Help! writing a Will and making it fair to all childern

[tigerrose]

Can you help... I have a step son and our own daughter. Step son also has 2 other half siblings with birth mum. My husband thinks that we should leave all assets half and half between step son and our daughter.

I think that is unfair as he will inherit from his mother too who is reasonably well off and our daughter will not get any of that.

I wanted to leave my assets to our daughter and his half should be split between the 2 childeren.

Any thoughts on this? is it fair ? what do other people tend to do?

I would tend to agree with you.

I would say 50/50, he is an equal dad to both children and if it was me I couldn't provide less to one. I can see where you are coming from though.

DP and I have done something similar. I leave my assets to my children, he leaves to his, on same basis as you - both sets of children have two parents to inherit from. However, we don't have any joint children.

Lunar, he would do his half 50/50 as he has 2 children. However, OP only has 1 child, not two.

I agree with you OP - his DS has another parent to inherit from & your joint DD doesn't - there needs to be some balance there with that. If the Mum wasn't as well off as your DH I'd probably say 60/40 maybe, but as she is then DD inherits from you and half from him and his DS half from him. Job done I'd have thought - why does he think that's not fair?

Dh and I signed a prenup where I leave my assets (have already inherited) to ds and whatever dh inherits from his parents will go automatically to his dc.
Only problem is present house we share... Have posted in legal to get advice and most replies seemed to agree with me.
Go with your gut feeling on this, you have one child you are responsible for.

DH has 2 daughters (DSD and DD) I have one.

The way it works for us is the way you have suggested. Our assets are split 50/50 between me and DH.

All of my 50% goes to DD. 25% of his half goes to DSD, 25% of his half goes to DD, so it is a 75/25 split between the two children on the understanding that DSD receives 100% of her mothers assets too.

I really do think this is the fairest way.

We've done mirror wills and spilt it 50/50 between the two dcs. dc1 is not dh's biologically. We have no idea what she'll inherit from her father, for whom she's the only child (and likely to remain so) however this is what we consider fair.

Forgetting the step issue most parents try to be as fair as possible when considering inheritences if they have more than one child. That usually means that the estate is divided equally between the number of children, e.g. 2 = 50:50, 3 = 1/3, 4 = 25% etc. However, sometimes there are extenuating circumstances such as a child having special needs where their future is less assured and parents therefore make the decision to adjust percentages accordingly.

If you consider all I've said as a starting point it's really not so different to what you propose re: making adjustments. No-one can predict the future of course, but so far as you possibly can, your suggestion is intended to "equalise" the inheritence(s) of both DD and SS. You don't know for sure what SS's mum will leave him - or if she'll leave anything at all - but on the basis that it's most likely his mother will want to leave something for him then your suggestion is as fair as it can be IMO.

Say, for the sake of argument you and DH leave £100. £50 of that is yours and goes to DD. £50 is DH's and DD gets £25 of that and SS also gets £25. Therefore DD's inheritence is £75. SS also inherits from his mother who you describe as "reasonably well off" which suggests she has more - potentially - to leave than you do. Say she has £200 to leave - each of her 3 kids gets £66, meaning SS ends up with £91. Obviously, these figures are nonsensical, but you get the gist. You're never going to be able to make it absolutely "fair" - what with all the unknowns but I think you'd be doing DD a dis-service if you went 50:50 as what you're trying to do is balance things out as much as possible between the two of them after you've gone.

Catsmother, yep I think you hit the nail on the head. I think my other half tends to try and forget that his son still has a mother who is better off than we are and that she got more than the lions share of their assets on divorce.

Tiger, my advice would simply be that whatever you decide, write down/explain your reasoning.

My mum and stepdad have tried to be fair with their wills, taking into account that while they met too late to share children, they share grandchildren and assets. The specifics are different from your case but the best thing they have done is tell everyone their reasoning.

