Wills and inheritance

[TropicalStorm123]

We’ve been meaning to sort wills for years now but every time we think about it we just get confused and no decisions are made, just wondering what arrangements others have made?

DH has two children from previous marriage, I have one child from previous relationship but I met DH when DS was a baby so he is like his own. And we have 1 DD together and planning to try for another later this year.

DH and I both came in to the relationship equal - both didn’t have much, we now own a decent sized house but currently little equity in it.

All our parents are still alive, DH’s parents own a low value property which will be split between him and his sister.
It’s unlikely that I’ll inherit much/anything from my dad but I’m set to inherit a reasonable amount from my mum, probably about 3 times the amount DH will inherit.

My ex doesn’t work and doesn’t own a house, neither do his parents so it’s unlikely DS will inherit anything from his Dad.

DH’s ex is a high earner and has a partner but doesn’t own a property at the moment, no idea whether she’s made any provisions for the kids.

If something happened to me i’d want DH and kids to be able to stay in the house, but I’d worry that he could meet somebody else and my kids (especially DS) wouldn’t inherit from me.

I also worry about the money I’ll inherit from my mum, I don’t think it’s right that that could end up being split between DSC. I know my mum wants that to go to her DGC, she hardly ever even sees DSC.

I’m not opposed to DSC inheriting from me but as they currently don’t even visit us, they’ve made it clear they don’t want anything to do with me and they hardly ever speak to DH, so of course my feelings currently are that I want my share to go to my own DC’s.

How would you split it?

Only leave to your own kids. Your husband’s kids will inherit from your husband (presumably) and their own mother.

But how do I do that? How can I leave it to my own kids without the house being sold?

I believe that the house can be held in trust for your biological children - this can be written to allow your DH and / or others (eg step children) to remain in or benefit from (let out) the house for X years. But the house cannot be sold by them.
You definitely need formal legal advice about this

We have just had draft will drawn up on this scenario. I currently own a house in my own name, most of the equity is from inheritance. We are buying a place together (he has zero deposit to add to the pot) but will own it as tennants in common 50/50. My share will go to our child if I die, but he will obviously be remaining in the house bringing up our child on his own. If he dies, his share of the house will revert to me and his life insurance will pay out “maintenance” to his ex for their daughter until she reaches 18, at which point a lump sum will be paid to DSD directly. That way, both kids are provided for until maturity, and nobody has to sell their home to pay anybody off. Also means DSD can’t be accidentally missed out if I was to die not long after DH, having inherited everything as his spouse, but not having written a new will yet. I would never cut her out intentionally, but legally she is not my child or heir so it could happen accidentally which neither of us would want.
Will review when everyone’s grown up but essentially I want to leave my half of what ours (most of which will have originated as inheritance from my family, realistically) to my own child/children. What he then does with his half (hopefully split equally between both his daughters) or what his ex leaves or doesn’t leave for DSD isn’t really any of my business. This has caused arguements but I can’t be told “you’re not her mum” repeatedly all my life then be expected to pay out as if she’s my daughter when I’m dead.
I have said I will ask my family to disinherit me/us and leave everything directly to our DD if he thinks it would hurt DSDs feelings less to get £0 of the money, rather than 25% of it...

You need to see a solicitor, but it’s reasonably straightforward.

You definitely need wills as a matter of urgency. In the (rare but not impossible) event that you were both killed in the same accident, the step child(ren) of whichever of you died second (or the younger spouse if time of death wasn’t clear) would be disinherited completely, and there’s no way to fix that for minor children. In particular if I were your DH I’d be very keen to protect the interests of the children of my first marriage. He could be run over by a bus tomorrow, and the chances of you remembering DSC you hardly know in your will forty years down the line are remote.

And you really should have life insurance to pay off the mortgage too.

Youseethethingis - exactly the scenario here, for the past 10 years I’ve been repeatedly reminded by DSC and their mother that I’m not their mum, she’s wanted me in their lives as little as possible and has gone out of her way to make things as difficult as possible for us.
But no doubt if she’s still around after me and DH die, she’ll complain that my DC’s will inherit more than her DC’s.
Not that I really care what she thinks but I think it’s just another situation where we can’t win whatever we do.

Findprimeloca - good point, i’d not really thought about what would happen if we both died at the same time.

I’d like to think that if something happened to DH I would still make sure my DSC receive something but as you mentioned - if 40 years have passed and I’d not seen them, maybe I wouldn’t.

We can’t ever win as step mums, we can only do our best to be fair and look out for our own children. I think I would feel very differently if DSD lived with us and I was bringing her up. Essentially, if I felt she was “mine”. But she isn’t, and I have no legal rights or obligations towards her.
Someone will be along shortly to say we are the evil and “children of the family” should be treated equally. Nothing more equal than for each child in the scenario to inherit from their own two biological parents, in my view. If DH and I split up tomorrow, I would likely never see DSD again. Because she isn’t mine, and I would have no right. Bit of a cheek to then suggest she has a right to half my family’s money when I die. Can’t have it both ways.

