Making a will

[daimbardiva]

We need to make our will and I have a question regarding what nominating someone as our children's guardian in the event of our deaths actually means.

Does it mean simply that you want that person to be responsible for your children i.e. they would live with them, or are you nominating them to decide what would be best for them?

I ask because we basically want to say that we trust our parents and siblings to decide what would be best for our children at that time rather than saying we want the children to live with specific family members.

I hope that makes sense!

It's up to you, tbh. I'm a will writer, and most of my clients appoint someone they'd be happy for their child to be brought up by, but sometimes they'll appoint several people and express the wish that they decide between themselves what would be in the children's best interests.

This happens quite a lot where, for example, one potential Guardian lives overseas.

If you would like any further info, I have a paid for advert over on Classified (Small Businesses) titled "5* Will Writing Business Recommended by Mumsnetters")

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Thanks MOS xx

We appointed a guardian, SIL, but made it clear to her that we did not necessarily mean for our children to live with her, but that she would have to decide who within the family it would be best to live with. We were worried otherwise that if you leave it to too many people to make a decision they may not agree. At the moment it would be best for ds to live with my parents but when they are older it might be best for them to go to SIL, but my parents might not accept that.

The thing to remember also is that the chances of both of a child's parents dying before they're 18 are really very very tiny, so whilst of course it's important to appoint a guardian, it's better to have "good enough" arrangements and do a will than to keep putting off doing a will at all because you don't have the perfect Guardian, esp. if you're unmarried as the other person has no automatic right to inherit.

I'm as guilty as the next person, we procrastinated about Guardians for such a long time ds was almost grown up before we did our wills!

Thank you all, very helpful. Mumblechum- we're in Scotland, can you recommend anyone up here, as I think fromyour site you only do England and Wales??

Hi, yes, I only cover England and Wales. Your best bet would be to go on the Scottish Institute of Professional Will Writers (I'm in the English one) to find someone local to you.

Cheers. This is why I love Mumsnet. There is always an answer :)