Your Will: Can you prevent your DH's possible new partner from screwing over your own DC?

[Tansie]

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Can you, and if so how would you word a Will to ensure, assuming you and your DH are 'equal' (i.e no prenups or imbalance of wealth), that should he remarry after your death, that your 'half' of the Estate will go to your own DC, not to her DC from her previous relationships if your DH pre-deceases her and does not leave his own Will specifying that?

Can you tell this has just happened in my family?!

No, you can't do anything as far as I know - it is up to the ex-DH to have made a will.

Erm you can If your half goes in trust for kids- but has legal and inheritance tax consequences so need advice to draft.

Give your estate (or as much as you want to preserve for the kids) to your H for life, and on his death to the kids (as Gigondas says). Three potential taxable events - the assets going in to the trust, 10 year charges to tax, and death of H.

I think. Only a divorce/family lawyer, so take with a pinch of salt.

We did this recently. We had to change our deeds with the land registry to show we both owned 50% as opposed to owning 100% jointly and then we were able to state that if, for example, DH were to die then his 50% (or equivalent value if I sold up) remained in trust until he's 21 and it was completely safe and away from anyone else.

Any decent solicitor will ask you if you want a deed of trust put in to protect DCs interests.

Am I right in thinking that a Deed of Trust would only work if we changed from joint tenants to tenants in common?

It's one of those 'difficult' things, really. I mean, DH and I are happily married and well so it would seem rather pessimistic to be going to the trouble and expense to do that tenancy thing, and is sort of saying 'I don't trust you, if I die, to do the right thing by our DCs' isn't it?

We all think we'd 'do the right thing' but the promise of lurv after loss and loneliness can turn people's heads so they'd do whatever it took to keep a new partner happy, ime!

You need mumblechum Mnets resident wills expert. She has an advert in small businesses/classified and charges significantly less than a High Street firm of solicitors would charge and is highy recommended by many Mners

yes there are ways to do it - posters above cover most of it - but you'd need to make sure your solicitor drew up a watertight will for you.

I did exactly this with my will - as Collaborate says above you specify that your OH has a lifetime interest in your house or whatever and then everything is left in trust to your children. It was pretty straightforward to do this - I think I did it through the wills firm that the Children's Mutual work with and they were really helpful - explained all options on the phone etc. ! I also put together really sensible executors for my will too and spoke to all of them about what was in the will so they would understand the thinking behind it/what the life assurance should be spent on etc. Having said all that I mainly did this because OH is financially incompetent so wanted to protect everything. Because of that I also took out quite big life assurance policies at the same time to cover education etc if anything happens to be while DCs are young.

for the plug MOS!

OP, as others have mentioned, you can put your share of the house into a life interest trust, which means that after your husband dies or remarries, the children receive their share, or alternatively you could think about a right to reside trust, where you specify a time period after which the house again is sold to release your half to your children.

These trusts only work if you have severed the joint tenancy so that the property is held as tenants in common.

There may be tax implications, depending on the value of your estate, but they may be outweighed by the peace of mind factor.

If you're interested, I have, as MOS mentioned, an advert over on the Classified (Small Business) section of Mumsnet with a link to my website and testimonials.