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!

@Rollmopsrule

I've just updated my will now we have children.
Mine states that the house would go to DH (we have a tenancy in common mortgage). Then we have 3 kids and my financial assets are split 4 ways including DH

You need to ensure you leave him enough so that he can't contest the will on the basis of "reasonable provision" - I worked out what my pension, death in service, share of house and life insurance woks pay out and went from there

We're tenants in common. My half of the house is left to my children, but DH has lifetime right of abode. I have two life insurance policies. One joint with DH which he gets and one that I've left a third to DH and a third each to DC's.

Some very strange advice on here about the impact of divorce on a will

In the Uk, the situation is set out here

https://www.thegazette.co.uk/all-notices/content/103393

Another vote for taking to @Mumblechum0

https://www.marlowwills.co.uk

We had a really helpful conversation by phone to agree what results we wanted from our wills. We covered a few scenarios we had not even thought of (even with MN)

We saw drafts and then the final wills followed for us to sign. All good.

Great advice on here.

My friend's DH wasn't overly wealthy when they met, but then inherited quite a bit of land and house in the home counties. He spent a lot of time with the family and was a great dad.

They are now divorced and the new girlfriend has moved in, along with the rest of her family, and he hardly sees his children. Can't really blame Covid entirely as he didn't see much of them before the pandemic.

He is now talking about selling the land and house as his children wouldn't be able to afford the death duties, but also that he wants to downsize. It's fair enough, but it's been the family home.

I do hope mumblechums gets a healthy bonus for all the works MN brings in

Another one here who has made similar arrangements. I was the sole owner of my home before marrying DH, who doesn't have his own home. It is willed to my children in trust, he has a lifetime right to remain. The estate is worth £200k and the will with occupation clause cost £400. I couldn't afford not to do it for them.

Thanks for all the recommendations 💐 to www.marlowwills.co.uk. We aren’t really an online company, usually I see lots of clients face to face in the S Bucks area, but obviously everything is over Zoom at the moment.

Life Interest Trusts are becoming increasingly popular, not just for step families but for anyone who is concerned that their spouse would simply forget to make a new will if they remarry.

Just to confirm someone’s query about divorce; the appointment of a spouse as an executor or beneficiary is automatically revoked on decree absolute, but the rest of the Will stands.

Death duties? It’s inheritance tax. Beneficiaries don’t pay it if it’s due. The estate of the deceased does.

So many people don’t trust their DH’s on here. We just leave everything to each other. We are giving away as much as possibly 7 years before we die. So DDs get it early when they are more likely to need it. If anyone marries my DH after I die - good luck. They might need some money as compensation.

DMIL was worried about this with FIL, that he'd meet a fancy woman if MIL went first and not see the boys right- "He's a silly old bugger", she said, when DH asked about this plan. And very laid back! Loved his kids to bits but was very keen for an easy life.

In the end they did mirror wills leaving all their funds to one another, but willing their respective half of their house to DH and his brother. That meant the surviving spouse would have plenty of liquid assists and also still half of the family home.

Sadly we lost DFIL last year so theoretically DH owns 1/4 of his parents' home.

@PresentingPercy

Death duties? It’s inheritance tax. Beneficiaries don’t pay it if it’s due. The estate of the deceased does.

So many people don’t trust their DH’s on here. We just leave everything to each other. We are giving away as much as possibly 7 years before we die. So DDs get it early when they are more likely to need it. If anyone marries my DH after I die - good luck. They might need some money as compensation.

The issue is not necessarily about me whether one trusts their dh. The reality is that even the most wonderful husband /father can find themselves in circumstances and do things ( unwittingly) which may have a negative impact on their own children I have seen it happen so many yomes.

It really isn't about trust. You can be the most trustworthy person in the world today, but a head injury or early dementia can lead to a completely involuntary change in personality.

Dead people and the relationships they had have very little influence compared with the living.

I agree it isn't about trust

It's so easily done....you leave everything to DH and assume he will look after your kids in his will....then he marries someone else and forgets that he hasn't updated his will and wham...suddenly his new wife gets everything and your kids nothing???

When DH and I first did our wills in our 20s I actually received a call from the wills company privately afterwards advising me to protect my assets as I have the largest share

Dh and I have mirror wills, everything we have go to each other if we die. But I'm not sure if there's anything there to check what happens after that. What would it say if anything I leave goes to dh then to the dcs? Dh thinks I'm a worrier and won't discuss putting something in place to ensure the kids do ok if one if us ever remarried.so I'm finding it awkward to discuss.

@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.

