Will details

[jonsies22]

I know this is a bit of a morbid topic but since having DD we thought we should get a will sorted. The difficulty is DH and I disagree slightly on the contents.

We both agree that we wouldlike my sister and hubby to look after DD should something happen to both of us. I feel that she would bring her up closest to the way that I would, and would make sure she kept good contact with both of our families.

As with everything the financial side is where we have some problems. I feel that we would trust my sister with our most precious possession and as such should be able to trust her to do what seems right to her with our money. She would need to use the money to bring up DD and then at 18 DD would inherit what was left. DH thinks that we should be using our will to protect a proportion of the money to ensure there was a good lump some for uni/buying a house/whatever DD might want. I just feel a bit uncomfortable with this,like it is almost saying I don't trust my sister to do right by DD.

Anyone got any thoughts/suggestions?

Hi there, I'm a will writer and in your circumstances would normally insert a guardianship clause, then immediately after it, another clause to say that the Guardians should not be out of pocket.

The idea is that your executors act as trustees, and the guardians arrange with the trustees to take money out of the trust as and when necessary. That way, the lump sum is protected and (hopefully) earning interest, and the guardians' expenses are covered.

But wouldn't they feel like they were going cap in hand to the trustees and having to justify themselves?

Depends what the relationship between them is like.

Most people use one set of relatives to be trustees/executors and one to be guardians.

If the guardians are likely to feel awkward about approaching other relatives then it may be better to appoint a professional executor, ie a firm of solicitors but that would obviously have to be paid for.

Most of the time, the guardians would tell the trustees what they think would be likely to need paying for over say 6 or 12 months (let's call it £250 a month for food, clothes, activities) so the trustees would set up a dd from the trust account (which is just a bank account, usually) to cover those costs. If one of your children needed/wanted a lump sum of £1,000 for say a big school trip, or a total revamp of their bedroom then they'd ask the trustees.

The point is that there is scope for conflict of interest if you don't do it properly. Eg if the guardians were also the trustees they could use the trust fund for a holiday for the whole family, but if you have separate trustees, they'd only release enough from the fund for your children's share of the holiday.

My email's [email protected] if you want any further info.