Wills - complicated

[Blueberrycheesecake1]

Hi all

My partner and I are in an unusual situation. He has two daughters from a first marriage (now self-supporting working adults) and we have a child together (with another on the way).

We need to write wills and want to be fair to all.

My proposal is:

For my partner: Splits all assets between his children and me (ie 5 ways). The family house cannot be sold until our youngest is 21. (Only a small amount of his assets is tied up in the family house as I own most of it).

For me: Leave my share of the family house to our two children with my partner having the right to live in it until he dies. Rest of my assets go to him. I want to ensure my assets are ringfenced for my children as his children will be receiving a lot from their mother.

Aware there might be CGT implications in some of this? Anything else worth thinking about or is there a better way to structure this?

This is very complicated and it's taken us some time to think of this possible solution, so very grateful for any comments!

Thanks

Also to add I know there is an IHT issue too but thinking we should get married to resolve that... how romantic :)

I assume you are tenants in common?

The "normal" way of working things when people have children of the marriage and children of a previous marriage is for the first to die to leave their share in everything to their spouse on a life interest trust, I.e on trust to their spouse for his/her life and then to their 4 children in equal shares after the death of the spouse). That way the surviving spouse can stay in the family home and take the income element of any savings and investments but can't spend the capital. Have you considered that option?

Yes we are tenants in common...

The only thing about my partner doing that is that his daughters might have to wait a while due to age gaps... but interesting to know that is a fairly normal way of doing it. Also I think there might be CGT implications of doing this. ..?

Thanks for the replies!

IHT, but not CGT