Writing a will - confused!

[Dayatatime208]

Hello
I own the house my partner and I live in. It was bought with inheritance from my mum. He's lived here for a few years now, and we've been together five. No kids, and no plans to marry at the moment.
I need to make a will and want to ensure he can continue living in the house if I get hit by a bus tomorrow. A solicitor mentioned a trust, but I find this really confusing. I basically want him to have the house, but also I feel a bit uncomfortable about the money in this passing to his family or another spouse of his if he passed away shortly after or something. Then again, I don't want to complicate things for him. I just want him to have the house!
Can I leave most of the house to my nieces, but some to my nieces, and he can still sell the house if he wishes, or continue to live in it?
Thanks

I think the suggestion with a trust is that you leave the house to whoever you want to but subject to him having a 'life interest'; ie a right to occupy during his lifetime.

Properly sorted such a trust would spell out his responsibility, eg to keep the place in good fettle. Probably a power to sell and move him to another property if needs be eg a bungalow if he were old and infirm.

Complex stuff and proper advice, the sort you pay for, probably needed.

Agree with the previous poster that the solicitor would almost certainly have been referring to a life interest trust. That would give your partner the right to continue living there with it then going to your relatives when he dies. If he wants to move, he would be able to sell the property and use the proceeds to buy another, but your relatives would still inherit when he dies. That is the best way to ensure that he can continue to live in the house with your nieces inheriting when he dies.

This is bread and butter to a good STEP solicitor, OP.

This is what my Mum did - her will left everything to me BUT her partner has the right to live in the house as long as he likes, provided he maintains and insures it AND he is not married, cohabiting, actually living elsewhere (e.g. nursing home) or dead.

I do trust and like him, but we actually go halves on the house insurance and I am named on it - unlikely as it is that the place will burn down with him perishing in the conflagration.

If you can, along with the will, you could get the solicitor to provide a summary of what your nieces need to know if you die first. Because that will depend on the details of the wording. My mother's will gave a lifetime right of residence. A life interest, which might allow your partner to sell it and buy somewhere else, or rent it out and use the rent for his benefit, would be worded differently, for example.

The solicitor will be good at covering eventualities - for example, in my Mum's case, I suspect the "no cohabitation or marriage" worked a) to protect her partner from ladies keen more for a roof over their heads and b) to avoid me turning up after his death to find a little old lady living there with nowhere else to go...