Talk to me about blended families and Wills

[candlelightsatdawn]

Hi all

We are looking at revising our wills because currently they aren't reflective of new DC and new assets and we need to update them. With pandemic and other medical issues we just haven't sorted it.

We both have a DD each, both me and DH have a SD and a new joint baby (hopefully) soon. How have you all done it ?
I have been speaking to a friend who's having a massive issue re the SC/ex wife contesting the will and after hubby has passed and it's given me a kick up the rear to look at it from all angles.

If it helps when we bought house together I bought £100,000 equity and he brought £45,000. We pay equally towards bills bar a expensive horse that is completely my bill as he's lovely but a costly little thing.

How have you all worked it ?

Tbh, there’s no provision for H’s maintenance should he die before the SC are 18. There is no way he’d make provision like that because of what his ex is like.

If he dies he’s dead. And dead people don’t pay maintenance.

If my ex died, I wouldn’t expect any continuing maintenance provision from his estate either.

It is a really tricky one when it comes to non nuclear families. My partner has a daughter from previous 'relationship' and we have 2 little ones together. We've bought a house 50/50 and have mirrors wills stating life time interest if one of us dies then when the other dies my half is split between my 2 children and his between his 3.

Its not your responsibility whether the step children inherit of someone else or not down the line, you have no idea really and its not fair that your children get less from their family.

We also have a sentence stating that we do not want the wills to be revoked if we marry or one of us remarries once the other passes. You also need to choose executors and guardians for your children if you sadly pass together and children are minors. All deep and very grown up stuff!!!

@Oneforthemoneytwo

If you’ve a child each and a joint child then IMO you split 3 ways. Inheritances from other parents are irrelevant as they are not your family and anything can happen with them.

I agree, or four ways if new baby comes along.

I thought I had this figured out in my head so tried to type it out but now I’ve thoroughly confused myself!
We are due to sort our wills imminently. I have one DSC, and we have 2 DC’s together. We had agreed that all assets would be pooled and split 50/50 shares. His 50% would be split 3 ways (16.6% of total) and mine 2 ways (25% of total), therefore DSC would receive 16% of shared estate and DC’s would receive 41% combined from both of us.
We intended to leave the house in trust with lifetime interest but I’m now not sure as we would still need to maintain control of the money for living expenses. We could agree that the estate passes to the surviving spouse with the value split upon their death but what’s to say he couldn’t change his will in favour of my DSC once I’m gone or me leave it all to our DC if he went first?!
I’m going to have to hand this over to the professionals.

@SingingWaffleDoggy if you leave the house in trust the surviving partner can still access the money and use it (I think just to buy another property though). The way we have it is that there are three trustees- the surviving partner and two of our friends who we trust to do what’s right for the DC.

MIL had something similar, and when her partner died she was able to sell their joint house and use all the money to buy something more suitable for herself on her own. She just had to agree with her stepchildren the percentage value of their stake in her new house. When she passes away they will get the share that originally came from their dad, and DH will get the rest.

@Riverlee - I think for us we won't be doing a straight 4 way split because the assets divide in the house is unequal already.

My DD inheriting solely from me and my estate and DSD inheriting from her dads estate, the joint DC inheriting from both.

Out wills won't be turned into another battle ground of making a exactly equal in terms of percentages, this is not Christmas presents.

Also @BeyondOurReef wait the way people where talking about maintenance being paid from the estate like it was a common place thing ? Is this common. Tbh I mentioned it to DH and he said so my death doesn't even stop the requests for more money ongoing, even with the large pile of cash I will be leaving people 😂

Maintenance is an interesting one as I guess with good estate planning a child would have provision via trustees. I’ve not heard of a legal requirement for maintenance to be paid to an ex by NRP’s widow or partner though.

I don't get the maintenance thing either to be honest. Surely once their dad is dead all the kids are in the same boat? Why does one set needed ongoing maintenance more than another?
We only have a special set up for DSD because it's too messy for her to just have a share of the house if DH dies in the next 10 years. It's not just an asset, it's my home, the majority of which I have paid for with my own money and money I inherited from my own grandparents. I don't particularly want DHs ex having grounds to scrap me for a share of it, especially when I still have a young family to care for myself.

