Wills

[shushnow]

Interested to know if people have wills in a blended family, how have they been written? Ie, all to spouse, equal to kids?

Don't get me started! Not married to DP - he's left everything to his biological children and I get a 10% share. Not happy!!!

Get a solicitor and be HONEST with your other half. If you don't want his children benefitting from your share of wealth in your death, you can factor this. Just be honest with your wishes.

Always remember that percentages need not apply either - stepchildren/children can be 'accounted for' in a will which would hopefully prevent any successful contesting, e.g. Partner as beneficiary of everything with £30k allocated to a child/other relative from a source of any choice.

Get a solicitor.... and good luck x

DP and I aren't married and don't have kids yet. He has 2 DC with his ExW.
Our wills say that if one dies, the other gets the house. The rest of the money goes to his DC if he dies and mine goes to my family.

It will change if/when we have DC so that everything goes the remaining partner with a life insurance policy to pay for the DSC maintenance. If DP dies first, I will make sure my will leaves everything split fairly between the DC/DSCs.

Bananas - how long have you two been together? How old are his children?

We haven't written wills! We have agreed and gone over it many times though. Yes - all the estate to go the remaining spouse- odds on that's me as the female, though we are close in age. It would be tricky if kids contested that, at the point of death of one parent, I suppose, so we must get it in writing even though it would be automatic. I think the kids would have to take it to court and I guess they would lose (? Does anyone know?).

Then, when the survivor (me or him) has spent as much as we wish, even after remarriage and gaining new family, that whatever the children we have together get, it is equal. Equal to each child.

We have raised them together and would treat them the same. There might be little left when we are both gone, or there might be a lot. We would appoint his eldest and my eldest as executors. I think it is only done on faith in each other as the surviving spouse will be able to change their will after the other is gone.

We've left assets to DC and taken out life insurance in favour of each other.

A good solicitor helped a lot - I'd advise you discuss it with one.

Have an honest and frank talk first. My concern was not wanting to get turfed out of my home if he died, his was that his kids wouldn't lose out on inheriting from the home.

We worked out a formula that accounts for me owning a home and gives me two years to either sell the house and give them their percentage or buy them out.

We didn't want to do a lifetime interest in the home or anything - although I know people do.

He gets an equal share with my siblings if I die.

It's all very clear and I'm really glad we spent the few hundred quid to do it.

We've been together 7 years. Property in his name (no equity at present). One child together, I cannot work at present to look our child.

We had a not so great solicitor who did nothing to help us come to a mutually cooperative solution. She advised us that there 'was nothing we could do about each other's wills' and that I was entitled to very little anyway because we were not married.

Personally I do think it is something that couples can come together to mutually support each other - and I do believe in trust. My OH does not want to leave anything to me in case I don't then leave it to his children. I have to say it's not great and I don't like not being trusted.

Yes. Equal split between all the children. I quietly committed to treating my step-children as my own kids when we came together as a family. No reason that commitment should die with me.

I leave all of my estate to my child, none to DP. His doesn't leave anything to me either. Not sure why that's odd. We have life insurance in favour of each other to pay off our mortgage plus quite a lot more. Our wills state that we can live in our house until we die, or get remarried/co-habit for more than 5 years.

So I think we've allowed for each other perfectly satisfactorily.

How would you split this then?
I have 2 children, partner has 2 children - none together.

We met when kids were 1,5 (mine) 6,10 (his). DPs ExW is marrying a wealthy man soon and his kids will likely inherit from that pot and their maternal grandparents also.
My youngest child's grandparents have been open and said he will inherit a lot when they pass.
My eldest has no family other than myself - I have raised her as a single parent since day one.

DP and I are buying a house next year, I have £40k inheritence from my dad that I am using as our deposit and then DP will pay the lions share of the mortgage for some years until I no longer have to pay childcare for my children (only work part time and look after both sets of kids in school holidays)

I would like to leave a larger proportion to my eldest as she will not inherit anything other than what I leave her. All 3 other kids will inherit from both parents and both sets of grandparents.

I would like to leave her at least 30-40% of our combined inheritance if we should die to give her the same opportunity and financial support as the other 3 will get overall. They will get 20% each.

Has anyone else done this?

I agree I do think it is important to think about what the children are going to get from others. Ignoring that and just splitting things 'equally' is not always the fairest imho.

goggle I would think that this sounds fair, to leave your eldest more - as they do not have the same starting position as the other children.

I feel the same too - my DP has 3 children, I have one, and we have one together. Mine is more awkward as the house is in DPs name and we are not married - however our child together has special needs and will not inherit from anyone else. So for me that means two big reasons for him to inherit more than the others.

Get a solicitor, and make mirror wills, one will reflect the other. We took weeks sorting ours out, but it's done now.....fairly and squarely to both sides.

Contemplating what we should do; as DH and I have a DS but he also has a 12 yr old ds and 9 yr old dd and I have been their stepmother for the past 7 yrs. We have a house together and Ideally I would like our ds to inherit my half and then DH can decide how he would like his half split. He seems to think this is unreasonable as our DS would ultimately benefit more favourably from mine and his share not sure what the best approach is?

Discotastic i would give your half to your ds and dh splits his 3 ways between his dcs.
We have done similar my half goes to our 2 dcs and dhs half is split between his 6 dcs (4 by previous marriage and our 2). His 4 dcs will also inherit from their dm.

I feel I had to comment on this due to personal experience.
My mum's parents split when she was really young and her bio dad moved to england from scotland so she spent her summers with him. Her mum got a new partner and he done the day to day bringing up of my mum.
Both men passed in the space of 6 months 2 years ago and when her bio dad passed, his new wife made sure neither she or me and my sister (as his first and only bio grandkids at the time) got a thing.

They money he had set out in his will for us had been cashed in to pay for their wedding (which she wanted) so we were left with nothing. Her grandkids got an inheritance and so did my aunt's son (who was born not long before).
Obviously mum was upset we had all been left out but got on with life.. then 6 months later her other dad passed away.

Family skeletons with this but as it turned out, he and my gran weren't married and he has 4 bio kids of his own and my mum as a step child.

Despite the fact he raised my mum as his own since she was about 3 (45 at the time he passed) and had recently lost her other dad, he left nothing to my mum.
Also left nothing to my gran (she's bad with money so understandable) and nothing to me and my sister. He and my sister shared a heart condition and bonded over it and he helped her with blue badge forms etc for it so my mum was really upset at again being left out when the "siblings" she grew up with and their kids all got in excess of £5,000 each. And also upset that he left my sister out (not so much me as we never had much in common and I got on better with my dad's side of the family.

If he had been upfront about it and explained his reasoning then it wouldn't have caused such a rift in the family where a lot of the time, they still don't speak much more than pleasantries as one step sister suggested the ones with an inheritance divide it all so we all got an equal share whereas the rest felt it would be going against their dads wishes.

Be upfront about your reasoning as it could cause problems when it all comes out.