Codicil or new will?

BrainDrained

Can I add a bit of personal experience here.  My mum & her husband were in second marriages, both have children from their first.  Typical blended family.  They have (had) mirror Wills, on first death to the surviving partner, and then equally to 5 named executors who are their children.

Wills were drawn up in 1985 by a "qualified" solicitor.  It's blatantly apparent that he could not have had much foresight. On the second death, estate goes to "surviving executors"  with absolutely no provision for any of their share to to passed down to grandchildren in the event of their parent's predecease. (There were grandchildren born before the Wills were drawn up)  And what happens if one of the executors decides to renounce their position - do they then debar themselves from their inheritance?

My biggest problem with this though is that the bulk of the estate is a property.  And there is absolutely NOTHING to stop the survivor making a new Will and leaving everything to the children of their first marriage and ignoring the others. It's not the value that matters, it's the principle.  A trust would have been fairer, or having the property registered as TIC, but the solicitor apparently never thought to mention these possibilities.  

Hal17

Thank you all for the good advice and insight.

This has certainly helped us and provided food for thought. I think we will go with giving them a sum now to go towards school fees and make a provision for a percentage value from the estate when the last grandparent passes.

Ms_Chocaholic

Hal17 said:

Thank you all for the good advice and insight.

This has certainly helped us and provided food for thought. I think we will go with giving them a sum now to go towards school fees and make a provision for a percentage value from the estate when the last grandparent passes.

Did you see my reply re how you own your home? It may make prudent financial sense to sort that out now.

Hal17

Hello Ms_C, sorry I did see your reply. We are both passed state retirement age and our our home is mortgage free.

Ms_Chocaholic

Hal17 said:

Hello Ms_C, sorry I did see your reply. We are both passed state retirement age and our our home is mortgage free.

How do you own your property - as joint tenants or tenants in common? For most people their home is registered as Joint Tenants so if you do not know it's likely to be that.  You are able to check on the Land Registry website but let me know if you know, thanks.

Hal17

I am afraid I do not know. I guess what is most common, as I cannot recall this being discussed as something different. Thanks again for your inputs.

Ms_Chocaholic

Hal17 said:

I am afraid I do not know. I guess what is most common, as I cannot recall this being discussed as something different. Thanks again for your inputs.

So, very simply put but please do your research, if you own your property as joint tenants then you and your partner each own the full house.  As Tenants in Common you each own a percentage, usually 50%.  What this means is that if one partner were to die, they can leave their half of their house to their children/grandchildren/dogs home but that the remaining partner can remain in the property and even move home if they want (this needs putting in the will but it's very common for home owners to do this so not complicated at all).  When the second person dies then their half share of the property is left in the same way.

If you currently own your home jointly and one partner dies, the remaining partner gets the whole house BUT what changing to Tenants in Common does do is protects half of the property for your children's inheritance so say for example one partner died, the other remained in the property but became unwell and needed to go into residential care then all of the property would be taken into account for the residential care.  The remaining partner could be in residential care for 20 years therefore eating up all the children's inheritance.

That is very simply put as I said, you will need to do your own research but that's the bare bones of it.

I hope this helps.

Hal17

Thank you very much for taking the time to explain that for me, I had no idea about the two variants. I will do some research and check our deeds. Thank you again.

Ms_Chocaholic

Hal17 said:

Thank you very much for taking the time to explain that for me, I had no idea about the two variants. I will do some research and check our deeds. Thank you again.

When we changed ours the solicitor who did our will arranged the change from joint tenants to tenants in common, I think it cost maybe £75.