It's one thing the children not getting any inheritance because the remaining spouse has spent it all or its gone on care fees, it would be quite another to see a second wife and/or family getting the full benefit of your deceased parents estate. Someone your mum or dad had never even met....Can you not see the difference?

I'm finding it awkward to discuss.

As a general principle, if something is awkward to discuss with someone, there will be a reason. Maybe society considers it taboo, or there is something they know and think it is to their advantage for you not to know.

It would make a lot of sense to find out more and work out for yourself what that might be.

Then you can decide what you want to do.

If you are the single beneficiary and the surviving party, you can do a variation to make the will say whatever you like. This is particularly useful for tax advantages.

You mostly need to be sure that what happens to your estate if you go ahead is what you want. For example, if any beneficiary is a minor, they cannot give consent to changing a will, so that will cannot be changed. However, people do tend to do mirror wills, if you want that change to your will, he is likely to want it for his, too.

This is a really useful nudge. We have only recently redone our wills but we have had the exact scenario mentioned in the OP happen in previous generations, on both sides of the family.

We are giving away as much as possibly 7 years before we die.

Could I borrow your crystal ball, @PresentingPercy? 😂

Ha! When DC inherit half a house in trust, who pays the mortgage and who pays for maintenance?

My DH is 68 in the summer. He has had a lifetime of Porches and holidays and houses. We are giving away money every so often. We do have a lot of assets though. I don’t intend our estate to pay a huge bill for inheritance tax. If DDs need money now, we can facilitate that - and have.

After watching awful family disagreements and falling outs over so called money owed in an inheritence, my husband and I had a serious chat and made our wills . We have been married over 25 years with children from separate marriages. We have decided to leave everything to the surviving spouse - I have told my husband if he wants to spend it all on high living and women - that is totally his decision. And same with me. Our children are grown up, earn more than we do anyway with great lives, if they get anything it should be a bonus (we have spoken to them all about it). Of course we will give them whatever we have as they need it - we are happy to give them our last penny to be honest! But after talking at length, our money has to help the remaining spouse first and yes if that's care home fees - of course! Why should the state pay and our children have the burden?? Our children have been great about the decision and say they just want us both to have happy and secure lives....

colderandeatsmincepiesalot
Would you be happy for your DH's new wife to inherit everything, including the house,and your children get nothing because provision wasn't made for that scenario?

That was the point that the OP was making,not care home fees for the surviving parent.

@campion

colderandeatsmincepiesalot Would you be happy for your DH's new wife to inherit everything, including the house,and your children get nothing because provision wasn't made for that scenario?

That was the point that the OP was making,not care home fees for the surviving parent.

Exactly, and it may not even be just your own 'family' assets you'd be protecting, but those stretching back into other generations. Here in Ireland where there are still lots of family farms, it could be that:

-John marries Mary, they have children, he works on and is passed or inherits family farm.

• John dies young, Mary inherits everything.
• Mary re-marries, John's family farm is now 50% owned by a total stranger who has never had anything to do with the farm and who will inherit everything if Mary dies.

-John and Marys children could end up not having access to their own family farm which has been in their family for generations. In fact if their mum dies before their step-dad, he and ultimately his biological children (if he had some from a previous marriage) could end up with everything.

This is exactly why people need legal advice and legal agreements to prevent these kind of scenarios.

This happened to my aunt.when she died unexpectedly,her estate was left to her second DH ( with the understanding that he would change his will to ensure her two DCs would get their share.) He then changed his will and left it all to his own son and my cousins didn't get a penny. Horrid nasty little man. Particularly awful as when they had got married,she was the one with the money- owned her house outright- good job etc whereas her DH was out of work and came in with very little. After the DH died his son said he would sort it out but he never did- like father like son...

So many people don’t trust their DH’s on here.

It's got nothing to do with trust. It's about having the legal backing should it become necessary not an assumption that it will happen.

@Gatehouse77

So many people don’t trust their DH’s on here.

It's got nothing to do with trust. It's about having the legal backing should it become necessary not an assumption that it will happen.

One of my life mottos is 'trust but verify'....you simply have no way of knowing what strange turns life can take, how people at a vulnerable time can make terrible decisions, or how manipulative some people can be. That's not even taking into account the fact that someone could go into cognitive decline...my father had a psychistric episode a few years ago and would have been capable of doing something completely out of character. I think it remarkably naive to just trust your spouse 100% to do the 'right thing', in the possible decades after you die. Look how many women on these forums are completely blind-sided by their husbands infidelity. And these are living, breathing wives! To expect fidelity to what you might have intended when you're long since dead is naive