Divorcing to protect inheritance

[weightstrugglinmum]

Just as the title reads really, I'm wondering if anyone has divorced to protect their expected inheritance?

I'm thinking of this to protect myself and my young sons future as my in-laws financial situation is a poop show and when they pop their clogs it's going to be potentially very difficult to resolve and very costly. And I want nothing to do with that.

Whtf did you get married?

An inheritance is protected in a divorce, as long as it us kept apart from joint accounts etc. You should find out your rights before you make any decisions.

I think I’m in a similar situation as in I am set to inherit and my husband’s father (mother deceased) is a financial mess.

However, I trust my husband and we make decisions together. We are very much on the same team.

For example, my husband has helped his father out financially many times. This is technically my husband’s money he does this with, but we agree this is how to spend it beforehand.

I know my husband would always prioritise me and the children over his father and would never give away more than we can afford.

So I’m assuming you’re not in the same situation and you don’t trust your husband and maybe think divorce is on the cards one day anyway?

My understanding from the lawyer who wrote our wills is that it f I go first. I can specify my husband could use inheritance from me while he is alive but that it goes to our children once he dies ie he couldn’t leave it to a new wife.

But I guess it needs to be clear what the inheritance is separate from other money.

It’s easier to do with identifiable assets- eg a house, whereby you can leave him a lifetime interest after which time it passes to your children. However, if you own the house as joint tenants, which is likely if you’re married, he would automatically inherit the house because of the rules of survivorship. If you own as tenants in common, you could do the life interest thing. The downside of that is that it usually also prevents sale so it means your husband is stuck in that house until he dies if he can’t afford to give your dc their inheritance ( ie he can’t afford to sell, lose half the proceeds and buy something else). This is probably fine if you’re old when you die - he can downsize, but it’s problematic if you’re young when you die and the children are still at home/ dependent and there’s a reason he might want to move ( work, to be closer to family etc).

I don’t see how what the solicitor is proposing would work with something like cash because your husband could just spend all the inheritance and save his own salary to increase his financial flexibility.

I am in the process of doing this now.
Tbf, it’s not the reason for divorce, but my ex thinks that he is entitled to some of my parents’ money, and that if he doesn’t agree to the clean break etc then he will get some at some point in the future, because that’s only ‘fair’.

So he’s dragging his heels as much as possible and making things difficult for me. We’ve had to do mediation, which was a waste of time, and now I’m having to go down the legal route, just to get half of what’s mine (currently) and get the clean break order signed and divorce finalised.
its been a year so far, the court date is in 3 months time.
So I’d get things started now if I were you, it’s a lengthy process!

Also, I’ve not been advised at any point that inheritance isn’t a marital assest. So I wouldn’t be so sure about that tbh.

A well-drafted trust would permit the trustees to sell the house and then put the proceeds into a replacement house, that the spouse lives in. Cash held on trust gets invested and the income is paid to the surviving spouse but the underlying capital is preserved for the children after the spouse dies.
You're right about joint tenancy though.

A very different situation, but I almost got divorced for this. My (now) ex-wife was Indonesian, and never expected to get anything from her parents, so we had no prenup. Foreigners can't own land in Indonesia, and the courts took the view that even if property was in the Indonesian wife's name, the foreign husband had control. So you had to have a prenup saying that all such property would be completely in their control.

Anyway, my FIL ended up wanting to put in the will that she would get their house. Problem. The solution was to divorce, wait 90 days, sign a prenup, then remarry. Sounds simple.

But, you can't just get a divorce like that. We met with the family lawyer and discussed the options - adultery, no. Separation, no. At one stage it came up we didn't have kids. The lawyer's eyes lit up and she said "Ah - barrenness! Any court here will grant a divorce based on that'.

In the end we didn't need to. A group of Indonesians took a case all the way to the supreme court on the basis it was against sex equality in the constitution - Indonesian men who had foreign wives had no such issues with owning land without a prenup

What you're saying is true for millions of men also across the world; it's rare that both parties bring in the same money, time & effort. One side is always doing a little bit more than the other.

@40YearOldDad it might be true for millions of men in terms of the finances, but one thing is true, women have put their bodies through the brunt of childbearing, the majority of women deal with household chores and mental loads and some of them also work full time. Potteryclass1 earns more, as do I. And guess what, in our situations, men come away from such situations enriched and unsaddled, with resources with which to hook another unsuspecting woman whilst the majority of childcare is left to the mother.