Wills- guardianship

[DirtyDancing]

Modes anyone know if you can appoint joint guardians in a will for your children? My BIL is the obvious guardian for our son as he is a lovely uncle, has children & is young enough to take on our child should anything happen (god forbid!) But I'm worried my memory & wishes for how he should be brought up would be lost & I'm thinking of suggesting to my DH we appoint joint guardianship with someone on my side. Worried it will complicate things though!

Advice please ;)

No idea but watching with interest as we're just thinking about this.

Bit harsh but I think if you are asking someone to bring up your son for you, you can't insist that they do so as you would want.

We picked out guardian because we liked how she behaved with our son but if she made a decision I didn't agree with (which I wouldn't know about because I'd be dead) I think that's her call to make.

Personally I think join guardianship sounds complicated, we did think about appointing someone else to be in charge his trust fund but decided if we trusted our guardian with our son, we probably trusted her with his money too!

k

I disagree entirely. I would talk to the guardian about my hopes & dreams for my son. I would potentially suggest things I would like for him in the future that they may not automatically inclined to do. Of course what they do with that info, if it came to it, is out of my control. I do not interpret it in the same way as you Katy., clearly If you were slowly dying of cancer for example, you would probably put lots of things in place about your child's future because you had time to do it & influence it. I don't see that writing a will now, & talking to guardian(a) now when you are healthy should be any different. I want to make sure my child has the best possible future secured, and I will do whatever it takes to make sure that happens.

Now back to my original question - can you do joint guardianship?

I think it would be extremely unkind to your dc tbh. It's like purposely inflicting a "broken home" on them. Do you envisage them living with both, one weekends, one weekdays? Or to you want one to have custody, grow to love and consider your child their own, but always have to have someone from outside the home agree on which school, whether or not they have an operation, if the can go abroad on holiday...? What if the main guardian, or other, wants to move to the other side of the country or emigrate?

Either would be extremely unsettling. I personally wouldn't take on a guardianship role where I had to run my decisions past anyone else, it's unreasonable to expect them to.

Joint trustees is fine for big financial decisions.

May I suggest you do videos for your dc or perhaps as I do, write them a letter each birthday about what I've loved about the preceding year and how much I love them.

Of course you can tell a prospective guardian your hopes and dreams for your dc, but you can't tell them how to bring them up. You chose them as someone you respect who has similar values and loves your dc, and is willing. If you suggest things for your dc in the future that they wouldn't have chosen, it's unfair IMHO. They'd probably not do it but always feel guilty, or worse still they'd do it always feeling it was wrong. They'd be fitting into a new family and can't have different rules/expectations to the other dc.

Chose well, one guardian, accept that they will do as they see fit. Enjoy every day and let your dc know they are loved. That's all you can control.

Hi OP, I'm a will writer and frequently appoint joint guardians.

This doesn't mean that the children live with one set of people for half the time and another for the rest. It means that you appoint several people to decide between themselves who is best placed to have day to day care of the children.

For example:

You live in Essex, your family live in Gloucestershire and your husband's family live in Dorset. You have close friends in Essex who have children of the same age. You could appoint A in Gloucestershire, B in Dorset and C in Essex as joint guardians. If your children are aged 3 and 5 when you and your husband have both died (extremely unlikely!), it would be fine for them to move to either Gloucester or Dorset. I would include a declaration in your will to say that you wish whichever guardian has day to day care to ensure that the children are kept in regular contact with the other half of their extended family.

If you both died when the children were 15 and 17 and in the middle of GCSEs and A levels it would clearly be sensible for them not to have to change schools to go to either Gloucs or Dorset but instead to live with the friends in Essex.

As an alternative to appointing joint guardians, you can appoint A as primary guardian with B as a backup if A can't or won't act.

Have a look at the Legal section for more info, or feel free to PM me.

Thank you mumblechum1!!!! As usual on MN other peope have jumped to conclusions & provided opinions about a situation they know nothing about. You have understood perfectly that it's not about, for example, trying to create a broken home (would any parent go out of their way to create that environment...?!)

Thank you I now know it's possible and is indeed perfectly reasonable.

That is all.

Glad to help!

Make sure you ask whoever you want first, not everyone will say yes to acting as guardians.