and get their will made!

Ladybiscuit - how does the trust work in regard to the living parent having control over the assets while they are alive - cash funds, moving house etc?

I think we have the power to stop them selling off all their assets and giving them in cash to a new spouse but they can use as much as the need to live on and move to another house if they want etc. As far as I understand it, it's just basically ringfencing the estate of the dead partner for the children. It was quite complicated to set up (although I was in the room when the solicitor was explaining it)

The reason they did it was a) because of the friend I mentioned and b) because another friend of theirs had a stroke and her husband had an affair with another woman. After his wife died, he had a breakdown and was committed for a while but before that, he sold all their furniture and all his wife's jewellery and bought his mistress a house with the money His children are not best pleased and it has been awful to be honest. They aren't really bothered about the cash, just that it sullies their mother's memory

maryz - in your will you can 'ringfence' your share of your joint assets for your children (well you might be able to, but if they are jointly owned maybe not?!), it sounds like it would be a good idea to though!!, but your DH would still be free to distribute his half of your current assets as he pleases - which isn't what you were wanting to achieve was it For that you have to get him to agree to do what LadyBiscuits parents have done...

I don't like the way they do it in Brussels or that in the UK a will is contestable - I think that you should be able to leave it all to a cats home if you want to, it's YOUR money (so long as you are of sound mind when you make your will).

Maryz - you said 'What really got to me about this thread, which seems to have gone un-noticed by most people, is that the OP didn't feel any financial responsibility to the son, but felt that effectively his mother's assets should go to her daughter. Anyone see what I mean? ' - Noooooo it hasn't gone un-noticed. The OP doesn't have any financial responsibility to the Ex's DS & it wasn't the DS's Mothers Asset! It was half his mothers and half his fathers - he should get all of his mothers half and half of his fathers half, thus DS gets 75%, DD gets 25%.

I don't agree that 'it has gone un-noticed that the OP we have been ignoring the the OP doesn't have any responsibility for her Ex's son - she is not his Mother, her Ex is the Father of both children - that is the difference. The asset was not his Mothers, it was jointly his Mum & Dad's. I think the DS should get all of his Mothers half of the asset, but that his fathers half of the asset and all future assets should be split between the two children equally.

LB - it's tricky isn't it and very sad we even have to think about it like this

Maryz - I have a bit of 2x4 you can borrow, oh heck, you can have it

I think its quite sad that some people don't trust their dhs to make financial decisions in their own childrens interests if they were to die first. Not judging as clearly i don't know your circumstances and I mean sad as in upsetting you feel like this about someone you are in a relationship with rather than sad meaning stupid.

I can see some sense in setting up a trust that ensures your children get the money in the event of both of your deaths so that the situation that my dad found himself in does not occur, since I wouldn't necessarily expect a future wife of dh to have the best interests of my children at heart, although I would hope he is a good enough judge of character that it wouldn't be an issue. Dh and I need to sort our wills out so maybe this is something we will look into...