Updating your will when you have teenagers - what have you done

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DP & I need to update our wills. It was easy when our children were little, if anything happened to both of us, all the money & the children went to my sister.
Now they are older (13 & 18) it's more difficult. We would want to leave the money to our children, but obviously whoever has my youngest, would need access to money whilst bringing them up.

Also I obviously would not want my eldest having access to lots of money whilst devastated at losing his parents, so would want the money in some sort of trust.
We will be arranging to visit a solicitors, but I thought I would ask on here what other people have done, so we have more idea what we want to do (and don't spend hours in the solicitors, racking up a huge bill).

Renewed our will a few years ago when. DD was 18 and DS was 15.

Put her as guardian and the money to be split between them

I don't think my DS would be mature enough to look after my DD, for the next 3 or 4 years anyway. Plus I don't think it would be fair to put the responsibility on him, as he is away from home at uni.

Our was to put the money in trust until the DC were 21, until then we thought they'd need family support. 1 is past that now the other is 17 and no chance of surviving on his own. My sisters would guardians.

Do you have a work place pension? If so, check that, your minor children maybe entitled to a children's pension if one or both of you die, that could go to whomever it is that looks after them by way of up keep allowing you to put the capital in trust for later. You would probably need to send an expression of wish for to the pension trustees to ensure this is implemented the way you wish.

We have willed a trust to manage the money until DC are 25. My sister would be guardian while they are minors and she can apply to the trust for money. Trustees are two grandparents and two backups if they have died. We paid a lawyer to draw up the will.

thanks for the info, it's really useful to get ideas from other people. I like the idea of the works pension going to whoever looks after my youngest. The idea of a trust is a good one as well.

I don't think my DS would be mature enough to look after my DD

In my situation it would be DD looking after DS. I did talk it them about it all. They wanted to stay together

I've no connection other than being a satisfied customer, so I'll plug Mumblechum!on here.
She runs Marlow Wills.
I have one primary aged child and the whole of my estate will go to them, but held in trust by my sister until a certain age.
Mumblechum is very clear and quick, helpful and reasonably priced!

One thing I became aware of through reading MN is that irrespective of wills, if a parent dies, there is a legal responsibility for the deceased estate to provide for dependants - that is, DCs under 18.

DH and I have taken out life insurance policies in trust to our DCs to cover this eventuality - otherwise, I may have faced the situation in which if DH dies, even though he has willed me a life interest in his house, his exW could have contested the will in order to secure monies to support his DS until he was 18. And if I died without life insurance to support my DD, her Dad could contest my will if I leave anything to DH.

The most common this to do is to leave the money between your children on trust until they reach a specified age (often 25). The trusts in the will are normally drafted so as to enable the trustees to pay money to the children (or for the children's benefit) earlier if they need to. This would include any money the guardian's needed towards looking after the children and things like making sure they had enough money for university etc.