Protecting children's inheritance if Dh remarries.

[Rollmopsrule]

My Dh and I are drawing up out wills. I thought it would be straightforward and we leave everything to each other and then our dc inherit when the next person dies. Prompted by some of the posts on aibu I can see an issue can arise if one of us remarries and even more so when step children are involved. How do I make sure all assets go to our children if I die and Dh remarries and also the other way round? I've read abit about setting up a trust fund. Has anybody got experience of this? Dh just rolled his eyes at me and said its a hypothetical situation that will never happen but I'm not prepared to take the risk!

My parents had a contract where if one of them dies, the other one was allowed to live in the house until they died, but they weren’t allowed to sell it/rent it out in the meantime, it was to be left to the children. You can make similar arrangements for other assets/money

This is one of my worries too @Rollmopsrule

We have wills made, but can we put a separate clause in for this?

You’re right to not take the risk. My sister had 2 teen children and died without a will so everything went to her dh. He used the money to pay off the mortgage (fair enough) and frittered away much of the rest of it on a swanky car, holiday of a lifetime with the children, and stuff for himself. He remarried just over a year after she died(!!!) to a woman 20+ years his junior, has had 2 more children, had to remortgage the house and is now retired. My nieces have seen very little of their mother’s inheritance, had no help through Uni and see very little of their father. It’s all very very sad.

OP, I suggest you ensure that you have life insurance that will pay off the house and that half the house is left in trust for your children, to be sold when they are 18, the other half to your spouse. If you have a private pension that could go to your children or your spouse. There are many ways you could ringfence inheritance for your children.

There is a will writer on her mumblechum - Marlowe wills I think
I would highly recommend getting in touch and asking her for some advice and doing your wills
You can separate the tennancy of the house so that your half is left to your children - same for your husband
But there is a lifetime trust so that who ever is left can live in the house till they die
You can also still move house - downsize
But it means that if your husband remarried your half of the house will always go to your children and not a new wife and kids
Plus it protects it from care home fees
So if you died your half belongs to your kids
If your husband needed care home fees it will only be assessed on his half of the house as he only owns his half so your kids will still get their half
I think it cost around £350 -£400 to do this

You can put half of your house in a trust so it can be ring fenced for the children. I'm sure the will maker will explain it better than that. I believe you can sell it but their half will always be exempt from living spouses assets so can't be inherited by new spouse/step children.
That's not explained well - but it can be done.

The way DP and I have dealt with this is by being tenants in common on our property so that we each own our share and this, plus our personal assets, are our estate. My son is my beneficiary so if I die he will own my part of the house. But we also have a clause in our wills that says that the other partner is allowed to remain in the house for the remainder of their life, or until they re-marry or wish to move. We also have life insurance policies payable to the other partner which more than cover the mortgage.

However, if your estate is very valuable IHT would be payable which may cause difficulties; although HMRC will allow IHT to be paid in instalments of up to 10 years I understand.

@Rollmopsrule

My Dh and I are drawing up out wills. I thought it would be straightforward and we leave everything to each other and then our dc inherit when the next person dies. Prompted by some of the posts on aibu I can see an issue can arise if one of us remarries and even more so when step children are involved. How do I make sure all assets go to our children if I die and Dh remarries and also the other way round? I've read abit about setting up a trust fund. Has anybody got experience of this? Dh just rolled his eyes at me and said its a hypothetical situation that will never happen but I'm not prepared to take the risk!

You are correct to think about this issue Op. My friend’s dm died and left everything to her husband..The expectation was that when he died everything would go to my friend and her siblings. Well, my friend’s father decided to remarry at the age of eighty to a woman in her early sixties. When he died, it was discovered that he left every penny to his second wife ( he’d only been married for three years when he died). The second wife is now living in the family home ( house now worth one million plus) with her daughter from her first marriage. My friend was upset because she knew that her mother would have been devastated to find out that her own children had not benefited from the will. Hypothetical situations can become a reality Protect your dcs interest by getting legal advice Op.

Yes- go the tenants in common route

Would you not trust your DH to make sure it goes to your DC when he dies? When my dad died everything was left to my mum, she is remarried but both her and my stepdad have made their wills so that my mums money is left to me and my sister and his is left to his children.
Also from a purely practical point of view if DH died I would need his half of things to bring up our children and for my own future, even if they were grown up then for me to only have half of the house DH and I bought together would have a serious impact on my future and retirement. I also wouldn’t want that for DH especially the earlier suggestion about the house having to be sold when the children are 18 so your DH would have to move out of his home and find somewhere for half the cost.

