Inheritance when you have step-children

[MrsKeats]

Just curious what provision people make when sorting out their wills,
Me and dh have two children each from previous marriages and none together as we got together later in life,
We own our house and put equal amounts in.
Do we say that whoever dies first the remaining person stays on in the house until they need care etc? Then we spilt the house between the children. Or is there something else we should be doing?
We have an appointment with a solicitor booked but wanted to go in with some ideas.

I have no idea about legalities, but DH has a similar situation and these are my concerns:

• If one partner dies first, could they change the will to exclude the other partners children? If so- how can the will be written such that the children still get an inheritance- despite the partner still being alive? Presumably this is a set amount within the will, but something I'd want to ask and ensure was written in there.

You can ring fence yes. You can do a lifetime interest so the living partner can stay there as long as they need but once they die (or decide to leave / sell up) then the inheritance will be passed on.

Obviously this all needs to be explored and drawn up with an appropriate solicitor. But there are ways to do it.

If you don’t then absolutely yes the person who outlives the other can do whatever they wish with the asset, spend it, sell it, give it away or rewrite their will to exclude original beneficiaries.

It happens! Best to be honest and practical and have it all agreed and drawn up.

I am leaving my money to my bio kids, DH can leave his share as he sees fit. My SC have a mum and family on her side to inherit from, so my assets (or my share I should say) will go only to my own children.

in your case I’d just have it agreed at 50/50 split with proper legalities in place to ring fence appropriately

We have 3 together and dh has a dd from a previous relationship. Ours will go to the surviving spouse then split 4 ways on the death of the second spouse. Dh trusts me to do the right thing by dsd.

You need to make sure that you own the property as tenants in common (as opposed to joint tenants), that way you can leave your half to your children, and he can leave his half to his children - you can then ensure that both of you have a life interest to live there in the event that the other dies.

Don’t take the risk of your partner being honourable, what if you die, your partner remarries, dies, then their partner leaves everything to their children?

Get proper legal advice, on here the recommendation is usually Mumblechum, aka Marlow Wills, she did ones for my husband and I, and is highly professional (and is very reasonably priced) she also sorted out Powers of Attorney, which you probably will need.

We are similar. Our wills say lifetime interest for remaining spouse then 50% to my DC and 50% to his. I have one DC, he has 2 who will share his half.

Brilliant thanks everyone.
Have some ideas now for when we see the solicitor this week.