DSD and wills

[Anniegetyourgingirl]

WWYD? My DSD is 20 and I have been in her life since she was 3. DH and her mum separated when she was a baby. They had bought a flat together and he signed over his share to his ex. It was in an up and coming bit of central london, ex stayed there 10 more years and did well out of it when she sold. Ex will inherit quite a bit from her own parents at some stage, which will presumably come to DSD (only child) in due course.

DH and I have two kids (8 and 10) and we get on well with DSD, and it is amicable with her mum too. No dramas about money, contact etc. We had previously written a will which guaranteed maintenance payments to DSD until she turned 18 but all else to me / in trust for our kids if we both died. We need to update it now. My feeling is that we should have mirror wills (I/he gets everything if he/I die) but that the 'if we both die' version should still just be for our own DC. He wants a provision for his DSD in both versions.

What have others done? How much should be given to DSD as a 'special provision?'

(I have seen a couple of other similar topics recently but starting a new one as my situation is different so don't want to takeover on another thread!)

@LenaBlack
If the father's resources are split things are split equally among his 3 children, the assets of their respective mothers will not be factored in to the equation at all. It will only be the father's estate in play. The parents can each leave each other their share of the home in joint tenancy to ensure that none of the children can force the sale of the home. The OP can entail her assets solely to her children

[quote SandyY2K]**@PeggyHill

That seems fair but the one who survives could change their will.

All depends what age when they pass, but they could remarry and that would change things. You just never know what the future holds.[/quote]
You're absolutely right. My parents are both very elderly so I didn't think much about this. Sounds like OP is probably quite a bit younger so it could well be relevant here.

25Tiredoftattler

I disagree. In a marriage assets are joined. In a long marriage you can't look at the father's assets separately to his wife's. And indeed in this case the father has left the previous joint asset to his ex..so you can argue that his daughter has gotten and will get the benefit through her mother.

Normally the father's resources go to his wife first, not his children - depending on variety of factors of course.

Do you expect your parents home to go to you when one of them dies? Do you expect the other parent to have to sell their home?

We have a similar situation here 2 children from this marriage and 2 from first (1 each) . We’ve made is so that the it’s divided by 6 - first two children get a 1/6 each and our two children get each get 2/6 if we sadly both died at the same time.
But if only one of us die we leave our direct 3 children the split of 1/3 each of the share of what is allocated to them. I’ve seen it before where the 2 nd marriage husband/wife passed away everything left to them on the promise to be fair .....and then the will is changed to only include their direct heirs or in one case the lady (in her 60’s) remarried and left everything to her next husband. It broke my friend that their family home was left to a near complete stranger and his adult children very hurtful.

I haven't RTFT but it is irrelevant what your DSD may inherit from her DM's side.

I have a DSS and everything we have will be split between DSS and my biological children (his half brothers). DSS will likely inherit from his unmarried uncle - but so what (mine will likely inherit from my family in a similar fashion - or maybe not) - but the hurt and damage from excluding him is not something I would ever contemplate. Please don’t do this to your DSD it’s so unfair.

@ElaineMarieBines That is your choice, but it is absolutely not "so unfair" for her to not inherit from her step parent.

Again, thanks all. There is quite an age difference between me/DH and his ex (me 42, he's 52, she's 61 and her parents in late 90s but healthy) - so I think that the likelihood is his ex will inherit sooner and would likely pass some of that on to DSD to help her buy a house (this has been discussed).

We have much younger kids and a big mortgage and are unlikely to inherit much from parents, so the 'landscape' does feel a bit different for us. I think we need to go to see a solicitor. All comments have made me see that mirror wills are not the simple solution that I assumed, so thank you.

DH and I have mirror wills-once we have both died his half of the estate will be split evenly between his 3 kids with his Ex and any we have together, my half will go between our kids.
Yes his kids have to wait for me to die (if he dies first) to get their share of his assets but that’s normal - we are married so our home is the marital home. Anyway we could easily both end up needing care and no one gets anything - an inheritance isn’t a right!

We've just done ours. DSDs are with us full time, they have limited contact with DM and her family so have no idea what will provision will be like from that side. He and ex-W own a property that she lives in, and her parents are v wealthy, so I'm assuming there'll be something 🤷🏻‍♀️

His will passes everything to me on his death if he goes first, and mine has a provision for my subsequent estate to be split between 20% to each DSD, and 40% to our biological child/ren (we're TTC), and 20% elsewhere.

Rationale being, our child/ren won't have any other 'avenues', the girls have a whole other family. All of my family's money will filter into my estate so the DSDs will benefit from that, (entirely correct, they are part of 'my' family unit), but theirs won't filter into my child's.

If we don't have children, there's a clause in mine for it to be split 50/50 between the girls.

If I go first, all of mine goes to him, and is subsequently split equally between the children. I'll be dead, I don't really care.

It's a bloody horrible conversation to have, and we decided that ultimately, there's enough in the pot to leave the kids well provided for however, but even so, tricky.

Of course his daughter should have a share of his inheritance! The ex's finances are irrelevant. That's his daughter! What a disgusting thing to suggest it all goes to your children only.