THoughts on a will and grandchildren?

Mojisola

AnotherJoe wrote: »

Another related question, in the case where parents are tenants in common and leave their half to the children, with a lifetime interest for the survivor in the house, what happens if the surviving parent wishes to sell that house and move to another?

The will should cover that eventuality and it's important that it does. Usually the lifetime interest is in the capital rather than half of one particular house and that allows the survivor to move to another property.

TBagpuss

There are potential advantages in leaving money in trust for grandchildren as it means that the money is protected from being included in the parents assets 9for instnace, if the paretns were to divorce or become bankrupt)

If you set up a trust, you can decide what powers to give the trustees, and how much guidance and discretion they should have.

I know that my grandmother left a fixed sum to each of her grandchildren to be held on trust by the grandchild's parents until each of us turned 21. My dad and unbcle made diferent choices about how they each invested the money for their children, as she had left it up to then to decide for their own familes. But it wasn't a massive amount - £1,000 each.

i think if you were leaving larger sums then you might chose to have a more detailed trust.

As your grandchildren are fairly young, you might want to think about how you word the trust, to ensure that children born after the will is made, or after your death, don't miss out.

One way of doing this might be to define the beneficiaries as any grandchild born or adopted into the family on or before [date of 21st birthday of eldest grandchild]. That way, at the time the first grandchild turns 21 (or whtever age you decide on for them to get their share) the trustees know how many benficiaries there are and can divide the money equally, and unless there are very large age gaps between your children, it's likely that this will cover any later-bron children.

An alternative would be for you to set up separate trusts for the children of each of your children, although this may mean that the grandchildren get different shares depending on how many siblings they have, whereas if you have a single fund evey grandchild is treated equally.

You can have a discretionary trust and set parameters for the pusposes for which money can be releaed 9e.g. the funds may be used for the purpsoes of payaing a deposit to buy a property, buying a car etc) however, I presonally would advise agaisnt this as you don't know, in advance, what your grandchildren may want or need, and being too restrictive might result in a grandchild missing out (for instnace, if you had a grandchild who was a relatively low earner and could never afford to buy a property)

I' suggest that before you see your solicitor, you and your wife think about, and discuss, what you want the end result to be,and the solicitor wiill then be able to advise you about the best way to achieve that outcome.

AnotherJoe

Cheers all lots to think about. Yes we will include potential grandchildren not yet a twinkle in their parents eyes..