Confused About Making a Will!

Touchstone_2

We are confused. We decided to make new wills and incorporate a Tenants in Common agreement leaving our house, in equal shares to our two daughters. On approaching a number of solicitors, my wife and I were surprised to be told T-I-C was a waste of money. If our intent was to protect my wife/myself from future care cost they were not that effective as they were capable of being overturned. On the other hand, remaining as joint owners we also had a measure of protection. i.e. In joint ownership, if one goes into care and the other stays in the house, the house could not be appropriated.
Does anybody agree with the above and what are the pitfalls of such an agreement?
However, T I C or Joint tenants, how do we achieve the following through our wills:
We want our daughters to inherit equal shares in the proceeds of the sale of our house after our deaths. In other words we would want our daughters to have the largest share of our estates.
In addition; we want to make specific monetary "percentage" gifts to our grandchildren (our daughters children in all cases) and a few charities.
The question is how do we do this?
If the property an integral part of the estate, we assume the daughters would not inherit until the estate had been wound up i.e. After all other "percentage" gifts have been made and all matters concluded. If there was a surplus after everything we would want this also to go to our daughters.

Mojisola

Touchstone wrote: »

We decided to make new wills and incorporate a Tenants in Common agreement leaving our house, in equal shares to our two daughters.

On approaching a number of solicitors, my wife and I were surprised to be told T-I-C was a waste of money. If our intent was to protect my wife/myself from future care cost they were not that effective as they were capable of being overturned.

On the other hand, remaining as joint owners we also had a measure of protection. i.e. In joint ownership, if one goes into care and the other stays in the house, the house could not be appropriated.

If one of a couple goes into care and the other person stays in the house, the value of the property isn't taken into account. It doesn't matter which of them owns the property or how the ownership is shared.

If the solicitors you have approached don't know this, I wouldn't trust their information on the TIC either.

I don't see how a will can be overturned if the first to die leaves their share of the property in trust to the children. It isn't deprivation of capital and, as long as the survivor is given rights to stay in the house, it can't be challenged through not making provision for the spouse.