In the event of your death, what arrangements have you made for your DC(s)? Bit morbid, I know

[FeelingDeviant]

DD will go to live with SIL and live off a trust which will have loads of money in it from our life insurance.
My sister will take DD for weekends and holidays to Hong Kong (as I'm chinese) and to celebrate cultural festivals, etc. Sister will access money from trust to pay for these things.
Then, my best friend would act as a silent guardian, to step in should there be any disagreements between SIL and my sister.

I thought this was a grand plan until SIL asked if her DC's could come and live with us in the event of her death. I said fine, but would she not want another guardian type person just in case we turned out to be loonies, she said no because she didn't want to raise her DCs by committee and trusted us to do what was right for her DCs.

Obviously flattered, but made me doubt my our plans - having so many 'guardian' types for DD. Just wondered what everyone else did and do my post-death plans involve too many people for DD?

We have decided to appoint my sister as legal guardian.
she will have final say on where the children go.
I understand that she may not be in a position for them to live with her but I trust her judgement completely an I know she adores the boys so it is her call.
I would love it if they did grow up living with her but she is single with a very busy high powered job.
Money is left in a trust fund for the boys from both the grandparents and us so she will have access to that to help her to bring them up.

bloody hell

I have made no arrangelents. If I died suddenly my parents would take over.

I think that your daughter will benefit from having one obvious parental figure. I sort of agree with the comment about "raising my committee". Your child needs to know who makes decisions about their life. The scenario you have described may lead to your DD playing one adult off against another esp as she becomes a teenager. I think the idea of your sister taking her on holidays is lovely but does she need a say in how your daugher is raised? IMO the silent guardian is a step too far, it is more liekly to cause problems than resolve them.

DD will go to DH's cousin and his wife who we are close too. The money to support her will also be handled through a trust. I have friends who are godparents who will keep in touch and make sure she grows-up knowing about me etc, but she will have one clear set of parents.

We have asked two couples we know to be joint guardians, with the children living with whichever couple would find it easiest at that moment. (permanently, not swapping about, obviously!)

my sisters are all older than me, and we felt it would be mean to inflict young children on them when they'd finished with all that!

just drawing up wills to that effect as we speak, not married so lots of ins and outs to work out.

SIL is the legal guardian so she will have final say as to where they will plus we have both life insurances in place.

When we took legal advice re wills we were told that it doesn't really make much different whom you appoint. It merely expresses a preference. Social services would have the final say. Although they would try to follow your wishes, if they didn't agree with the appointment you had made, then the children would not be sent to live with them long-term.

PrettyCandles - SS would only overrule your choices if they had serious concerns due to previous convictions or disability. In 95% of cases the child goes to the person specified in the Will. If you don't specify in the Will then the children may go into care while things are sorted out - even if your parents or others are willing to take them.

My older DCs are old enough to be independant but the younger 2 would go to my ex-DH (father of the oldest 2). He's already part of the family as far as DS2&3 are concerned and it would work well, I think. All complicated now slightly by the fact ex-DH is getting re-married - I like the bride-to-be, but don't really know her, IYSWIM.

artichokes - yes, that was exactly my fear, playing one adult against another. btw - meant raising by committee as opposed to raising my committee, but guess you knew what I meant.

Sounds like my plan for so many guardians is a bit OTT (concocted when DD was newborn when I couldn't even think about these issues without crying).

Haven't had time to do will yet, but suppose I could always specify details about wanting sister to take DD on holiday and for money to be paid from trust, etc.

Malory -- why 25? why not 22 (after University, let's say)?

Yikes, artichokes, that's worrying! I think maybe we should look at this again, especially as we now have 3LOs to consider, rather than the one we had when we first looked into this.

omg artichokes! incentive to get my skates on with doing the will as don't want DD to go into care whilst things are sorted out.

what other things should one be thinking of when drawing up will?

My parents would look after the two children. I have arranged plenty of life insurance so there is money for my parents to use while raising them and money for my children when they hit 21.

None - yet ! We haven't done wills yet mainly as I haven't resolved this issue. My sister and bil should be the obvious choice as guardians but since dd was born and more since her ds I realise we don't see eye-to-eye on a lot of child-rearing issues. But maybe that is irrelevant....

And my mum is in her mid-70s so not sure if I should think about considering her...

dp's sister and bil's children have grown up so not sure it would be fair to ask them.

And I don't think we have any friends that are close enough to ask.

I'll have to try and do something about it this year... although I suppose the closer dd gets to 18 the more irrelevant it becomes .

We chose 24 as the age when our DC will be able to have full access to the money. Looking back at our lives, that's the age when we would have been ready. Although the general idea is that most of it will be spent by then (assuming that we died when they were fairly young). My Mum has spoken about that money being their money and not wanting to "waste" it on food/bills etc., but that was exactly what we set it up for - so that the guardians wouldn't be bankrupt by taking on our children!

We have separate trustees for the money (from the guardians) by the way - it just seemed like too much to put onto just one person.

my dc would go to my parents, with a very large trust fund, if my parents ever think they are too old then we will look again, the girsl have sizable trust funds already and these are manged by their godfather who is trustee. he would then become trustee in joint with my brother if we died and my parents would be able to access the trust for money. it is arranged so that they would recieve a monthly allowance , all educational bills would go to the trustees and be paid direct and my parents would consult the trustees for extra lump sums for say holidays or buying the girla a car for instance, the girls would get control aged 25. luckily all the parties involved get on really well and i know they would always put my dcs best interests ahead of anything else.

My mum as guardian. Money at 25.

I haven't made no arrangements but if i kicked the bucket, my sister would be DD guardian. and her trust fund wouldn't be available to DD till 21.

DD would go to my parents. We have life insurance and a couple of trust funds which would help them raise her. Money becomes hers at 18.

We don't have much to speak of but if they find anything at all in the event of our deaths then it all goes to dd.

hmmm im so glad someone posted this as im pregnant with pfb and it has been something i have thought about. I wouldnt want my mum as she smokes and i fear that my DC would potentially lose me and then my mum later on too. Dh's parents too old and our siblings no way. we do have a close set of friends who i would trust implicitly. Could i give join guardianship/custody to both sets of grandparents as an example?

We have given joint guardianship to my parents, even though they've separated. Luckily they love DD1 enough that they are willing to get together to organise stuff for her (they haven't met DD2 yet - she's still in utero, but I'm sure they'll feel the same about her ). But it does give a judge two options when he/she decides who they should live with, just in case of them isn't well enough. I imagine that what would happen is that my Mum would be the main carer, but my Dad would be chief babysitter, and have them to stay on a regular basis, but we didn't want to put anything down that would force them into any particular situation; we wanted to leave more flexibility in the arrangement. I would be wary of appointing any more people than that, just because then you're dealing with more personalities to risk a clash.

We are planning to revisit our wills after 10 years, and we may have to rethink if either of my parents' health has gone downhill. But it works for now, and the idea is that when they get older that the DDs will be older too, and so require less physical stuff anyway.