stepchildren and wills?

tlc678910

Bellisima wrote: »

My husband has 3 children with his first wife, all adults now, and I have none. We have left everything initially to each other. He is a lot older than me, so he has left his share to me, and in my will I have left everything to him, but when the last of us dies then we have split our assets between his 3 adult children and my 3 adult siblings. Assuming there is anything left by then! There is no way we would leave each other in such a predicament as yours partner is suggesting. I would be very wary of buying a house with him.

There must be a lot of trust between you. If your partner died and you inherited everything there is nothing to stop you thinking "I haven't seen his kids for 20 years" in the future or "I didn't like the way they behaved after my partner died" and deciding to leave everything to your own family or vice versa for him outliving you. I would rather know what my children will receive rather than hope they will receive something.

button_box

Lots of people can give an opinion but what you need is good legal advice on all possibilities. I'm not sure where you are but Scots law and English law are completely different, so, again good legal advice is important. A will is also important. Don't assume what will happen on your death and being intestate on death is a nightmare for those left to deal with bureaucracy. When making a will you have to consider all scenarios. When we made our wills my husband and I took into consideration what would happen in the event of a, "common calamity"eg. if we and our son all died in an accident at the same time who would benefit? A friend of mine who is a solicitor always says," where there is a will there are relatives!" meaning everyone is looking for their cut. Not sure if your partner is divorced from is ex or not but this may also have a bearing on the situation. Good luck.

JaneandBeth

Don't forget that any will you make will be totally nvalidated if you then marry, and will have to be re-made. You cannot make a will that comes into force after your marriage, so you need to get a pre-nuptial arrangement in place first, or wait until after the wedding (if it happens!) to make a will. Please don't just go ahead when you have serious doubts - reading your posts, I would be very uneasy too. Yes, you could be kicked out, and even making a will is no guarantee, as they can always be changed at a later date. I married my husband and took on his children. We left our property in trust to the children to inherit when they were adults, to prevent his ex getting hold of it if we were both killed in a crash, for example, so take a solicitor's advice on all possibilities. If your man is leaving his business to his kids, you should get the house, and he should be protecting the mortgage cost, if he is not contributing, by taking out a life cover for you.

REJP

You say you have no will and if you die today your house goes to your parents.
It does not. Your estate goes to the Government.
Get an appointment with a solicitor, take advice, and make a will. You can find a solicitor who belongs to a group that will give free legal advice for up to 30 minutes. Too many people assume their relatives automatically receive the proceeds of an estate when someone dies. They do not.

REJP

If he is prepared to give his property etc to his stepson and leave you homeless, find a decent man and move on. What sort of relationship can you have with someone so thoughtless about your future? Pay half the cost only to be kicked out by the stepson? No way. Do you really want to be a doormat for this selfish man? It is said love is blind, see an optician.

gettingtheresometime

REJP wrote: »

You say you have no will and if you die today your house goes to your parents.
It does not. Your estate goes to the Government.
Get an appointment with a solicitor, take advice, and make a will. You can find a solicitor who belongs to a group that will give free legal advice for up to 30 minutes. Too many people assume their relatives automatically receive the proceeds of an estate when someone dies. They do not.

I'm no expert but I think you're very wrong on this.


If the OP was to die intestate, then there's a prescribed chain of who inherits and the amounts they inherit.


Only if there was absolutely no one would the estate go to the Crown/Government.

TBagpuss

REJP wrote: »

You say you have no will and if you die today your house goes to your parents.
It does not. Your estate goes to the Government.
Get an appointment with a solicitor, take advice, and make a will. You can find a solicitor who belongs to a group that will give free legal advice for up to 30 minutes. Too many people assume their relatives automatically receive the proceeds of an estate when someone dies. They do not.

Yes they do. The issue is that the relatives you *want* to get your estate may not be the ones who *do* get it.

The basic rules if someone dies without a will are:

- IF they are married with no children, their spouse inherits
- If they are married with children, the Spouse get s the first chunk (I think about £250,000, but it may have changed) and the rest is split between the children.
- If they are not married but have children, everything goes to the children in equal shares (and if a child has pre-deceased them but has children of their own, those children get the share their parent would have got)
- if they have no spouse or children, then it goes to their parents
- If there is no spouse, no children and no living parents it goes to their siblings in equal shares.

It would only go to the state if there are no relations.

That said, it is always a good idea to have a will as it does ensure that people such as a partner you are not married to, step children you treat as family etc get what you want them to have, and avoids situations where people you didn't want to give money to end up with a right to it.

graycloud

You will certainly need your partner to state in his Will that you have the right to stay in the house for life and also that you have the right to move at any time. I am currently dealing with this situation.

gettingtheresometime

graycloud wrote: »

You will certainly need your partner to state in his Will that you have the right to stay in the house for life and also that you have the right to move at any time. I am currently dealing with this situation.

I might be a very cynical person but even if the partner was to agree to this, there is nothing stopping the partner changing his will afterwards & the OP would be none the wiser until the will was read.

Primrose

I think you ahiukd buy separate properties next door to each other, or very close by so that you both retain your independent financial situations. Then you can both live where you please and leave your assets to whoever you like without it affecting each other in a disadvantageous way if one of you dies.

Frankly he sounds as if he still putting his own personal and business interest first without be8ng prepared to dorganise any financial protection for you so ignore these realities at your peril.