I don't care what happens to "my money" after I die. My kids have been left a bit from my mum, I'm hoping they'll be capable enough to support themselves. Inheritance is a bonus, in my opinion, not something you are due. People tie themselves up in knots so much about it. As for protecting it from getting eaten up in care home fees, i.e. expecting other people's taxes to pay for your care so your kids can have some free money, that seems really distasteful to me.

And just the idea of hobbling your husband so that your kids can inherit, just seems back to front. Either he will still be looking after them, or they will be independent and have years ahead of them to make their own way.

You will be dead, you won't care. If you bring up your children to know it's not "their" money, then they won't be disappointed if they don't get 100% of "your" money.

Even if you do the tennants in common you can still move house - downsize using the full amount that the house is worth
It just means that your children will get something and not a new wife and her children
If your unsure about doing it then google Linda Bellingham ( the lady from the oxo adverts )
She was considerably wealthy with several properties and cash
When she died it went to her husband of a few years and not her two children
He then didn’t give anything to her two boys and no longer speaks to them and he has the lot
I also think he’s may have remarried as well .

Tenants in common makes the whole process much easier.
We've had clauses put in that protects 50% of the children's inheritance should a surviving partner remarry. They can carry on livings if they were the full beneficiary up until the point they sell the house (our only asset).

I don't expect either of us would ever do anything to need that clause to be activated but it's there just in case.

Our wills mirror each other's except for choice of executors and trustees (not needed now kids are all over 18).

@TheSmallAssassin

And just the idea of hobbling your husband so that your kids can inherit, just seems back to front. Either he will still be looking after them, or they will be independent and have years ahead of them to make their own way.

You will be dead, you won't care. If you bring up your children to know it's not "their" money, then they won't be disappointed if they don't get 100% of "your" money.

But they're not just 'my' kids, they're his kids too! Both he and i have agreed that if either of us remarries DS will eventually inherit the whole of our estate. In a trust if necessary.
Any second wife or husband would have to be aware of this and necessary wills would be made upon any subsequent marriage. We were forcibly made aware of this when a friend, whose DM remarried after her DF died, (friend was already an adult) inherited the whole of her stepfather's estate -- he died before her Mum and left everything to her, while the children of the stepfather (a widower) received nothing. Friend saw nothing wrong in this.

Divorce invalidates any existing wills, so you can't anticipate this in advance. Of you got divorced you'd need new wills anyway.

TheSmallAssassin I grew up with nothing and both my DH and I have worked hard to build a life for ourselves and ensure our kids will benefit. I want to make sure this happens when I die so does my Dh. We are not trying to screw each other over and I do trust my Dh but I'm being realistic and thinking ahead. One of my Dc also has a long term health condition that could impact his life greatly when he's older. I want to make sure they will be ok. That ok with you??

Thanks for all the helpful answers. My Dh and I were going to use one of those straightforward online will formats but I can see that I'm going to need some professional legal help so will go down that route.

I had this situation - when we divorced we had mirror wills leaving estate (ha) to our 2 daughters. However once he remarried he made a new will (which is recommended) and I asked for the 20% he still owns of the family home to be willed to our daughters as before. He wouldn't let me see the clause written in so I asked DD1 to confirm with him and let her have sight of it. I don't think she did as she didn't want to be drawn into our discussion even though it was for her benefit.

In other words I don't know of any way you can be assured your DC will inherit anything OP.

Contact IMumblexhum at Marlow Wills who hangs out on here. She is an online will writer I believe who should be able to help you.

If you pass half house on to your DCs and, say a DC divorces and the leaving spouse wants their share of the half of house - what happens?

Yes its really more complex than I thought and who knows what different paths all our lifes may take. Lots of food for thought.

I currently sort-of-own a twelfth of my dad's house, and have done since 1995. (Don't think it would affect benefits though... not sure how it works but it definitely does.)

His care needs are going to impact on his half of the house soon (18.5k a year, and that's in-home carers). If my mother had left everything to him it would impact on the whole lot: as it is, half the house is not part of his assets.

Like others on here,we changed house ownership to tenants in common with a simple trust in place.
My father got nothing,and I mean nothing,when his mother died having been widowed and remarried only a few years before dying prematurely. No will or any other arrangement. Her new husband got the lot and wouldn't budge and my dad was only in his early twenties and didn't have much support.
I grew up with this story and wouldn't leave anything to chance if I could improve the prospect of my own children inheriting from me,rather than it going to a stranger.

Do it via a solicitor who knows what they're doing though. Not online. And do power of attorney as well!

Thanks campion I will do exactly that. As much as my Dh is trustworthy and a fantastic Dad he is extremely laid back and likes to go along with things for an easy life. Luckily I'm not the manipulative type Your Dad's story is my fear.

Yes Rollmopsrule my Dh is the same but he saw my pov when I spelled it out