Can I marry and still leave everything to my daughter?

[Longanddrawnout]

Hi.

Need some advice. Currently engaged to a lovely man. I am main breadwinner (by far). I have a decent pension and savings.

I am putting off marrying him because I am worried in the event of my death or divorce he would be able to claim these things or half at least.

He wasn’t around while I was working hard to be on this position so don’t want him to benefit. I want my lovely DD to have it all (what’s left after Iv used it 😉)

How do I get round this?

Obviously DP is excited about marriage and talk of this always puts a bit of a downer on it

You don't just need legal advice, you need to talk to a wealth manager - it's a whole different ball game and solicitors don't really know enough to properly advise you. You could use trusts to protect your estate for your daughter, but you need to get it spot on or it could be a bigger mess - or just don't marry, sad as that is.

Don’t marry him

You can always change your mind and not get married. Who does the marriage benefit?
I would get legal advice on this before you get married. You could put your property into a bloodline trust so only your offspring inherit it, but that may be affected by marriage. If you die before him and leave him out of your will he could make a claim in court against it if you didn't leave appropriate provision for him being a low earner/dependent.
These days, why is it necessary to get married? It's a financial contract and your house would be the matrimonial home which he could make a claim on.
Get legal advice so you know your position.
Don't get married. You are better off not married.

Your daughter is your priority. I would look after her interests and not marry.

Make sure you have a legal will stating that everything goes to your daughter and make sure the executor is someone you trust implicitly. Speak to a lawyer, I'm not sure how contesting a will happens and whether he would have a claim or even bother to try. I'd like to thinkbthat if you state in a legal document that it goes to your daughter, then that's where it will go.

You- and he - have no idea what he will end up inheriting from his parents- until he actually does!

Of course weddings in Vegas are real. Do you think that people who live in Vegas have to have pretend weddings.

You will need to make a new will when you get married and go to a solicitor for advice.

Don’t get married. The only losers in either of the scenarios are you or your daughter. Arguably your daughter in both scenarios actually.

A prenup would have no legal validity here and would not be persuasive either where a Court is dealing with needs. Needs meaning cases where both parties need to be rehoused. If you split up and are married you’d both need somewhere to live and he’d also be entitled to up to half of your pension.

I would question why it’s so important to him to get married. One of my friends has married someone and has brought everything to the marriage. She is his third wife and has two children. He has 4. Her husband was v insistent that they get married and buy a house in both their names. I am sure his motives are not sinister but still we never know what’s around the corner. She’s jeopardising her future and that of her children that she worked so hard for.

Is this the famous Mumsnet chicken that feeds a family of nine for a week?

If so, they more than deserve this.

He has had a serious enough relationship with someone to have had a child but he isn't married to them now, so marriage can't be so essential to his life as all that, unless he is a widower. You are already living together and you aren't planning to have children together so you don't really need to marry. it would be an awful lot simpler not to.

yes, he wants a nice sorted out life with a wife who outearns him and if she dies before him, he takes everything and eff off, step daughter. At this age I would not believe a man is romantic. He might like you and desire your company but there is no romance

Op it will absolutely matter, my grandad remarried after my nan died and stayed so for the remaining 10 years of his life. He died intestate, everything my nan and grandad spent their lives working on to build automatically went to the second wife (my nans remaining assets, my grandads, his work pension, their house) who has no intention on passing anything onto my grandads children in her will, or speaking with them.

I am not saying children should or shouldn’t inherit, but, if you know you want to leave something specific to your children then please write a will. You can still be romantic and live your best loved up lives, and a reasonable person should eventually come around to this I feel, if explained sensitively and empathetically that it’s more about your wishes than a deliberate exclusion

I agree with others to marry is to share everything. That’s what you’re agreeing to do. You could probably put in some kind of pre-nup but I think for your spouse to get nothing is a bit shit and to be fair I’d question why you are getting married?

no-one goes into a marriage thinking they are going to divorce. It happens

I would not get married in these circumstances - and i would tell a man the same thing if it was the other way around!

Protect your assets and your DD's future. Complicates things being married and having kids/house etc and not being "equals"

Unless he brings the exact same amount of money/savings etc to the table...no

he is also entitled to 50'50of everything inc your savings!

Why do you need to get married ?
Im hoping your partner expects you to leave all you have earned and worked for to your daughter .
These are thoughts and conversations we all should have in good time when we have kids and new partners.
He will need to make sure he has a home to live in if he outlives you that's all I would discuss.
Your finances arnt his at this stage in life.

If you marry why not leave your home to him for his lifetime use and then for your daughter after he dies. You could leave your money to go directly to your daughter, but get legal advice. He might be able to contest it.

I'd tell dp you believe in long engagementsto take any immediate pressure off of you. It also means your DD would be older to deal with things in the event of your unexpected death. You could always gift your DD things early before you die.

Get a good solicitor and a will sorted. My sister has done similar and it is all written in black and white.

Solicitors are exactly the kind of people who can help with settling property into trust

I was meant to quote this post in my last response

Why get married at all? You have a child already and both seem happy. I ended a relationship over this issue as there is no way I'd marry again after being screwed financially in an unwanted divorce. I have a friend who has made a will leaving her home to her children but with the provision that stepdad stays in the home as long as needs to. Possibly until he dies also. However he is a very reasonable man and I can't help thinking of how Linda Bellingham's husband (of a very short time) took almost everything when she died, leaving her son's with very little. God knows why she married him and I'm sure she'd have been devastated if she'd known that would happen.

Lynda Bellingham changed her will to leave her estate to her husband, it’s a different situation.

Back to the OP, I too would be wanting to marry you if I was in your partner’s position, but like everyone says, don’t marry. If you marry him, the longer the marriage goes on for, the more chance he has of successfully contesting your will, should you die before him. I would give him a lifetime trust and that’s it, but only after you work out that marriage is best for you just as much as him. At the moment it comes across that you want to do him a favour.

Vegas weddings are legal and recognised in the UK

In England as long as a marriage is legal in the country you married in it is recognised here