Need a will

[lolalita78]

I need a will for me and my husband. If I go first and my DH marries again will my children ( aged 3, 5 and 7) inherit all of my asset? He said he would never remarry again but let's just say he does.

What if his new ugly fat wife has children already? How can I make sure that my asset is safe?

I heard of "life interest trust" on Mumsnet. I don't understand how it works too much blablabla. I need simple answer.

Let's say DH and I decide to go down that route with the" life interest trust"

1. is the Asset still ours?
2. what are the pros and cons by doing that
3. if I need to be sent to a nursing home will the nursing home be able to touch our assets?
4. if my DH has a new wife after I go what will she gets? I do not want her to get a penny from our mortgage free home or get any of my designer handbags and watches. I want it all the girly stuff to go to my 2 daughters and my boy can get his Daddy's stuff.

I hope you guys know the answer this is driving me crazy. My best friend at work her Dad remarried years ago he died last year leaving nothing to her all to his children from his second marriage. Apparently the 2nd wife manipulated him as he wasn't well. I need to protect my children from these kind of situations

Quite complicated to explain in a post.

The simple answer is that if you leave everything to your DH in the first instance, and you die first, all your assets become his. He can then choose how to pass on his estate, which might not include your children.

A Life Interest Will usually relates to your property. The idea is that you place your share of the property in Trust for your DH during his lifetime, and then when you have both died (or other conditions are met, such as your DH remarrying), then your share of the property passes to your children.

You still own the property, and can move or sell all the while you are alive. The Trust doesn't begin until the first of you dies.

You would have to own the property as tenants in common, so you each have your own share of the property.

All the while both of you are alive, if one of you goes into care then the property can't be sold to fund the care as one of you is still in the property. If you die first and then your DH goes into care, your share of the property cannot be used to fund his care, and would pass to your children.

If you have specific items that you want to go to your children, you'll have to set it out in your Will. Otherwise DH will have the right to pass them to his new wife (if you have left them to him).

I hope that helps a bit. Feel free to ask me more questions xx

12:13Malone98 thank you I am starting to understand. If my DH goes 1st or if he needs to go to a nursing home it will apply the same as me.
Also personal belongings do the will writer include them in the will? I have many Prada, Gucci (bags, sunglasses) Louboutin shoes etc... these need to be added in the will for my daughters or in a letter to go along with the will?

Name change fail OP?

It's really important you get a solicitor or professional will writer to draw up your and DH's wills if you are getting into creating life trusts or life interests and changing ownership of your property etc. If you want a very simple will just leaving everything to one person you could draw this up yourself from on online template/online advice, but it sounds like you need something more involved so do not cut corners, it could be the most important thing you ever do. There is a mumsnetter called I think @mumblechum who does online will writing at a reasonable price who may be able to help.

It's very common to want to protect assets for children in the event of a remarriage or against being swallowed up by care home costs and a PP has given you a good idea of how it works, but again unless the will is drawn up properly it won't necessarily be binding and can actually cause disputes/problems so again go to a qualified person and explain what you want and they can advise you. You and DH can have identical 'mirror' wills drawn up so everything is fair - although do bear in mind DH could change his will without telling you (in the event of a break-up or similar), as could you of course, wills can be changed as often as you like pretty much.

Re specific items, yes normally people include these in a will particularly if they are valuable or sentimental/heirloom items. If there are things you want to go to your DD, the safest way will be to list every individual item you want to go to her (but it will be annoying if your collection grows over the years as you will have to ensure things get added). Otherwise you could leave a letter of intentions to the executor(s) (which could be your DH and/or a third party) asking him/her to ensure your personal items go to your DD but in the case of a dispute this could be misinterpreted and won't necessarily be legally binding - again a professional will be able to help you sort this out in the most straight forward and secure way.

Thank you Maxelly. What do you mean by causing disputes and problems?
If we go ahead with the life interest trust are we still the owner of our home?

What do you mean also by changing ownership of the property? Sorry with all these questions

You lost me at "ugly fat wife".

No I don't mean while you are alive, unless you sign away ownership of the property in your lifetime for some other reason, you stay owners as normal. And re changing ownership, as Malone says, to do a trust or life interest arrangement you would normally need to own your property as tenants in common, at the moment you may own it as joint beneficial tenants so that would need to be changed if so, which again will require legal input (which kind of ownership you have should have been explained by your solicitor when you bought the house).

Re the disputes, in my own experience a bereavement can bring out the worst in people, and there can be a tendency for various relatives and friends to come out of the woodwork claiming that the deceased 'always told them' or 'would have wanted' some of their personal property to go to a certain person. There can be disagreements even amongst close families about who gets what or what should happen to particular items or family heirlooms, not necessarily in a malicious way, but just because what the deceased wanted is not clear from the will so everyone has their own opinion. Where this just concerns items of sentimental value it's bad enough for the executor to have to 'referee' this sort of thing and make decisions, but if significant money is involved it's obviously much worse. So this is why it is best to try and set things out as best you can in advance and also to let people involved know that is what you have done, if that makes sense?

Well explained Maxelly thank you. Footle you are funny. I forgot to add hairy....

Maxelly last question if both of us have to go to a care home and the children are adults what will happen to the house?what the local authority try to do or what shall we do

Well as you currently have young children I am assuming and hoping (!) the need for care homes is likely 20+ years away, so trying to plan for this now is a little bit crystal ball gazing to be honest. With the ageing population and the ever-escalating costs of care, the 'rules' may change by then and I'd recommend you regularly review your will and retirement/old age planning with your DH and professional advice, perhaps every decade to start. For now for instance guardianship and financial arrangements for your young DC are going to be much more important than worrying about care home fees, but once they reach adulthood that will obviously change.

