Making a will

[Defaultuser]

Apologies if this is a really stupid question. I am married with one child (husband is child's father). I would plan to leave everything to my husband if I died. As it is my understanding that my husband would get everything if I died without a will (Scots law so son would be entitled to some if he challenged but that's fine however son is currently infant).

What are the advantages to making a will? No other children on either side. Thanks in advance!

In England anyway (and I am sure Scotland is similar), having a will just makes things more straight forward, less paperwork, particularly if the estate is valuable enough to mean probate applies or there are any other issues e.g. with non straight forward ownership of a property, which obviously makes things that bit easier at a very difficult time emotionally for your family. As you say, if you would want everything to go to the person who would be legally entitled to it anyway if you left no will, it doesn't actually change much else.

Other thing to think about is whether you want any money to be left specifically in provision for your DS and how that is to be managed (e.g. just your DH to look after it or do you want any other trustees), also (sorry horrible one) what would happen in the very unlikely event of you both passing away, e.g. in a car accident - have you named a guardian and sorted out financial support for that person to take care of him?

One small thing you could include in a will is any gifts or bequests you'd want made to people other than DH, e.g. any heirlooms to be saved for your DS, any jewellery or other items of sentimental value to go to family on your side. I'm sure your DH would respect your wishes anyway but he might not be aware of what items are what and I have been caught up in too many horrible family rows even from people you'd think would know better, along the lines of 'oh (deceased) always wanted Aunty Sue to have Mum's rings', 'no she didn't she told me I could have them' and so on, especially in the case of a sudden death which is just grim IMO. Also if you have any particular wishes re funeral or anything like that (e.g. religious ceremony, burial re cremation etc.) that can be useful to include as a letter of wishes - I know it's weird and horrible to think about these things but in all likelihood it need never be looked at again!

Hi, what about any smaller gifts? For example I have some jewellery from my late gps and it was shared between me and my sisters, if I die without children I would want that to go to be split between my sisters not to my spouse as it’s not their gps, I know you have a baby but there may be a few smaller sentimental items you wish to gift to others; my mum also has a clause that all her photos are to be shared between the children and her husband however if two people want the same ones they are to be copied at the estates expense. Also you can state your preferences for funeral arrangements in a will but tbh if you ensure your partner knows it’s fine cause if they’re going to ignore them they can easily ignore that page of the will too

If you write a will, your dh will take a specified percentage first (called prior rights
) before your son is entitled to anything. If you write a will your son will be entitled to one third of the moveables for the whole estate.

As for anything like funeral wishes or guardianship requests - you could put those in another document rather than a will if you didn’t want to make one. But up to you.

I would advise getting proper legal advice especially if large sums are involved.

Thank you for your replies. We really do need to decide what would happen if we both died, it's just so hard to decide/ask people as we've no immediate family who could take him on - all the more reason to put something in place I suppose!

If you both die, you leave everything in trust for your children (child) until they inherit at a specified age. 18, 21, 25? You leave your estate to each other in the first instance for inheritance tax purposes. It’s more efficient to take account of each person’s allowance.

I have a lot of jewellery that’s worth £££. I will be dividing that between my DDs before I pop off. It’s not going in my will. I have it valued and they will each get what they like to approximately the same value - however they both like the same ring so I might have to sell that one first!

Ah! I see you meant guardianship. I think friends should be your next step regarding your child. It’s very difficult if there are no relatives at all. No grandparents?

We have friends as DD's named Guardians.

I have two sisters and DP has 4 siblings but circumstances mean (siblings live abroad, have mental health issues or large families of their own we didn't want DD to be the youngest of) that we asked friends.

Dying without a Will doesn't mean the surviving partner gets everything. It can also be spread out to siblings and offspring. Make a will urgently

Are you sure Marie - where are you getting that from? In England, Wales and Scotland (not sure about NI), the surviving spouse and/or children of deceased automatically inherit if there is no will so far as I know (and gov.uk agrees). The estate would only go to parents or siblings if there was no surviving spouse or child. It's different in the case of unmarried partners or widow(er)s or divorcees of course but OP clearly states she has a husband in her first post.

But in general I agree, it's a good idea to make a will to make your wishes clear, just no need to panic dash to the solicitors!

@maxelly . The same Gov.uk site states only up to £250k. In addition it costs far more legally to sort the estate unless it is deminimus

Intestacy - who inherits if someone dies without a will?
The husband, wife or civil partner keeps all the assets (including property), up to £250,000, and all the personal possessions, whatever their value.
The remainder of the estate will be shared as follows:
• the husband, wife or civil partner gets an absolute interest in half of the remainder
• the other half is then divided equally between the surviving children
If a son or daughter (or other child where the deceased had a parental role) has already died, their children will inherit in their place.

