Wills and Guardianship

[LilRedWG]

Do I need to make a will to say who my DD's legal guardian would be. Both sets of parents have been told that my DSis an DBil are who we want (they have agreed obviously) and so that is who would look after her, but legally do we need it in a will?

I guess what I'm asking is: If DH and I died tomorrow would SS cart DD off to a foster home or would my sister be able to care for her.

BTW - we will get round to making a will eventually, I promise.

Well first of all it's willaid month so you can get a will done for a donation to charity so you have no blinking excuses for holding off. But yes you can include intentions for your children in it. However technically the will is not read till 30 days after death so don't go including your funereal wishes in it!

If you and your DH were hit by the proverbial truck don't worry, social services would not take them into care as long as there were responsible adults who were not registered sex offenders looking after them. The only time they would be interested is if you assigned them to a family who were under investigation or whose kids were counted as 'at risk'. (Frankly they are too busy to do otherwise and there are not enough foster families either).

However obviously if you left them without anyone they would take them and attempt to place them with a member of your family ASAP.

Am planning on pushing DH to get it done this month(willaid andall that) but just had a panic about what'd happen if we died tomorrow. Thanks.

Actually it's a big myth that social services have to be involved in every death. Parents rarely die together but even if they do, your DSiL and DBiL would just need to fill in a form to ask the court to formally confirm custody and it takes months to get a court date and if in the interim they manage to live together affably enough, the court tends just to say 'jolly well done, here's the guardianship order'.

Thanks.