I feel like it would maybe be double standards if DH left some of his share to my DS but me not leave mine to his DC’s but DH has raised DS since he was a baby, and although DS sees his biological dad and he calls DH by his real name, he will refer to him as his dad. When he makes father’s day cards at school he’ll give them to DH rather than his real dad. If I died tomorrow I’d hope that DS would stay living with DH and DD.
DH’s relationship with DS is miles apart from my relationship with DSC.

I don’t know whether DH does plan to include my DS in his will, we have discussed the options but he’s not said one way or the other yet.

Wills are so complex..
I need to get mine sorted too. As times goes by I'm more and more leaning towards equal split between DS and SD- excluding inheritance from my parents. That would go to our DS, their grandson, as they are not close to SD.
But SD lives with us and is no contact with her mother. Her mother has a lot of money but is likely to be manipulative about it towards her only DD. Initially I wanted SD to inherit from her own parents so 25% from me and DH and DS would get 75%. I'm not sure anymore.

I am super clear on this. My estate is for my DC, no debate. Irrespective of whether I marry/ live with etc.

I would also not move in/ marry someone until wills were nailed down and drawn up. I'm genuinely shocked at the amount of people who have children and no will. I am not living with my DP, but have taken advice in the event we do. In the event he moves in with me, I would have the house valued at that point and either a % proportion of appreciation is what he would get or a % proportion of the value of the house (obviously staggered as time moved on...so 10/20 years). The % would be dependent on how much he was able to give towards the running of the house. He may well only want to give a smaller % given that in the main my DC are there more often.

In the event that we live together longer term and he sells his properties and this thereby becomes his family home, that in itself is another conversation. And a very difficult one, because ultimately my home is my DC's family home. Not his DC's. And in my current will, there is provision for my ExH to move into the home for a period of 6-12 months to be with our children.

Yours is a different set up as you do have children together but I urge you to get yourselves to a solicitor asap and get a will drawn up.

I think I didn’t feel the need to protect my assets before DH moved in because quite frankly there was nothing to protect at the time.
We both owned houses which were in negative equity at the time, no savings etc.
We were both really struggling, DH couldn’t even afford to feed himself or heat his house.

We are very equal, we earn similar incomes (DH slightly more but he pays maintenance to ex so I bring slightly more in to the household). We both came in to our relationship with nothing but have built a nice life together.
Everything we have together is a 50/50 split so from that perspective it’s straight forward. It’s just the split of the money between the children and inheritance from parents which makes it more complicated.

My parents are quite wealthy - I have asked them to give money direct to my DC in their will to avoid this issue...

You shouldn't expect inheritance from your parents no more than your kids should expe t inheritance from you. I think we think too much about such matters. A will is not about doing the right thing but doing what you want to do, be it leaving your money to one person or a charity or science.

So do yourcwill as you want and who cares what others think. It's your money to dispose as you want just like your mum will do which for all you know might not be going to you idlf ultimately she ends up in care for many years.

Swingofthings - yes I’m fully aware that I could end up not inheriting anything, my dad’s side of the family experienced this, several of the family had ear marked money of my wealthy grandparents but after several years of nursing homes and some bad investments there were some disappointed people when they eventually got their cheques.
I’m not remotely interested in receiving anything, I’m just interested in making sure that my husband and kids wouldnt have to worry about money if something happened to me whilst the kids are still young and making sure my kids inherit what I feel is rightfully theirs.

I’m going to talk to my mum and suggest we look in to maybe putting her house in to a trust for the kids.

If you ask your parents to put their home in trust for your children and they subsequently need access to the equity for care home fees, what would happen?

Oh I don’t know, does the trust not start from the time of my mum’s death?
So she leaves in her will that she wants the house to go in to a trust for her grandchild when she dies?
My grandad left some inheritance for some family members when he died but it wasn’t done before his death, it was in his will that he wanted a % of his estate to go in to trusts for certain people and their were conditions of how/when/why they could access it.

I'm totally in agreement with @swingofthings here. This is not a reference to you op but it drives me nuts they way there seems to exist this assumption that we should inherit & that we too should strive to leave all to our kids.
Once my kids are non dependents I fully intend to enjoy what I have & make provision for my old age so they don't have the financial burden of looking after me & if there's anything left when I'm gone then that's a bonus.
In the mean time I will care for them & pay to educate them to the best of my & their abilities so that they go out into the world as independent adults!!!
As 2 of mine & his 3 are still dependents my will leaves my everything to them & his leaves all to his.
If dp & I buy a house together my half will go to mine & he can do what he wants with his half. My savings will go to mine & his to his. Once our kids are all finished uni we will revise all this & intend to combine all our assets & our resources for our old age, & have discussed that the most likely scenario is that the kids will get left a lump sum each, but everything else gets left to each other.
In your case you leave your half of your house to your 2-3 kids & he leaves his half to his 3-4 kids.
What your dm does with her house is her business but if you do inherit from her my attitude would be to again leave that inheritance to your 2-3 kids but also give a small sum to each of your sdc as a kind gesture.