Adding Second Child to Will

[Peeja]

My husband and I drew up mirror wills in 2012, naming our first born child (born 2009) as a beneficiary. We had a second child in 2013 and I naively thought that our second child would automatically be classified as a beneficiary in the event of our deaths. However, I have recently checked the wording of our wills and it states that if both myself & my husband die, our first child is the beneficiary and if our first child dies dies, any children he may have will inherit our estate. I contacted our solicitor to add our second child as a beneficiary and they have quoted £450 + VAT to make this simple change!! Obviously, I’d rather not fork out for this, so my questions are:

a) as the will was drawn up a year before the birth of our second child, would he have a claim to our estate in the event of mine & my husband’s deaths?

b) would it cost anything to have our original wills destroyed? I’m thinking it may be cheaper to use a will writing service to draw up brand new wills.

Thanks xx

I'd get them redone

Which part of the UK are you in? This is the first basic question for almost anything to do with succession law.

In Scotland, the second child would have a claim to legitim, but would have to raise a claim against the will. This would still be a smaller share - disregarding the surviving spouse's prior rights, the legal rights in the case of spouse + children is 1/3 of the estate for the children together (which makes for 1/6 for child2; child1 wouldn't claim legal rights as child1 would get more from the whole will than by challenging the will and you can't both claim under the will and challenge the will).

Best advice is to get yourself a new will. If you plan on having more children, maybe try to name the class of beneficiaries (to all my children, split among them equally) rather than naming them by name.

I am surprised that the solicitor who drew up the original will didn’t advise a general statement of children as beneficiaries, rather than a named child. Personally I would start again as £450 for one change is expensive. I was quoted £350 + vat for two mirror wills in 2021. Starting again is an opportunity to think about any other changes you may want to make eg appointing trustees should you and your husband die before children are 18.

Thanks for your replies, they're really helpful.

@Precipice We are in England, so if you have any knowledge on how the law would apply, that would be very much appreciated.

@ShanghaiDiva I had it in my head that a general statement of children as beneficiaries was included, but apparently not. More fool me for not checking more thoroughly at the time. You're right, starting again is probably going to be the best option.

Thanks again all. xx

@mumblechum on here owns www.marlowwills.co.uk/

I used her to write my will, and she was excellent. A lot of Mumsnetters have used her.