inlaws and wills

[mosquitonet]

I need some views on this please

Dh and I have recently been told by my mother and father-in-law that their will leaves all their estate to my husband (their only child). In the event of his death, a specific clause in their will says their estate goes to our children, but not to me.

My husband queried this with his parents, asking what happens to me if he dies? Their estate is quite considerable - much more than dh and I have. His parents said that they want their money to pass down to their grandsons eventually and not leave the family. If they make me, as an inlaw, a beneficiary of their will, then if I left my dh their money might go outside the family if I had a new partner.

I can see all this, and know it makes sound financial and legal sense, but on a purely emotional level I am less sure how I feel about it.

Both my parents are dead, and my smallish inheritance from them has been used on the purchase of our house (in joint names, not mine) and on other joint things. I have no other money coming to me and not much of a pension either. My inlaws know all this.

They say I am part of the familiy - their family, but I feel that their wishes as stated go against this. Taken to extremes, I feel I am important only as the wife of their son and the mother of their grandchildren - they are not concerned for my future wellbeing in my own right. But perhaps I am reading too much into this?

I am not intending to leave my husband - ever and sincerely hope that he never leaves me, but now we both know how the will stands, he is in a much stronger financial position. And I worry that this might affect our relationship now.

Any thoughts?

PS I believe that if my inlaws die before dh and I, and dh then inherits their estate, it then becomes part of the estate of dh and I, so we have an equal right to it.

Mosquitonet - I am surprised that your feel your husbands parents have any responsibiity to provide security for you and probably even more surprised that you feel you deserve it to be honest. I am tried to understand where you are coming from and just really can't. An expectation that your husband will adequately provide for you within his means is fair enough but to expect his parents to do the same?

What if you left your husband - would your still expect the same level of support? You would be in the same position, having made choices during your marriage which you feel have disadvantaged you and on your own with your children.

maybe there are other places to look for financial security - e.g. your dh's pension arrangements, or life insurance - that are more within your control.

I think if you felt you had that security, maybe your PIL's arrangements would bother you less.

gomez, so you feel it's perfectly acceptable for me as an inlaw to remain an outsider in a family, not worth taking responsiblity for, even when I taken responsiblity for and supported that same family? I can't get my head around that either.

And I am talking about inheritance, not about ongoing financial support while dh's parents are living. I don't expect them to help us at all - their money is for them to enjoy.

If dh died or left me while my dh's parents were alive I would expect nothing from them as long as I am able to provide for myself and their grandchildren.

But if I couldn't provide for myself through no fault of my own, then actually yes, I do think if they are half way decent, they have some responsiblity to me as the mother of their grandchildren, just as they would have to dh as the father of their grandchildren. If I can't look after myself, I would expect them to help - that's if they want me to be part of their family of course.

Why do you think is it fair enough to expect my husband to provide for me, incidently? I don't expect this at all while I am capable of working myself.

If I left my husband, I would be choosing to leave the family, so would therefore not expect the same level of support from my inlaws as I would no longer be part of their family in the same way. However, if I left my husband because his bad behaviour forced me to, then that again is different - there are a lot of grey areas.

you're right, carolinamoon. That's another reason why we must get our finances in order. But dh's insurances and pension is not that much, so I'm not sure how secure it would make me feel. Just as well I don't plan to retire for years and years!

But mosquitonnet in my opinion you haven't supported the same family. You haven't supported (financially) your PsIL but your immediate family unit. This is probably where our intrinsic difference of opinion comes from - I view my 'family' as my DH,I & our children (and if I am honest my parents and siblings). The bigger family unit of course includes PsILS, my DHs siblings, their partners, children etc.

When I referred to your DH supporting you I meant in the context of leaving sufficient provision within his will - not at the present time.

What if your DH left you because of your unreasonable behaviour how would yon interpret your rights then?

Also if your children were say 25, independent and living away from you - would you still expect an inheritance from your in-laws if you at the time couldn't support yourself?

Also please don't think I am 'getting' at you, I am really just intrigued by this point of view - it is not one I have every come across or considered before.

I don't think either that a decision to not leave you an inheritance necessarily makes you an outsider, or less important or devalues your contribution or indeed reflects on the love and respect your in-laws have for you. Many children are excluded from their parents wills in favour of the grandparents grandchildren - I know I am!

Do you think that you view your PsIL as substitue parents as your own have died and assumed that they viewed you similarly - i.e. as a daughter rather than a daughter in-law?

Oh my word I am sorry mosquitonet that last question was incredibly personal - I really should have re-read it Sorry

fascinating situation; my view is that my DH and I have life insurance which will provide enough for one of us to own the house outright if the other dies. Obviously, it would be hard to make ends meet but that's how we've done it.

If my DH was dead, and then my parents in law died, I would expect NOT ONE PENNY from them - why would I? I'm sure I would expect them to leave our DS, their grandson, something, but not me.

If my parents in law died with me and DH both still living, then the money would go to him and then come immediately into both our hands becuse we have joint money.

I really think you will make yourself bitter if you expect things like this from other people. Make your own arrangements, and don't look to others to provide for you and I think you will end up a happier person.