The reason for the maintenance is to protect the surviving step parents home as much as anything.

If you are homeowners and a SP lost their spouse, the mortgage would usually be paid off by insurance. That provides the current spouse and children in that home a huge amount of security.

If that is the only asset and no provision is made for first children, the will can be contested and the asset forced to be split, which isn't great if the only asset is the home.

I'm sure that's an oversimplification and will be very dependent on circumstances, but it's what was explained to my friend when she was making her Will recently, as her husband took out insurance with his first children named, then she and her child would get the house and savings.

The reason for the maintenance is to protect the surviving step parents home as much as anything. my solicitor explained it to us in a similar way. It's to stop a claim being made by the DSC. DH didn't need to put it in his will as he had named them as beneficiaries to some benefit, so they were sorted if he died while they were young

@CloudyStorms @lunar1 does this still apply if they are getting a chunk of DH estate ? (I'm not meaning to sound like I'm willing death upon my DH btw 😂) if I'm 50% owner of the estate ? (I realise this would be different if it was 100% his house.

This is all so so nuts.

I'm not sure as we aren't giving them anything from the will as he doesn't have much to leave anyone!

@CloudyStorms

I'm not sure as we aren't giving them anything from the will as he doesn't have much to leave anyone!

Similar here from DH side, although admittedly I would probably step into helping (if we don't die together) mainly because DSD needs all the support she can get. My DH is self employed and no pension so usually that would go to paying maintenance if my friend is to be believed.

Another reason why I hate DH being self employed, he best hope I pop off before him tbh.

There’s no legal obligation in England to leave any of your estate to your children though. Even in Scotland it’s only a proportion of your moveable assets (I.e. not your house) that there’s a legal entitlement to.

I have no legal obligation to the leech my husband chose to have children with. Our wills have been written in such a way that the SC will receive their portion of DH’s estate when I die (and vice versa) - in trust if they’re under 25. They’re not missing out any more than our shared DS would be (or my sons) in having to wait til the surviving spouse dies (me) to inherit.

The marital assets are marital assets. They’re mine if he dies anyway. I’ll have to support our shared DS on my own from that point onwards. So the SC’s mother can do the same for her children.

They had a clean break consent order. She got pretty much everything in it. It’s not my fault that she didn’t get a (part time) job and buy a house (she could have easily bought a 3 bed with a tiny mortgage because she chooses to live in a very cheap area). She’s entitled to child maintenance while he’s alive. But based on his earnings. If he loses his job, she’ll get much, much less. Dead people no longer have financial responsibilities at all.

I’d like to see her argue that my home (and my children’s home) should be sold because she doesn’t want to have to provide financially for her own children. They’ll get their third of the house when I die or they turn 25 (if I die first). It’s written into the wills with a clause that means it cannot be revoked later (even if I were to remarry). They’re in the same boat as my children would be - financially dependent on their mother. I chose to take financial responsibility for myself; the SC’s mother can do the same.

Even more so since 95% of the equity in this house is mine. It came from the sale of my house, which I bought with my own money. My husband had nothing because his ex got the lot in their divorce. The 5% is his half of the portion of equity we’ve paid off since - and that’s a generous estimate tbh!

His pension is shit because of his own choices (mine is not).

And there is provision in his will for his children (just as there is for our child - exactly the same). So it’s difficult to argue that they haven’t been provided for. It’s just that they aren’t getting the immediate benefit.

Our situation is we have 2 children each from previous relationships but none together.

I put all of the deposit down on our house last year and we have a joint account in which I transfer 1/3 of the money for bills and DP 2/3s.

We own the property as joint owners and have an insurance policy that will pay off the mortgage in the event that either one of us dies.

We are getting married in March 2022.
DP is considerably older than me, has no other assets, works in a dangerous job and is a smoker.
It’s highly likely he’ll die before me.

I have thought about what I’d do if DP was to die now and the truth is his children wouldn’t receive a penny from me. DP hasn’t contributed anything towards any assets to give him a stake. In the event of his death the house becomes solely mine.

