Wills and ensuring DC inherit

[Dammitthisisshit]

I am married with 2 young DC.
Currently DH and I have mirror wills - if one of us dies then everything goes to the other and is only held in trust for the DC if both of us die. We are joint tenants of our house (small mortgage).

I have stage 4 cancer and it’s got me rethinking.

If I die then I want DH to be happy and for him I think that means remarrying. But then my DC could inherit nothing - at the very least I want them to inherit my share of our joint estate.
what can I do?
I understand that I can give DH a life interest in our house(or my half of it anyway), but then what happens if he moves after I die? Does he then get to use all the house capital in anything he then buys, that’s fine if he does but is my share still ring fenced for our DC somehow in any new property he buys? I’m confused how it works.
also… pensions. If I die then does he get my pension pot to add to his own? Surely it doesn’t just disappear? Advice appreciated - I want to protect my DC as best I can but also allow DH to use whatever wealth I have whilst he is alive, just not leave it to anyone else!

Bless you Op 💐

Truthfully I think it would be worth speaking with a lawyer or putting this in the legal section of the forum.

There is a risk that If your husband was to remarry and he doesn't sort his will everything could go to his second wife, which in turn means your joint children would miss out.

This is good advice. See a lawyer.

My dm had this worry when she way dying she and df had wills drawn up that split their savings equally. She left her share of house to df, half her savings to me and dsis and the other half split between 3 dgc. Df intends to leave house plus half his savings to me and dsis and half split for dgc. Assuming he doesn't need to go in a care home. I believe you can leave your half of house to kids and dh live in it but you need a solicitor.

I am so sorry for the situation you are in OP.
You must get proper legal advice and sort this out. You can't do a diy job.
You must protect your children. Unfortunately it is very common for children of a first marriage to be cut out completely if a surviving spouse marries again. Wills can easily be changed so the advice is usually to put assets into Trust for dc. You need a specialist estate planner to advise and write your will.

If you own your house as joint tenants, then he will automatically inherit your half, whatever it says in your will. He can then leave the whole house to whoever he likes. If you want to be able to leave your half to your children, you need to change it so you own the house as tenants in common. Then you can each leave your own half to whoever you like (and you can give your DH a life interest).

Re pensions, it depends what types(s) of pension you have. If it’s a defined benefit scheme (where you build up a set amount of pension based on your pay) then there will probably be pensions payable to your spouse and possibly children as well, but he won’t just get your ‘pot’. If it’s a defined contribution scheme, where you just build up a pot of money, then he will probably inherit your pot. The safest thing is to check with your pension administrator who can give you the accurate answer for the type of scheme you have.

We own our house as tenants in common and have both had our wills written so the dc inherit our share. This protects our family home and my dc inheritance going to another family. See a solicitor ASAP and you can request that a whole life clause be written. This ensures that your dh can stay in the house until he either remarried or dies.

Agree with above, I would see a solicitor to update your will and move your ownership of the house to tenants in common, you could then specify that your half is left to the children.

Pension schemes will provide an expression of wish form for you to nominate who you want your pension pot to go to and you could nominate your children here, you can nominate more than one person in whatever percentages you like in most schemes. Mine is currently 50% of my pension pot to DH then 25% to each of my two DDs. You'd need to do this with every pension provider you have if you have more than one.

Thanks all. agree I need legal advice, I just wanted to see what was possible before I go to change my will so I can mull over what I want to do.

I don’t think DH would stay in our current house without me (we’re potentially looking to move anyway) and from what anyone is saying I don’t think there’s a way to ring fence the equity in a house unless you’re ring fencing a proportion of the house. Ie I can give him a life interest of my 50% of our current house but what I’d really like him to be able to do is sell it and buy a new one and my share of the house is automatically transferred to the next one. Good advice to change our ownership to be tenants in common though as this seems the key to having more options.

it’s complicated - as really I want DH to be able to live his life as he sees fit with our joint wealth, just don’t want it going anywhere other than to the DC after he dies. Realistically he’ll need our joint wealth to give them the lifestyle we were planning and they’ll have a better upbringing if he’s less skint. And then if he does remarry and his new wife jointly brings up our children then I wouldn’t want her to be out of the street if anything happens to him, that doesn’t seem fair either. To add to the confusion DH will probably inherit nothing as he’s the DC of a first family with any wealth likely to go to the second family, so I’m hoping he would do everything not to put our own DC in that position.

it’s not something I need to do immediately anyway, we’re not sure what’s next for my cancer/treatment but it’s just got me thinking as I don’t think we’ve planned adequately for any option other than us growing old together.

Op I really feel for you, and I totally get it.

Is leaving money in some sort of trust to the kids an option? It really needs legal advice.
You know your DH is he the sort to remarry and not make provision for your DC in his will?

A friend lost her DM very young, when the Dad re-married he made his will dividing the estate between second wife and his kids.

If you set up a trust and a lifetime residence in the home for your dh he can take a loan from the trust to be paid back on his death.
Sadly, it is very common for men to remarry and not leave proper provision for the children of the first marriage. If the man dies first, his entire estate ends up with the second wife and her family. This happened 3 times in my own family. We couldn't even get items of historical and sentimental value. It is worth getting proper estate planning advice, I cannot emphasis that enough.
It is no good just making wills. A will can be rewritten/ invalidated the day after it is written.
A marriage automatically invalidates a will.
Please get proper advice.

Thanks all.
I’ve spoken to DH and he’s adamant he’d protect our DC, having had it happen to him I do trust that this would be his intention, just might not be the reality! But if we could ringfence my estate to be in trust for the DC but allow him to borrow from it and repay on his death then that would be perfect. So I will investigate that. It’s not loads of money anyway but sometimes I think that makes it matter more - it should be the difference between DC having a deposit to buy somewhere rather than rent, or go through uni without as much debt. Though ideally I’d like them not to just be given a lump sum on reaching 18 as I don’t think an 18 year old will make good financial decisions (I certainly wouldn’t have anyway!)

hopefully my will won’t be used for a while as my cancer could go either way, but even if I go into remission I think this financial planning for both of us is a good thing. And if I get bad news that I don’t have long then I’ll have at least done the groundwork to set things up as best I can.

i will get legal advice… (anyone know who from? I was going to ask macmillan and a cancer support group I’m on for any referrals as this must be a common concern).

You can look on the [[https://solicitors.lawsociety.org.uk/
law society website for a list of specialist wills & probate lawyers]] in your area. Also, ask around your social network for recommendations. I found my lawyer through a personal recommendation from a colleague.

solicitors.lawsociety.org.uk/

I am in your situation with stage 4 cancer and have recently re wrote my will. My half of the the house is left in trust for the DC but DH can move - the trust will just continue to own whatever half of whatever house he buys. My insurance just goes to him.

he will inherit from his mum and dad separately and I can only hope he is sensible with all that!

As above- put your half in trust. My family have had a similar conversation but their father has now remarried and has done nothing to ensure his children will inherit, so it stands that my husbands step mother will get everything (apart from a third- we're in Scotland) and her kids could get everything (but he sways they have gentlemans agreement🙃.. its a source of a bit of contention because they feel he is looking out for his wife and her feelings, more than his own children,
You can also look into a liferent but I'm not sure that would be as suitable in your circumstances.