Adding bits to wills...

roaming_2

Husband and I have made our wills so that if I die first he gets everything and vice versa. Perfectly happy with that . But a friend mentioned that if either of us re-marries after the other dies then the new spouse ( and possibly their children ) could inherit money which we would have wanted to be handed down to our own children. Hope I have made that clear. Any suggestions as to how the wills can be changed so that all goes to our children ? I suppose we could just trust the other half to alter their will to reflect any changes but life and human beings being what they are we would rather not leave this to chance if there is something we can do legally and formally . We would be very grateful for any advice.

clw1

I had a similar issue when we made our wills.

One option was to leave my share of the house and money etc in trust for our child but this would mean that to use the money (ie to pay bills etc) my hubby would have to apply to the trust. We decided that if one of us died the other would probably have to reduce working hours etc to care for the child and may wish to sell the house to release money to support themselves and the child. So giving the other the fully flexible use of our assets was the reason we decided against the trust and decided that we would just have to trust each other to do the right thing.

Maybe a compromise would be to leave a certain amount of money in trust for the child and leave the rest for your husband to use as he wishes.

We also decided that this was what suited us now and that we will review it / change it in 5 years time if needed.

*edit* - our child is currently only 2 so will need to be supported for many years to come and so I think my hubby will need full access to our money. If our child had been over 16 then I would have opted to put cash in a trust for the child to ensure he got some of "my" money and that it didn't all get split in with any new partner.

NAR

Remarry when? 1 year, 5 years, 10 years? You need to think this through very carefully. There will obviously be expenses, for the benefit of your children, in the intervening years - how does that get accounted for?
I think basically you both will have to trust the surviving spouse to take care of the children in their will.

escortg3

My Partner and myself have done wills and the house is left to neices and nephews. Basically it states that i can live in house until i die, remarry or co-habit. Then the house is sold and proceeds go to named children in trust untill 25 years of age.

Mrs_Optimist

We are in the process of updating our Wills and needed the same answer that you did. We were advised the put the house into a straight 50/50 split and which meant that we could then leave our respective shares to our children but they could only get their share when the remaining partner died. That ruled out any new partner being able to make a claim, whilst ensuring that the surviving partner would have a roof over their head for the rest of their life. All other assests have just been left to each other.

tanith

escortg3 wrote: »

My Partner and myself have done wills and the house is left to neices and nephews. Basically it states that i can live in house until i die, remarry or co-habit. Then the house is sold and proceeds go to named children in trust untill 25 years of age.

But that means that you can't ever move? Spose you feel like moving or downsizing you might not be able to afford to on your own as half the value will be gone to the nieces and nephews..

RAS

I think you need a proper discussion and brief a lawyer. Your current mirror wills do not specify what happens if you both die, nor what happens to the property after the second death if the survivors dopes not remarry.

If the survivor married for example, and then died, under intestacy laws the first £250,000 of the estate will go to the new spouse. That might or might not allow your your children to inherit anything.

We have seen some amazingly greedy things done by both second spouses and children on here, so you need to talk about it and then ask a lawyer how to achieve this.

Nicki

escortg3 wrote: »

My Partner and myself have done wills and the house is left to neices and nephews. Basically it states that i can live in house until i die, remarry or co-habit. Then the house is sold and proceeds go to named children in trust untill 25 years of age.

That's a horrible will in my opinion! How is cohabit defined out of interest, and how old are you both?

Say, for example you are in your 30s when one spouse dies. The other party then has to live on their own for the whole of the rest of their life, otherwise the house is sold from under them and half it's value is given to fairly distant relatives, despite the fact the surviver probably paid half the mortgage for up to 20 years and a large part of maintenance and improvement costs. Depending on how cohabit is defined, they can't even have a lodger to help pay bills (even in periods of unemployment when money could be tight) or a same sex friend in retirement, or a live in carer when frail.

Just don't understand why either of you would want to punish the other for finding another partner after the first died, I'm afraid, particularly when it's not even your own children's inheritance at stake. Leaving half to the neices and nephews on the eventual death would be different, but the rest of it just seems controlling to me.

vegasvisitor

Nicki wrote: »

That's a horrible will in my opinion! How is cohabit defined out of interest, and how old are you both?

Say, for example you are in your 30s when one spouse dies. The other party then has to live on their own for the whole of the rest of their life, otherwise the house is sold from under them and half it's value is given to fairly distant relatives, despite the fact the surviver probably paid half the mortgage for up to 20 years and a large part of maintenance and improvement costs. Depending on how cohabit is defined, they can't even have a lodger to help pay bills (even in periods of unemployment when money could be tight) or a same sex friend in retirement, or a live in carer when frail.

Just don't understand why either of you would want to punish the other for finding another partner after the first died, I'm afraid, particularly when it's not even your own children's inheritance at stake. Leaving half to the neices and nephews on the eventual death would be different, but the rest of it just seems controlling to me.

I agree, that does seem rather unfair. My husband and I don't have a will yet, and it's something I've been thinking we should do. We did buy a will kit online, but being in Scotland we're a bit wary of using it in case it ends up not legally correct or useable. We have the obvious scenario of if something happens to either of us, that we would leave everything to each other. But we don't have kids and are a bit unsure as to what to put on for if both of us died. That said, you would both have to die at the same time I think for a will to work that way? I'm a bit concerned that I could leave everything to hubby then if he died it would all go to his family. I'm not even sure how I'd go about that then. I certainly wouldn't want to restrict him selling the house or anything like that. I guess a verbal agreement and understanding is about all that would work.

tanith

lesley74 wrote: »

I agree, that does seem rather unfair. My husband and I don't have a will yet, and it's something I've been thinking we should do. We did buy a will kit online, but being in Scotland we're a bit wary of using it in case it ends up not legally correct or useable. We have the obvious scenario of if something happens to either of us, that we would leave everything to each other. But we don't have kids and are a bit unsure as to what to put on for if both of us died. That said, you would both have to die at the same time I think for a will to work that way? I'm a bit concerned that I could leave everything to hubby then if he died it would all go to his family. I'm not even sure how I'd go about that then. I certainly wouldn't want to restrict him selling the house or anything like that. I guess a verbal agreement and understanding is about all that would work.

I think a trust is the answer , so that your husband gets the use of the house until his death then your share is left in trust to whomever you wish.. but its costs much more to write a will with a trust .. AFAIK

RAS

One thing you do is put in a survival limit - in the old days it used to be a year and a day - with death prior to that triggering alterative beneficiaries.

You can alos give someone life interest - which allows the survivor to move but your ultimate beneficiaries having to co-operate. Then on the survivior's death, your part of the estate goes to who you want.