Will Question

dippynina

Mojisola wrote: »

If two of you own the house as "joint tenants", then you both own all the house so if one of you dies, the other still owns the house.

If you own the house as "tenants in common" then you each own a share of the house. It doesn't have to be 50/50 - you can make any arrangement that suits you. If a "tenant in common" dies, their part of the house will pass to their heirs. If the deceased has made a will, then the share of the house can be gifted to whoever he wants. If he dies without a will, then the intestate rules come into play and his share of the house will go to a spouse (even if the couple are separated, if a divorce has not gone through, the wife will inherit). If there is no spouse, then the estate will be divided among any children.

In your case, if you and your OH are tenants in common and he should die, his part of the house would go to his three children. You might have to sell up in order to give his twins their share of the inheritance.

Thanks for that - I am sure we are joint tenants but I am going to look into it today. As for writing a will - it is something that we will do - but not at the moment because of our financial situation.

Mojisola

dippynina wrote: »

As for writing a will - it is something that we will do - but not at the moment because of our financial situation.

If you aren't going to be able to write wills soon at least write a letter, dated and signed by both of you, saying what you would like to happen to your daughter if you both died in, say, a car accident.

Do you have relatives or friends you would like your daughter to live with? Talk to people and make sure they would be willing.

You cannot control what would happen from beyond the grave but your wishes would be taken into account when SS made decisions about her.

SandC

Aside from the other advice, get some life insurance that pays off the mortgage on the death of one of you, what happens if you move down to only one income when you are already on interest only?