Not married to OH. What happens if he dies?

[Adviceneededpleaseee]

Hi all.

Looking for some hypothetical advice. Me and DP are engaged and have one DC and another on the way. We got engaged before Covid and then the wedding went on the back burner due to me having a baby and then getting pregnant again. We do plan on marrying once this baby is born.

I am not on the mortgage. Our house is owned solely by DH. I am the sole beneficiary of his life insurance policy which will pay off the house plus leave £1M+.

Neither of us has a will at the moment. Fully aware we need to get this done ASAP.

If DH was to die tomorrow - who would get what (the house, the life insurance and DHs assets)? His mum and also a brother are still alive if this makes any difference.

Please no posts telling me how important is that we get married and make a will, we are both fully aware how important this is (we just need to get round to it!).

thank you!

It's not though.

If in the hospital MIL lies and says "she's his ex girlfriend." What can you do?

Imagine if your actual ex turned up, trying to rearrange your funeral. How the fuck are doctors supposed to know if he's crazy or if your mum is crazy? They will go by who has a legal relationship. I.e. his mother.

Grief often makes people irrational so the above scenarios are not far fetched at all.

The chances of anything happening to him are very small BUT if he did die the ramifications of not being married will be awful, slow to unwind and will come at a time you are already devastated.

Any bank accounts solely in his name will be frozen. So how will the mortgage get paid while everything gets sorted out?

If he has no will the kids will inherit the house and all his other assets. I assume the life insurance will pay out to you if you are named but they may not be obliged to.

As someone else said you currently have no legal relationship to him. His kids will be asset rich with a house and you will have to work out how to look after it, sell it if you need or want to etc while they are minors.

If he makes a will and leaves you assets worth more than £325k his estate will pay 40% inheritance tax on anything above that. If you are married you can inherit the lot with no inheritance tax payable.

Get wills or get married or both.

Just go to the registry office now? DH and I got married when I was 35 weeks pregnant with our first.

If you really want to wait for a marriage you could get a civil partnership now and arrange the marriage later.

Your legal rights will be the same under both but if your concern is the organising of the marriage you could do it this way.

Get wills in place as a bare minimum.

Get your name added to the deeds of the house. This is more important than being added to the mortgage as it will help protect a share of the ownership for you in a way that the mortgage doesn't.

Get married now to underpin all of this and to have good legal protection in place. It is also very advantageous in terms of inheritance tax, as your two thresholds can be added together, I believe.

Why wait to get married? Just go to the registry office and arrange it. You can plan a big party at a later date if that is important to you.

Also, get proper legal advice. Mumsnet is not the place for that.

Go to WH Smith, buy a Will writing kit, write it out, then someone to witness your signatures. Done. This is sorted for now, but I would strongly advise speaking to a solicitor in future, when you have more time, after baby is born to write up a more detailed Will, including guardian requests for DC etc etc.

if no Will then the government can try to take a large chunk of the estate.

Even if OP and her P write and have witnessed wills today, it'll do nothing to protect her against the risk of homelessness if her relationship ends, which is much more likely than her partner dying, in the short term.

We got the will writing lady often recommended on here to do our will via Zoom.

Quick, painless, pragmatic.

Definitely secure your rights. My dad left my mum in a precarious position by dying intestate. Still sorting out issues now.

Get married asap - you can have the big wedding another time. GET. MARRIED.

IANAL

I would also be concerned what happens if your OH dies before the baby is born. It may be that the living child inherits but the unborn one doesn't...

Also OP he can easily change the beneficiary of his life insurance. You are in a VERY vulnerable position. Stop messing about, get on the mortgage and get married.

The change to allow unmarried couples to claim bereavement benefits was backdated, and people affected have until January to claim. Check now if you're owed money! https://www.gov.uk/bereavement-support-payment/eligibility

You would be worse off if he just left you rather than died

Inheritance without a will goes to the spouse first, if no spouse any children, if no children, parents, if they’ve died it goes to sibilings, if there are no siblings it goes down the family line - aka parents siblings or their children if they have also died.

if your oh is unmarried with no children, parents who have both died, but 2 siblings, they would inherit 50% each. If one of the siblings is also deceased but leaves 2 surviving children, each of them would inherit 50% of their parents 50% share (25% each) - hope that makes sense.

what I don’t know is whether the life insurance would complicate anything.

He can make a will now, and do it 'in anticipation of marriage' to you, it then won't be invalidated by you getting married.

He can do that today.

I'd also suggest you get married ASAP in a registry office, and then have a party later. You could even not tell anyone you got married, and have a humanist (and non legally binding) 'ceremony' at the party if you want.

Please protect yourself, you're currently very very vulnerable.

Irrelevant, as her partner hasn't died. RTFT.

I believe this poster was saying this in response to a post on the thread which was not the OP's.

HTH.

And this is a lot more likely!

Yip there was someone local to me who had to do this- partner died suddenly and had no will so estate went to kids. It was awful for them all to have to go through- all the family were in agreement as to what should happen but they still had to go to court to sort it out.

His mum is next of kin and would inherit everything.

Huh?

IANAL but surely the kids are next of kin and would inherit.

No she wouldn’t - his children would

It's bollocks because the only person who gets to make "decisions" are the medical team treating the patient. They will take into account the views of his family and partner but they're not going to treat/not treat based solely on his mum's OR the OP's say so.

And doctors have nothing to do with allowing people to arrange funerals either 🙄

You need to be married AND have wills.
As plenty have said it's very simple and cheap to get married. We are not talking about a "wedding" which is different and optional.
Even when married as soon as you have a child you both need wills to set out what should happen if one or both of you dies. Without a will the finances would be a nightmare to sort out.

And if OP is named as the direct beneficiary of his life assurance policy, this would go to her, not his mum.

(It's possible the policy is paying into a trust for their kids, which would be more complex, but the first post indicates it's to her)