DH and I are probably worth £800k all up.

We have 2 young adult DSs, no previous kids or marriages.

We want to have 'mirror Wills', but we are keen to avoid the situation of divorce/death of spouse then a remarriage, possibly to someone with their own DC- who then ends up inheriting the lot. This happened to my dad; his mum died when he was tragically young. His own dad remarried years later (when dad was an adult) to a woman with a DD.

He (my grandad) died, and there was apparently no Will so everything went to his second wife, then subsequently to her DD. My dad and his DB didn't see a penny of it.

SO we want to know if we can split the estate in two, for inheritance purposes, so if I go first, my 'half' will go to our DSs regardless of whether my DH remarries. This is tricky, I guess, because you want for your surviving spouse to go on living 'comfortably', but for only half of our estate (his half) to go to his second wife and/or kids upon his death, should he pre-decease her.

I would also like to state our DS's estates; to ensure that if our DSs marry, have kids- then one of them dies, his widow still gets the money; it doesn't all go to the surviving son.

Does that make sense? And, is this considered a 'straight forward' Will?

Hi Miljea, you might want to start your own thread as more people may then see/respond. I am not a solicitor - although what you are asking/suggesting doesn't sound unduly complicated it 100% seems worth it to me to seek proper advice and get your wills drawn up by a solicitor to make sure everything is properly written and watertight.

That being said, many people want to protect their property for their children in the event of a remarriage/divorce of their spouse after death. I think you can relatively easily do this by leaving your spouse a life interest only in your estate (or leave part of the estate to them absolutely and a life interest in the other part), meaning for instance that they can live in the house for the rest of their life, but that the money will eventually go to the children of the marriage (and not a future partner or stepchild) after their death. The only issue with this (1) it may restrict the financial freedom of the spouse e.g. to spend the capital inherited and/or equity in the property on living or care costs and (2) you may need to check the ownership of any jointly owned houses, if you own them as joint beneficial tenants currently I don't believe you can split them up after death in this way as the surviving partner automatically becomes the full owner of the house.

Re your sons, the good news is unless you take any action to prevent it, your estate will become absolutely theirs once they inherit it, and free to pass on as they wish. There is no question even if they themselves died without a will that their sibling would inherit their 'share' of your estate over a surviving wife, civil partner or child (the brother would only inherit the money if your DS deliberately made a will leaving his money this way in preference to his immediate family, or if he died intestate and had no surviving spouse or child). If your DSs wanted to however, they could choose to make a will leaving their money to their mate Dave or the donkey sanctuary or whatever, leaving their surviving partner, children or sibling with nothing, if they were so minded (there are legal provisions for dependants to claim support from an estate but v complicated and difficult to do). I assume you aren't too worried about this as presumably your DSs will be responsible sensible adults, but if you particularly wanted to 'protect' the money for the benefit of your unknown future DILs and grandchildren, you would have to leave the money 'in trust'. This would certainly be much more complicated and unusual so you would definitely need legal advice on how to do this - albeit I think you should see a solicitor anyway so no harm asking if you really want!

Remember you can revoke and make a new will at any time, so personally I wouldn't worry too much about trying to cover provision for when your DSs are grown adults with families and children of their own right now, I would just concentrate for now on wills which fully cover you for if either of you pass away while they are still children. As and when grandchildren arrive you can think about what specifically you might want to leave to them!

Thanks maxelly !

to ensure that if our DSs marry, have kids- then one of them dies, his widow still gets the money; it doesn't all go to the surviving son

I am guessing you mean that if one of your sons pre-deceases you, but have a widow and children still alive.

My parents wills, and ours, state that in this case, the children of the pre-deceased child will inherit - which is part of the laws of inheritance in England anyway (ie if you died without a will, the GC would get their fathers share).

Why would you wish the widow to have it, not the GC? She could re-marry and pass your money onto a new man, bypassing your GC. Surely stating that your GC get their dads share is the better option?

Sophie good point re the GC. Thanks.

As someone who has acted as executor for close and not so close family, the main reason to make a will is that it makes things a lot, and I mean a lot simpler for the people left behind.

Pretty much the first question asked is 'is there a will'. With a will, you Dan get on with the business of administering the 'estate'

Even if the final outcome is the same as without a will, you really owe it to whoever does you this final service, to make it as simple as you can.

Why would you not have a will ?