Even though the situation probably works out best for my stepsister, who inherits from most people due to being an only child of her parents, my brother and I still think it is the best solution which shows how fair and loving our parents tried to be. That is worth more to me than any of the money, knowing how they tried to make sure everyone was cared for in as fair a way as possible. The last thing I would want is for any of us to fall out or feel upset.

I'm with you OP. Seems as fair as you can make it!

I would consider writing one will for when my children are children and then update it when they are adults. If both DH and I were to die tomorrow, DSS still has his mum, his main home and a stepfather. However DD will not have any parents, no home and will be at a greater disadvantage. So in that sense if both DH and were to die tomorrow we'd want to make sure our assets were used to take care of DD, with perhaps a token amount put into trust for when DSS gets to 21 or something. how that all works I have no idea and we too are going to see a solicitor about it.

Once all the children are adults, then I don't think it really matters so much how you split it. I never inherited off my mother she left it all her to her boyfriend.

or you could just leave it all to charity...

Why not compromise and go 1/3 -2/3

Stepmooster: very good point that I have not considered before thanks

I am in a similar situation to you, OP, and my approach is the same.

My mother was left nothing - her biological father died when she was a child, and her mother and stepfather split their assets between their mutual children, on the grounds that the assets belonged to the stepfather so should only go to his children.

It didn't do much for family unity.Later, when various (step)cousins needed support, we were fairly taken aback to be approached.

The moral of this story being don't be mean with stepchildren - it can backfire.

I have 2 dc with dh and 1 dss, everything has been split equally between all 3. IMO I choose to marry a man who already had a child and that child is part of my family and therefore should be treated equally.

Corygal, but what if the youngest sibling will end up a homeless orphan? Would it not worry you that they will end up with very little to see them through their young years because both mum and dad are not their to provide for them??

Sometimes people don't have a lot of assets to split, and it becomes the lesser of 2 evils. If we had oodles of cash then I would agree to split it differently. Our decision is more practical really, DSS is going to have the less upset to his life if we both pass away, DD on the other hand her whole world will change.

We made sure 2DSCs and the bump on the way are equally provided for in terms of our joint estate and life insurance.
However money left in trust to me by my father who died before I met DP is left only to "bump" as DSCs will be left money in a similar way by their Mum's side of the family.

If DSS mother predeceases us, and he is still a child that too would be entirely different...

To add this does not mean that as stepmooster says, if both DP and I died at the same time they are all provided for in the same way in terms of guardianship and money to take care of them as the as DSCs have their Mum still. It does mean that in terms of DPs death that all 3 would be treated equally. It was quite a complex will to set out, was glad we had a helpful solicitor!

Well, of course you must leave everyone something - I'm with you entirely about making sure that a) people have two sides to be left things from b) that both sides do so.

I think your idea of 60:40 is right.

What you propose is fair. What your DP proposes gives his DS a likely twice as much inheritance as DD, which isn't fair. Your money should in principle go to your DD, with possibly some token gift to DSS if you wish.

You don't say how old your DCs are. If they're still children, the difficulty you have is that you're very, very unlikely both to die together - and would presumably want to leave the surviving partner at least the right to remain in their home. So you either need to leave it to each other, and trust the surviving person to pass it on in accordance with your wishes (which might not work well if you died first and your DP felt he needed to be 'fair' - in his eyes - with the money to both his children)

Or you need to set up some sort of trust fund for the DC(s) involved and work out how to ensure that the surviving one of you two isn't pushed into homelessness/poverty because of money that's tied up in a trust fund and not available to them to help them provide for the children during the rest of their childhood.

Interesting. I am a SD and was left quite a reasonable sum from my birth father and various relations on his side (these deaths occured over 50 years ago); I have a SF and two half siblings. I know for a fact that my mother and step-father's will leaves everything equally between the three of us - the solicitor did ask my SF to clarify that this was entirely his wish, & he said yes, I guess I am very fortunate in having a lovely SF who I get on very well with . However I wonder if my half-siblings feel that this is 'unfair' as I have already inherited from 'my' relations?