Once we are married, if he died whilst the children were both still under 18, I have decided I would give them half of whatever we have paid off the mortgage since we bought it last year (currently £12,500k - so they would receive £6,250 to be split between them).

Because we are joint owners I’ve hedged my bets in case I die first and have taken out critical illness and life insurance policies for the remaining term of our mortgage, of which only my DCs are the beneficiaries and they would receive £100k each.

As I said before, the house would be paid off for DP in the event of my death so he’d be well provided for, so I had to ensure my kids would too. The policies I have in place will run until my DCs are 31 & 27 years old so I know they’ll inherit something.

When these policies run out then we’ll reassess and likely to wills, but as it stands my kids are provided for and our only asset is our home.

DP has made no such provision for his kids (his choice) and therefore as it stands, they won’t get anything until there is a point DP’s contribution has matched mine - unless I die first.

I just want to note that due to the lack of assets this was the easiest route for us, but It is usually advisable to have wills in place to protect your own biological children’s interests.
My cousin’s father and his wife (stepmum) both died intestate in a car accident and she thought due to them both dying that their assets would be split equally between herself and her half-siblings.
However, stepmum lived 2 days in intensive care before passing away so she inherited the marital home and the first £270k of assessments immediately upon her husband’s death, which meant when she died her biological children (friend’s half siblings) got everything except for £25k which was split between my friend and her 2 half siblings.

So even though they’d discussed fair treatment of all family children prior to their deaths it resulted in
Half sibling 1 = half the house (£175k) + £143k
Half sibling 2 = half the house (£175k) + £143k
Friend = £8,300 only

It was really unfair considering the assets were mostly accrued solely by their shared dad prior to his marriage to her stepmum.

@SpongebobNoPants what I don't understand is why the half siblings didn't say that's not fair and step in and rearrange things. That's actually what we did when my dad passed, as he had said to my mum he'd organised it but hadn't 🙄 so she was the one leading the charge making sure the children from the first family were provided for and fair according to assets split.

A point half siblings mother still refuses to acknowledge but all my half siblings do.

On the flip side I find it odd that my DH would be expected to pay maintaince when he's dead but would DC wouldn't be accounted for in terms of maintenance, since both myself and DH ex would be solely providing for the children at this point forward.

I'm definitely going to get mine sorted ASAP as I want to protect my children's interests ect.

@candlelightsatdawn you’d think they’d have done the right thing and shared with their sister, but no… money brings out the worst in people.
Their reasoning was because they were now “orphaned” (at 29 & 33 years old I may add) and my friend still had her mum.

One of the few ways you can contest a will is if there is a dependent not adequately provided for. A clause leaving the maintenance payment x number of months until they leave school is a way of covering it. I don’t know if it the best way to do it but would rather a will wasn’t contested...

The problem with leaving your assets to your children are that, if your children are relatively young, your partner then has to bring up your children without any financial input from you, firstly, and secondly, I would like my husband to use my money for care for him if he needed it later in life, if I were to die, and leaving it all in trust for the children takes that away. So for me leaving some money in trust and updating wills regularly is the best solution

I have recently started to sort out a will, I have 2 DSS's and (soon to have!) 2 DS's. All are biologically my DH children. At the moment I own property which is rented as we live in work accommodation. I have life insurance to pay off the mortgage if I die with all my other assets being left to my DH to help with the costs of raising my boys. My property is being left in trust to my boys with a lifetime interest to my DH. This means my DH has a roof over my DS's heads but they will be the only ones to inherit from my property.
Once we sell my property and buy our own place as others have suggested we will split it as necessary as tenants common (split depending on what was put in by who) with my 'half' being left to my DS's and my DH's being split 4 ways.
Your DH needs a decent life insurance policy and to work out what ongoing maintenance payments to his ex would look like so you wouldn't have the stress of that. My DH would get a large payout on his death of which I would calculate the remaining child support total and transfer to his ex in a lump (or as DSS1 is now over 18 I would probably transfer to him and tell him to distribute to his mother as he wishes!).