Changing a will

vermicious-knid

Hi all

just recently made a will and made my sister guardian in the event that our children were left as orphans.

But recently, my sister & husband are not getting on at all with my dad and also are having some marriage troubles of their own.

I do not want my kids put into a family war between their aunty/uncle and grandad. Also don't want them caught up in the stress etc going on in sister's own relationship + the fact that she is again on anti-depressants - I am not certain that she could cope with our brood of children as I find it stressful enough at times!

My OH is now convinced we should remove her as guardian but I don't know...

Would you change your will in this situation or leave it as it is...

dzug1

Remember that your sister is under no obligation to be guardian if she doesn't want to be - if she's sensible she would refuse if her circumstances made it impossible for her to do so responsibly.

Do you have an alternative in mind or would you leave that section out?

vermicious-knid

We do have an alternative guardian - as to my sister refusing, I don't think she would ever do so, she loves the kids too much. Which is why I find it so hard to think about changing the will.

But I can see that things are not good - bro in law & father can't even speak to each other much. And I hear both sides of the story with my dad being furious at him and then bro in law being furious at my dad etc etc. It hasn't come to blows - yet!

But the other guardian lives almost the opposite end of the country from my dad which means that he would not have regular contact with them. But then again he could end up without contact anyway if things break down completely between my sister & my dad!

Have to add that I have told my sister we are considering changing the will because of the way things are at the moment and she just didn't react at all which upset me a bit. We haven't spoken for a few days now since this happened.

Savvy_Sue

Personally, I always made it clear to the people I wanted to be guardians for ours that I didn't necessarily expect them to take the boys on: what I wanted them to do was ensure that the best arrangements were made for them. That's because the 'best' arrangements were likely to change over time and depending on circumstances.

But I definitely didn't want either set of grandparents to have them.

So it could be worth approaching the 'distant' guardian on that basis: could they be trusted to work out the right thing should the need arise?

vermicious-knid

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

Personally, I always made it clear to the people I wanted to be guardians for ours that I didn't necessarily expect them to take the boys on: what I wanted them to do was ensure that the best arrangements were made for them. That's because the 'best' arrangements were likely to change over time and depending on circumstances.

But I definitely didn't want either set of grandparents to have them.

So it could be worth approaching the 'distant' guardian on that basis: could they be trusted to work out the right thing should the need arise?

Thanks, that does sound like a good plan. Make the relation who lives further away the guardian but then allow them to make the decision about who it would be best for the children to live with and what the best arrangement would be.

Neither set of grandparents can have our kids either - husbands are retired and not likely to cope with all 3, and my parents - mum is disabled & my dad is her carer so that is not possible either.

Things are not getting any better with my sister anyway, it seems it is getting turned around and I am being blamed for it all now - I have apologised for whatever it is to try keep the peace but I am still getting accusing emails