Do I need a wills specialist or a family specialist solicitor?

[Mij]

Looking for a bit of advice.

DP and I have been meaning to get wills done for years. We live together, rent a house (and are unlikely to buy in the near future), own little of value but have one DD and are expecting a second DC in July. DP came with me to register DD so has joint parental responsibility with me, and we'll of course do the same thing with DC2.

Our complication is that we're both only children and our families live at opposite ends of the country. My feeling is that, if we both disappeared under the same bus, we wouldn't necessarily want the DC x 2 to automatically go and live with grandparents, as they're knocking on a bit anyway, although they would take them on at the drop of a hat.

We need to talk through the options with a good solicitor, and I've asked for personal recommendations from friends, but wondered if anyone had advice on a) how to choose a solicitor and b) how to sort out the guardianship thing.

We have, btw, talked to a trusted couple who would take on, for example, term-time care of DC if we both snuffed it when they were already settled in school with friends etc (which is my personal worry - double bereavement plus moving to a whole new place where you have no friends and the wrong accent, looked after by aging grandparents (however loving) doesn't sound like the best solution to me...)

Any thoughts gratefully received.

You can see regular wills solicitor who will go through all the different options including making you and DP next to kin if that's what you both want.

They will also advise on guardians, executors, a 'wipeout clause' - if you all die making it clear where your estate goes.

Do you have life insurance?

Not yet, that's next on the list! We have an extremely, well, committed budget .

Do you think we should get that in place first?

God, I hadn't even thought about executors. Ahhhh!

The next of kin thing was a big issue before we had kids (although our extended families are all so nice to each other it's hard to imagine any disputes, but I know you can never tell, and that's what wills are for...) but tbh it's the guardianship business that's our biggest concern, with GPs being so far away.

I know it's a potential mine field - we started the process before xmas and haven't yet agreed on executors or the wipeout benficiaries.

Life insurance shouldn't cost you more than a few pounds a month - it might be worth seeing an IFA to get some recommendations. You'll certainly need funds to pass onto any guardians.

Guardians don't necessarily have to be the ones that actually look after your children - they are the ones who are the decision makers - so you could make gp's guardians and make explicit plans for your dc's care with the trusted couple.

Thanks for raising this issue, Mij, and for your advice, Missisboot. DH and I are in the same situation though we only have one DS and unlikely to have any more.

Our respective extended families are not close to DS at all. Difficult decision to make.

Thanks again and good luck.

MissisBoot, that's interesting about the Guardians and exactly why we need advice! Thank you for passing on your experience.

One (the only?) advantage in being only children is that we potentially have three estates (DPs parents split when he was tiny) from grandparents coming to us eventually - although obviously I'd infinitly prefer to have our parents than their assets (!) and I'm very pleased that they're all in spankingly good health for their age. I suppose what I'm saying is that, weirdly, and because of what DP and I have chosen to do with our lives, they're actually in a much better position, even retired, to provide for kids financially than we are. But they're getting older and I'd rather they'd spend their cash on a comfy retirement and planning for their future care so yes, absolutely we need to get some kind of insurance in place.

Would our arrangement with our 'trusted friends' need to be part of the will, or in a witnessed caveat or something, or would any written, signed agreement do? We will, of course, discuss this fully with all the grandparents.

Been meaning to see a Co-op Bank financial advisor (who are completely independent and free - massive bonus) also for years, but you know how time just slips by... Will get my blooming finger out and yes, I know life insurance can be very cheap so we should get it in place.

Any other thoughts, anyone?

My view is that it is not productive or worthwhile to try and think out what you would want to happen in every possible nightmare scenario and so we have appointed 2 guardians who we trust to make the right decisions at the time as to what is best for our boys. They both know that by agreeing to be their guardians they are not saying that the boys would live with them they are saying that they will take responsibility to make the best decision at the time given the current circumstances of everyone involved. They are also our exectutors which means that they will also have control of the money to make sure that it is used in the boys best interests.

Muddleduck - yes, that's why we need to talk it through. It's more about making sure that the guardians (who realistically have to be our parents, in the short-term, as we have no-one else) know that there are certain things we want them to take into consideration as one set of GPs have said 'we'd have her' and I'm just not sure that would be appropriate.

I suppose that's why I'm interested in trying to get a real specialist in guardianship-type clauses, to help us get our head around what needs to be dictated, and if there are other ways of setting down less concrete wishes...

It's giving me a headache just trying to explain...