Blended family & making a Will

[Mantwab2020]

Hi mums
Does anyone have any advice on making a will when you have a blended family. We are a family of 5. Me and my daughter (aged 8), then my partner and his two boys (early teens). We have a joint mortgage and separate pensions and death in service with both our jobs. My daughters biological father isn't around and if anything happened to me then she would stay with my partner but the boys would go back to their mum if my partner passed away. We are in the process of making a will and all sorts of scenarios are coming up! I know our lawyer will advise what's best but just wondered if any of you lovely lot found it an absolute minefield! Any advice would be most welcomed. Xx

It's very simple, you treat all children the same whether you gave birth to them or not. You have 3 dc it's split 3 ways.
I hate all this treating them differently, it can't be nice to think you come behind other children and it isn't equal.
This is my dh, a third from his mother who has another family with one son. He gets 2/3. His father died and he'll get nothing as step mum only a few years older and they had 2 kids.
It's awful coming from a broken family, people kid themselves their children aren't scarred for life, to justify their actions.

I disagree with the poster above. Your assets pre marriage are yours to pass to your daughter. Ditto your partner and his sons.

Especially given your daughter only has you to inherit from, the boys have 2 parents to inherit from.

In terms of wealth and assets accumulated in the marriage you can either split 3 ways or you can look at what you both out in and do a ratio. But if you earn less and contribute less money but you’re looking after his kids (sounds like they are resident with you?) then don’t just look at financial contribution to decide that.

Oh and yes if you get married make sure you both protect your children in your wills. It doesn’t matter what you promise while you’re alive, you cannot ensure that a widowed spouse will do the right thing by distributing the estate to stepchildren if they have no claim owing to the spouse inheriting all. That’s how children lose out on their own inheritance while a step parent and siblings take the lot.

I never said at all that we were treating any of them any different to the other! We never have and never will. They are our children and that's that. What I meant was that in a fully biological family all children would inherit once both parents pass away (usually). In a blended family this is usually not the case as the step children usually end up living with their biological parent full time and we want to make sure the biological parent is not financially burdened should one of us die. If we wait until we both die then it could be years before the kids inherit anything and we would prefer them to benefit earlier on.

But you said that if your partner died his kids would go back to their mum. So you cannot treat everyone the same as you would for a non-blended family. You might windiest hem all ri be your children but the boys have another parent who might see that differently. If your daughter’s bio father is never going to take her then she needs a different protection to your partner’s sons. You have to work out what you want in a whole variety of scenarios and then speak to a solicitor so they can word things to make that happen.

It depends what you came into the marriage with; I think to say that you split equally no matter what is naive and to say children are scarred for life is just plain incorrect.
DH has a DSD and we have two children together; if one of us dies then everything goes to the other person. If we both die then my significant assets that I came into the relationship with are split between my 2 biological children and the our joint assets and DHs money are split 3 ways between our 2 children and his DD.
We have a life insurance to be able to pay DDs maintenance and for our children to be looked after by a family member.
I hope we live to an old age at which point I think we’d just split all our money between the 3 children as what we both brought into the marriage will be less significant in 40 years time but if something were to happen tomorrow then I want my children to have the money that i brought into our marriage.
DSD has a mum and grandparents to leave her money; she doesn’t need me to do it as well as it’d be unfair on my children.

Windiest hem = You might consider them all your children - sorry fat fingers.

In terms of the children benefitting earlier on rather than when the second person dies I think you need to consider it very carefully and think about life insurance. If something happened to DH then I couldn’t afford his DD to immediately inherit as the money is in our house and I would expect to lose my DH and then have to sell my home to be able to give his DD money. I’d also need what we got from life insurance to manage without his income.

*wouldnt expect

Thanks all, there are so many scenarios and whilst we really want to do the right thing at the right time we also need to consider each other as well as the kids. I know the solicitor will help it's just nice to get others views in the same boat. Hopefully we will grow old together but we need to be prepared especially as we are not yet married and have a joint property and savings.

There is no right and wrong, all situations are different. The only thing that matters is that you and your OH are on the same page.

There is no way in this scenario with children this young I would split everything equally three ways.

Your Dd has only you to inherit from. However if anything happened to you, you need to ensure that your partner has the money to look after / care for her. So typically what would happen is your assets would go into a trust. That would be managed by trustees. And they would release money to your partner to help meet costs of raising/ feeding/ educating her.
At the age of 25 (I recommend a higher age), the trust gives the child the money that is left.

That is how I would set up anything for my assets pre marriage for my child in your relationship.

As many others have said, if anything happens to your DP, the children will be cared for by their mother. His estate should then provide sufficient funds to maintain child maintenance until the youngest is 18etc and as many others have said, people often take out life insurance to provide for this so claims are not made against an estate.

If you think that once people sadly die, their wishes are carried out regarding their money, you would be sadly mistaken. I know of times where money has been left to a partner who promised to treat all children equally. They have then met someone else, remarried and subsequently spent what should have been a child’s inheritance on funding their lifestyle. I’ve honestly seen some Horrible real life examples of people completely reneging in agreements made while a partner/ child/ sibling was alive.

Don’t do that.

Re any joint property that can be set up as tenants in common. So both of you have a right to remain in the house until you both die. At which point the shares revert into individual pots for the trusts for the respective children. I’m sorry but if I paid 50% into a property, that 50% would be going back to my child. Not 33%.

I think it’s admirable when people say let’s treat all the children equally. But that isn’t necessarily how things end up.