For what it's worth this is a good article on how it works at the moment. If you were both in a care home and there were no other dependants living in the house it might have to be sold and fees taken from the profits, although you might be able to defer this until after your death(s) depending on the exact circumstances. There are ways to avoid this by gifting the property to children or others before the need for care arises but it has to be done quite carefully and well in advance to avoid it falling under deliberate deprivation of assets and there are tax implications too. Plus (moral issues aside), do you really want to prioritise protecting inheritance to your children over the quality of your own/DH's care (what the LA will pay for your care if you have no assets is really pretty low and care homes run purely on this amount, or even 'topped up' by a proportion of self-funding residents can be pretty grim places, being self-funding can at least give you more of a choice)? Anyway as I say hopefully you are many years away from needing to worry about this and wills can always be changed so probably don't let this guide you over more immediate considerations, but do always always take legal advice...

Thank you Maxelly you must be a solicitor as you seem to know a lot. Very well explained. Now just need to find a good solicitor or a will writer. The only downside with a will writer they don't seem to store the will I am not comfortable to keep it at home. I know I will lose it. I don't even have a safe

Read this with interest as someone asked me about this a while ago. ( as I was widowed they thought I'd know ) Anyone any clue how much it should cost to have husband and wife wills and the tenant thing and power of attorney, if ever needed for each other drawn up ? So I can pass the info on, thanks.

Thanks for the kind words but I am absolutely not a solicitor or any kind of lawyer, and anyone reading this should not take my posts as anything other than the personal opinion of a possibly ill informed and potentially delusional internet random . The only thing I can say for myself is that I don't claim to be anything other than the above which is more than you can say for some (although I know there are some real solicitors who post here, even so everyone should take advice they read online with a pinch of salt and take proper advice!).

Maxelly I do have another question.
If we do go down the route of the life interested trust and my children are well off, married etc... can me and my DH change the will and like you said we can sell the house and spend the money for a better care home? Or a small flat and the rest of the money for a someone to come to the flat to cook and clean?

Of course you can. A will only says what happens with your property after you die, it has no effect on what you do while alive. If you want you are free to spend all your money on champagne and speed boats, even if you have promised and made a will saying you will leave your children a million pounds each. Your children might not thank you for it, and it might be hard to administer such a will when there isn't 3 million pounds, or anything like it left to give, but obviously, being dead, you'd be beyond the reach of any complaints .

But seriously, this is why you should review your wills every so often to ensure they still make sense and reflect your financial circumstances at the time and don't for instance refer to property you no longer own or capital you've spent elsewhere. A properly drafted will is written so that it can be applied easily and divided fairly no matter how much actual money is available.

Doing the life interest trust might make it more complicated for the surviving partner to utilise the property as an asset to pay for care so that is another reason to potentially review what you want to do with wills etc at the point you retire...

Maxelly sorry I don't understand when you say: " Doing the life interest trust might make it more complicated for the surviving partner to utilise the property as an asset to pay for care"

Also Can the life interest trust be cancelled anytime?

new ugly fat wife

ODFOD

Complications, just that your presumably elderly DH/you, having lost their spouse, now needs to fund care and/or purchase somewhere more suitable to live. Instead of that being a decision that is solely in their power/your joint power as a couple to decide and implement as it is now, your children (or a trust formed on their behalf if they are still minors) now own half the property and so have a say in when/how it is sold and for what price etc., will they all agree, you just don't know, all you can know is just that it is somewhat more complex that a simple sole owner or joint tenants situation. But as I say these trusts are very very common, people navigate this stuff every day (with legal help of course), so don't let that put you off doing it. All I meant to highlight was that if you both get to the age of say 70-80, both compos mentis, you might want to rethink how likely a 2nd marriage really is and how important it truly is to protect the inheritance of the by now adult children vs making things simple for the one left behind- a very different equation to someone sadly dying young and leaving a spouse who might quite likely remarry and have step children or even more birth children themselves, where it might well be important to safeguard the funds which should belong to the children of the marriage. People I know in this situation (as you do hear even of quite elderly people remarrying and leaving the new spouse all the cash) might perhaps think more of liquidating some assets e.g. by downsizing the family home, giving the children some money outright and then simply leaving the rest (what's left after care costs) to the surviving spouse. But of course it depends on your circumstances and who can say what will happen by that time in your lives.

Can the trust be cancelled? Before you die, yes, at any time, simply by making a new will leaving everything to your DH (or your children, or the donkey sanctuary or whatever you want). After you die, not easily, only if the trustees and/or your children if they were adults at the time agreed or by court order (I think) which would be difficult and problematic...

Thank you Maxelly again very helpful xxx

@maxelly, thanks for mentioning me 😊

OP, as Maxelly has mentioned, Life Interest Trusts are very common for step families, I generally suggest their use in those circumstances, as the children's interest in their parent's share of the property is ring fenced for them, whilst at the same time providing for a secure roof over the survivor's head. I've written 4 pairs of Life Interest Trust wills today 😁. As Maxelly mentioned, the trust can only take effect if you hold the property as Tenants in Common. If it's currently on a joint tenancy, that will need to be severed, which isn't a big job.

The other key use for this type of trust is for older clients who wish to minimise the impact of care home fees.