The will of a child-free/ child-less person

yellow218

Hubby and I are currently child free, and as you may see from other threads, are likely to continue to be so.

MSE recent poll about wills has got us thinking that we should probably write wills.....

We could be crazy cat people and leave our estate to cats protection......but....

If it's not too insensitive to ask, those of you who are child-free/child-less and have wills, how would you like your money divided up once you pass away?

Those of you whose children or siblings are themselves child-free/child-less, if you were brutally honest, how would you best like to see their estate shared if they were to die? (not that its their decision, but money is no good to us when we are dead, and would hate to cause offence even after im gone!)

Gingernutty

Without a will, the money goes 'up' to parents or, if they're dead, to siblings or their children.

That's enough for me. Times are tough and my nieces and nephews need a helping hand.

I'm in the process of sorting 'stuff' out and leaving my estate to my nephews and nieces is probably what I'll do.

Funeral plan, a spot of Swedish death cleaning, a simple cast iron will and the appointment of a suitable executor. Sorted.

Yorkshireman99

yellow218 wrote: »

Hubby and I are currently child free, and as you may see from other threads, are likely to continue to be so.

MSE recent poll about wills has got us thinking that we should probably write wills.....

We could be crazy cat people and leave our estate to cats protection......but....

If it's not too insensitive to ask, those of you who are child-free/child-less and have wills, how would you like your money divided up once you pass away?

Those of you whose children or siblings are themselves child-free/child-less, if you were brutally honest, how would you best like to see their estate shared if they were to die? (not that its their decision, but money is no good to us when we are dead, and would hate to cause offence even after im gone!)

My personal situation may help. I have no close family except for two ancient cousins. I do have a very good, and long standing, friend who has three adult children all with families of their own. Two of those children have spouses from well off families. The third does not. After detailed consultation with my friend and his wife I have left all but a few specific legacies to their eldest daughter, or her children if she preseaceases me, who is much less well off. I have also been in the fortunate position of be able to pay off their interest only mortgage and see them regularly. I take their chidlren on outings and see they are well provided for at Christmas etc. I have also been able to supplement their education with equipment and holidays. Hopefully I will live long enough for the large gift to not be added back to the value of my remaining estate. So I have the benefit of seeing what happens to my money and get great pleasurs from their friendship. It is important to leave notes with your will explaining the reasons to prevent any challenge to the will.

silvercar

Before we had children our wills specified our siblings as beneficiaries. The logic was that our parents had sufficient to look after themselves, so it seemed unnecessary for them to benefit when the money would eventually be subject to inheritance tax when they eventually passed it to the siblings ie their remaining children.

Owain_Moneysaver

The first £350k (if you have that much, including chattels) divided equally between some friends. The remainder divided between some charities. The £350k limit and the remainder to charities pretty much guarantees no IHT will be payable under current rules which will simplify things for the executors. You may have additional exemptions for spouse or main dwelling.

Kynthia

I'm not child-free but I was until my mid 30s. My plan at that time was to leave a significant portion of my estate to my husband with some going to my nieces and nephews. Should for some reason both my husband and I passed together the we would each leave our estate to our siblings and their children. However the chance of us both passing in our 30s was remote and wills should be regularly reassessed as things change. So it's possible we would have made changes as our estates increased and our extended family grew. I probably would have looked at giving more to charity. Or once the nieces and nephews were adults to give them more and our siblings less.

YoungBlueEyes

I'm child-free, and hopefully not likely to die soon! But if I did anything I have will go to my cousin and her son, because she helped me out when I was going through a few rough patches.
However as I get nearer the end I may decide to do what my friend's neighbour is doing. She is in her early 80's and very spritely, widowed and child-free. She cashed in, basically just constantly cruises round the world and she's perfectly happy It's cheaper than her mortgage/heating/electric/food/ medical bills etc, the food/healthcare etc on board are first rate, she's always making new friends and seeing different countries. The regular postcards make it all sound very appealing!
Food for thought...

gingercordial

My husband and I are (and will remain) child-free and are about to have our wills drawn up.

We are going for mirror wills leaving everything to the other in the first instance, and if we die together then everything is split equally between nieces and nephews. At the moment this is only really cash - as we get older, buy a house, assets increase etc we will do something more detailed but it isn't worth it yet. Also both of our families are fairly wealthy so nobody is going to be relying on an inheritance from us, it'll just be "nice to have".

At the moment we have one niece/nephew on each side (my brother has a son, my husband's sister has a daughter) so that's easy, but we did discuss whether in future we wanted it to be split equally between any children (so if one of them has another child, 1/3 each) or whether it should be half to my brother's children in total and half to his sister's, and we have agreed the former.

In addition the "existing" niece and nephew are both still toddlers so we will revisit this in future as they grow up because if one is close to us and the other is not that may change how we want to split things, who knows.

relaxtwotribes

I know someone who is childless and her only relatives are nephews, nieces and their children. She is making a new will and in it making specific bequests to church and charity. The residual estate is being bequested to the nephews and nieces in portions. For example, she might decide to divide the residual estate in thirty equal portions and bequeath those portions according to how important the nephews and nieces have been to her in her lifetime.
Seems eminently reasonable to me.

Flugelhorn

We have children who will get our estate but I had to think about what I wanted when writing the armageddon clause. Ended up putting the names of 2 friends and the 2 kids of some other friends, all of whom could do with the money if it happened to come their way. None of them know, so no discussions about it.