Haven't read all the replies but I think it is a fairly standard thing which they may have been advised by their solicitor to do. I know my in laws have done this in their will (would only be their house really) so if dh is already dead his share goes to our kids. I know they explained at the time why the solicitor advised this but can't remember the details. I am fine with this btw as they are less well off than us if anything and dh and I would prefer they spend any money on themselves rather than leave it in the will.

It is a standard thing as otherwise the grandchildren could sue the solicitor for negligence as he will have effectively disinherited them if you remarry and everything goes to your new spouse.

It can be done the other way, but everything has to be made very clear in that the solicitor has stressed the consequences of allowing the estate to come to you and the people making the wills have signed to show that they understand.

I think you are overreacting and reading too much into it.

This is the default kind of position for a will -- most of the standard templates and the default things that lawyer suggest have your estate going to your children and in the event that they predecease you then their share goes to any issue they may have, no mention of inlaws.

That's how my parents' will is laid out, I strongly suspect it's how my PILs' wills' (hey, that rhymes...) are laid out, and it's actually how our wills are laid out (OK, so with DS only 14 months he's unlikely to be presenting us with a daughter-in-law or children any time soon, but our will provides for what happens if he predeceases us having had children himself). I don't actually know of anyone in my parents' generation whose will doesn't do that -- it really is very very normal.

The only difference in this case seems to be that your PILs have taken the time to make sure you understand fully what their will says -- only you can have an idea as to their motivation in that. If you think they were trying to rub your nose in it then that is a bit off, but if they are just slightly over-formal and over-fussy about dotting is and crossing ts then that's probably all it is.

Your PILs are trying to draw up a will to cater for the most likely situations. The most likely is that they die before you and your DH while you and DH are still married, in which case you don't have a problem. If your DH dies before them and the money goes to their grandchildren while the grandchildren are still young then probably (depends on whether they've put the relevant clause in the will) while the money would be in trust for them until they reach 18 it could be spent on the support of the children -- I know my parents have that in their wills and we have in ours. That might be worth checking. If the grandchildren were adult then leaving the money directly to them makes a lot of sense from an inheritance tax point of view. IF your DH were to run off with another woman and leave you and the children in poverty then, yes, you'd lose out under this will. But it's unreasonable IMO to expect your PILs do do the whole of their estate planning around what they must see as a very unlikely scenario.

In terms of practicalities, can you afford to get life insurance for your DH? Also, if he left you some of his pension could be set aside for you the courst have fairly wide-raning powers in that area now so your pension might not be as bad as you think (assuming he's got an OK pension, of course).

I agree that this is just a will, not a statement of how they feel about you. They are leaving their money in the same way that it's left in millions of families nationwide without anyone reading anything about how much they are loved or valued into it.

LeahE thank you so much. Your thoughtful post has helped put my mind at rest much more. It is exactly the reassurance I was looking for.

If you and others like Freckle and Katyp are saying it is perfectly normal for wills to be worded like this, then I feel much better about it. I do think my PILs are trying to draw a will to cater for the most likely situations. It is exactly what they would do. I know they feel that the relationship between my dh and I is strong, and they are right.

I can't say my fears will leave me 100%, but I know feel I don't have to worry that they have done something out of the ordinary. I feel they have followed convention, though will check this out routinely when dh and I see a solicitor to make our wills.

I can't however say I will now stop feeling vulnerable. I know dh and I aren't going to be particularly comfortably off in our old age, however we organise things, minus this inheritance so I can never rely on pensions and life assurance to fill the gap. If dh and I part, as I understand it from this tread, I will not have any claim to money left to him in his sole name ( ie this inheritance) unless dh decides to include me.

Of couse, as gomez points out, dh and I could part for all sorts of reasons. Some of them of course due to my choice or unreasonable behaviour. To answer the questions you posed, I would not expect anything from my inlaws if I behaved unreasonably to my dh and chose to leave him. If however, dh had left me or I was a widow, and I then found at some point I could not support myself through no fault of my own, even though my children were grown up and had left the nest, I would be very saddend if my inlaws did not help provide for my remaining years via their wills on the understanding that all my assets then went on to their grandchildren at my death. After all, it would be the most common situation that I would die before my children. I say this because to some extent I have sacrificed my future security, in the form of inheritance from my parents to help support dh and our children through a difficult time, and my inlaws know this. I love my dh and would not have had it any other way. It never crossed my mind to divert any of my inheritance towards my own private pension as we needed the money for our joint finances at the time. I think my inlaws would help me in the future if I was in dire straits by the way - it's just not evident from the way this will is worded. As LeahE says, I am overreacting and I see this now.

mosquitonet - i meant to tell you that we write a lot of wills at work and like everyone else, i think its pretty standard what your in laws have done. Hope it puts your mind at rest that they've not doing anything out of the ordinary to snub you, if that makes sense!

My only experience of this is my grandmother who has done the same thing. Her reason was that if she left it to the spouse after her child they could remarry and then the money could end up going to someone other than her grandchildren. It was not that she does not trust her sons and daughter in law but she did want the money to get to her grandchildren. I may well do the same so can understand it.