Speaking as a child of divorced parents, I’m happy to say we are, of course, not all scarred for life. It’s bollocks and if it were true no amount of money would help.

We have a trust set up for our assets and my half goes to my/our child and DH half goes to all 3 of his. We have live insurance which covers the remaining mortgage and some extra, both have pensions and death in service and we’ve agreed the one who outlives the other can stay in the house till they die so it’s all other assets get split when the first one dies and the house later. We’ve named a legal guardian for our child and they’ll inherit funds to support her should we die before she’s an adult.

I wouldn’t put your hopes in advice from the lawyer. They’ll lay out your options but expect you to have a good idea of your wishes first. It’s nearly always true that people are worth far more dead than alive, and or than they think.

Thanks again everyone. This is all really really helpful.

Anne - what did you decide about pension and death in service? Does this go to your child/trust to go towards so called maintenance?

I have seen my Exs will - he has three children - 2 mothers.

My 2 get 25% and his other child gets 75%. Other child has 3 grandparents to inherit from ( and will) .

Fortunately, I am unlikely to be around when this plays out, but my 2 who have embraced their brother as their family are going to be so hurt. They already think their father favours youngest sibling and this will confirm it - I hurt for them knowing what is coming.

No way is right but huge differences cause huge rifts.

I think while you have dependent children you have to look at what would happen if you died next Tuesday. What their individual needs are is more important than a blunt instrument to make all things exactly equal. The circumstances of these children are not equal now while you are alive so you’d be daft to pretend treating them equally and tearing them fairly is the same thing.
The way we have things set up is I leave my share of assets to my child (all the assets were brought to the marriage by me, I just wanted us to be 50:50 as a married couple) and DH splits his between our shared child and his DD with his ex.
He thinks this is unfair to DSD and it should all be split in two but I think she’s doing well out of me - in line to inherit 25% of my inheritance from my grandparents, which I’m happy with because she’s my family, but she’s not my child or responsibility so I don’t want to take more off DS to give to her while she inherits from her mums side and doesn’t have to share the other way.
On the other hand he’s also worried that his DD is better provided for by the life insurance covers he has in place! Which is true but I think it’s ok because of different circumstances. He’s just so worried about showing a bias to either child. The blended family wills and inheritance scene is just so hard to navigate!

My 2 get 25% and his other child gets 75%. Other child has 3 grandparents to inherit from ( and will) .

I’m not sure how their child inheriting from their grandparents is relevant to you or your children. If that was your childthen inheriting from lots of grandparents I’m 100% sure you’d still expect their father to leave them something too.

How has it worked out 25% and 75% anyway? Is it to do with the wife only being parent to one of three, so the third one gets something from both as opposed to yours getting something from one.

My 2 get 25% and his other child gets 75%. Other child has 3 grandparents to inherit from ( and will) .

I’m not sure how their child inheriting from their grandparents is relevant to you or your children. If that was your childthen inheriting from lots of grandparents I’m 100% sure you’d still expect their father to leave them something too.

How has it worked out 25% and 75% anyway? Is it to do with the wife only being parent to one of three, so the third one gets something from both as opposed to yours getting something from one.

Re any joint property that can be set up as tenants in common. So both of you have a right to remain in the house until you both die

You need to write that latter part into trust, it doesn't happen automatically.

I think the fairest way to do things is to split the joint assets in half. Then both adults split it fairly between their children.

So for example. The man has 1 child from a previous relationship and then goes on to have 4 more. The woman he is married to has no children from previous relationship and has the 4 with the man.
His half is split 5 ways and her half is split 4 ways.

You have to think of it this way. The child who “seems” to be getting less from their father, isn’t really. Because he’s split his half equally between his children. He’s done nothing wrong and hasn’t short changed anybody.
The children’s mothers then both add their bits to that for the own children. I can’t see why that is so unfair.

Ugh complicated and depends on what you brought in.
All my assets as not married to Dp go to my son. Without exception, as they are mine alone.
Token amounts to dsc and Dp gets a sum of the life insurance.
The house I owned pre relationship goes to ds and my funeral etc is pre paid through my various life insurances etc etc.
Dp has no assets pre relationship.
It is what it is unfortunately, but as all my assets were pre relationship and Dp hasn't contributed they go to my child.
I think my situation is unusual though. But get it agreed, my will and the agreements are all done through a solicitor.

Your half goes to your kids. His half goes to his kids.

@VanGoghsDog yup.

And OP, you know if when the children are older and you’ve got more years under the belt, you may decide to adjust things.

But until then I would look at the young ages of the children and account for that. I guess the only factor (thinking about it) is that your partner essentially is offering to raise your child in the event something happens to you. Are you planning to formalise this? I.e. a formal adoption/ PR exercise (I’m not sure what is involved).

If that is the scenario, it may be that some of this needs to be more equitable across all the children. Because effectively he would be a father to 3, not just his 2. That being said, I would still want to ensure some assets are protected for my child. It’s a tricky one.

My partner and I have a son together and he has 3 children from previous. Our house (main joint asset) will he spilt 50% my son as he is only gaining from me and then my partners 50% is being split 4 ways between all his children. As his previous 3 also have their mums house that will be shared out between then and her 2 new children. It's a minefield indeed! Pensions are separate, mines solely benefits my son and my partners again go 4ways.

Whilst it's lovely wanting your children to inherit please make sure that the surviving partner isn't put in a position where they have to sell their home and struggle financially just so the kids can inherit, that would be awful for them and not what would happen in a bio family