Help please - impending marriage ?

[Ghekogiddy]

Hi all

I will try to summarise the situation.

I own my house and have one daughter. OH recently moved in, he has one son who lives with his own mum. We are going to get married next year.

OH has never contributed anything to the house and does not have lump sums to do so. I want to protect the house for my daughter incase anything happens to me (otherwise she would be turfed out to her dads and everything would go to OH and his son basically). Now my daughter's interests have to come first since i bought the house and there is not a lot left on the mortgage.

It would be different if we bought somewhere together but again he has no savings as such to contribute to a deposit - this would all come from me.

So my question is what kind of agreement can we can set up (he is completely agreeable with this and says he would be the same. I have a will just now but obviously if we marry this would be different.

Why would it be different? Why can't you just leave the house to your daughter in your will?

I thought if you married then your other half would automatically get half of all your assets?

Where are you? If in the UK, I think you have a right to leave your assets to whoever you want.

If you are married, any assets you have earned while married are owned in common afaik, and so on your death only the assets that you own would be allocated as per your will, but I don't think that applies to assets you brought into the marriage, does it?

Should add that I am not a solicitor though, just trying to remember from what I learned when making our wills.

I am in Scotland. Don't mean to sound heartless lol but i need to protect my daughter's future. Just wondered what sort of agreement before i contact solicitor.

Ok. I'm an English solicitor, so what I have to say is tempered with a warning that the law might be different up where you are.
You aren't free in E&W to leave your home to who you want to. We have the Inheritance(PFAD) Act which would give your DH the right to apply for reasonable financial provision on your death. There may be something similar in Scotland.
I don't know how Scots law treats pre-nuptial agreements, but it's worth thinking about one of these too. You need to protect your assets on death and divorce too.
Are there any Scottish family lawyers on his forum? You may be best off booking in to see someone officially.

In Scotland you can leave your property in your will to whoever you want. If you don't leave a will a surviving spouse would automatically get any property up to the value of £300,000. Your moveable estate (money, shares, cars, furniture and jewellery) is different and a spouse could claim 1/3 of this. Probably best to get professional advice.

in E&W you can leave your estate to whoever you wish in your will, but there is a group of people who can apply to the court for 'reasonable provision'. These people include spouses, shildren, ex spouses, and those financially dependent at the date of death. In that sense therefore you're not absolutely free to decide for yourself where your estate goes to.

So the OP will have to consider, when making her will, any scottish equivalent of the inheritance act. To fail to consider this, and take proper advice over this, might well cause trouble after death.

Agree with Resolution. Surely there must be a scottish version of I (PFAD) Act?

Maybe not:

www.heraldscotland.com/changes-to-inheritance-law-1.863408

Good old google. Any further information sought, the OP needs to seek advice from a solicitor.