Change to will to remove siblings of 2nd Husband

sevenhills

onthemend said:

My mother in law (83) has lost her second husband approximately 3 years ago, and the estate has transferred to her. 

our mother in law is of sound mind.

You have power of attorney because she is not capable of dealing with her day to day issues.
Peoples mental reasoning declines with age, I have a 95 year old relative and his reasoning is very limited.
I don't think the will should be changed, although I don't believe people deserve money if they do nothing for that person.
This is her husband's children.

Keep_pedalling

This is why it is wise for people in second marriages to protect their own children's inheritances in their wills if that is what they really want. 

msb1234

There’s something particularly distasteful about second wives passing on their deceased husband’s money to their own children and cutting out his own children. Of course, it may well be that he only left her a fiver and all the money is hers - in which case fair enough. I’d be interested to see if this is the case here.

Tigsteroonie

msb1234 said:

There’s something particularly distasteful about second wives passing on their deceased husband’s money to their own children and cutting out his own children.

There is indeed; but there's generally !!!!!! all we can do about it! 

Gers

sevenhills said:

onthemend said:

My mother in law (83) has lost her second husband approximately 3 years ago, and the estate has transferred to her. 

our mother in law is of sound mind.

You have power of attorney because she is not capable of dealing with her day to day issues.
Peoples mental reasoning declines with age, I have a 95 year old relative and his reasoning is very limited.

Not necessarily so. I had POA for my now late DM long before it was needed. She was more than capable, just didn't want to. Her mental reasoning was fully intact right up to her death at the age of 93 last year. She completed a Times cryptic crossword very shortly before hand. 

It doesn't pay to generalise about the populace at large. 

HampshireH

msb1234 said:

There’s something particularly distasteful about second wives passing on their deceased husband’s money to their own children and cutting out his own children. Of course, it may well be that he only left her a fiver and all the money is hers - in which case fair enough. I’d be interested to see if this is the case here.

I agree. I think it's somewhat sad that the provision was made, presumably on agreement with the deceased. For that to be turned on after his passing is awful. I could understand more if they committed an appalling crime or something but just because they aren't around to help someone who A isn't their mother and B has people around to help out is just mean.

If the foot were on the other foot and all that ...

Grumpy_chap

This is the type of thing that would lead to a future thread "Dad's new wife stole our inheritance after his death".

Then to continue on that the Dad and his 2nd wife had mirror wills so that whoever died first would leave the other a simple life and not need to split shared assets, but with agreement on how the residual would split at the second death.  Children now found after the new wife died, she modified her will to cut us out.

We're the previous wills prepared by the couple as mirror wills or otherwise give indication on this point?  

bobster2

onthemend said:

My mother in law (83) has lost her second husband approximately 3 years ago, and the estate has transferred to her.  We have power of attorney of her affairs and she re-wrote her will so that her 3 children will share 75% of the estate equally, and her late husbands 2 adult children would equally share the remaining 25%.  Her estate comprises of a small apartment 250k and assets 150K

However, since her husbands death, her late 2nd husbands children have not kept in touch and do not deal with her day to day needs, so she keeps talking about re-writing her will to share the whole estate equally between her 3 children, and not to leave the late husbands children anything.

I'm seeking any advise on why she should not be able to re-write her will to make these changes and what position would the 2nd husband's 2 adult children have to contest these changes, our mother in law is of sound mind.

I look forward to any feedback/ suggestions

So after her husband's death she already wrote a new will with this 75%/25% split? So this is a fairly recent will? Meaning that just a couple of years ago, after the loss of her husband, while in her 80s, she already expressed the desire to leave 25% of her estate to her step-children.

If so - then I would think the recency of this will - already written after her husband died - might make it less difficult to challenge a new one written just a couple of years later (with the u-turn - excluding the step-children). Particularly if POA has now been activated raising questions about capacity.

Keep_pedalling

Having looked at one of the OPs previous threads it appears that MIL inherited her husbands estate under their mirror Spanish wills after they were both repatriated to the UK. MIL has then made a UK will that massively favours her own children over her step children and is now contemplating cutting them out entirely. Although she has the right to do this not only is this unfair it is downright spiteful and also almost certainly going against what her long term husband would have thought would happen.

if I was your wife I would make it quite clear that I would not want to increase my share of the estate at the expense of my step siblings under such circumstances. 

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5932010/selling-a-spanish-property#latest

diystarter7

The giver should always decide who to and not to give to