Will - Married (2nd time, no kids), adult kids from 1st marriage, all assets held jointly - DIY?

MikeFloutier

Hi,

My wife and I want to make wills.

I’m married (2nd time, no kids), I have adult kids from 1st marriage, my current wife has never had kids.

All our assets are held jointly, ie house and all bank accounts pass to survivor.

We both want all the remaining estate (ie. after we’ve both died) to go to the kids from my 1st marriage.

Can we make simple wills ourselves, or is my former wife an issue needing professional help?

Many thanks!

Mike

Linton

You should always use qualified professional help (ie a solicitor, not a will-writer) to write your will.  That will ensure the wording is correct and cannot be misinterpreted when it's too late for you to do anything about it.  Furthermore it will cover all the what-if questions that an amateur may neglect.  eg what happens if your children (some or all) pre-decease you.

RAS

There are a number of issues to think about:

Firstly the surviving spouse could remarry, which invalidates any will. And the new spouse inherits everything if there is no will.

Secondly, your adult child dies before you. 

In this sort of situation you need a STEP solicitor to ensure what you want actually happens.

Oh and if you die first, a will would be irrelevant under the current situation regarding the house and accounts, so it would entirely depend on your widow's will and later decisions. You need proper advice.

Alphatauri

You also need to look at how your property is owned, if it’s joint tenants you need to consider severing and becoming tenants in common. You can then leave your shield your share with a life interest for your wife.

As othe posters have said you need a STEP solicitor who can advise you.

MikeFloutier

RAS said:

There are a number of issues to think about:

Firstly the surviving spouse could remarry, which invalidates any will. And the new spouse inherits everything if there is no will.

Secondly, your adult child dies before you. 

In this sort of situation you need a STEP solicitor to ensure what you want actually happens.

Oh and if you die first, a will would be irrelevant under the current situation regarding the house and accounts, so it would entirely depend on your widow's will and later decisions. You need proper advice.

Many thanks RAS, I’m quite happy with my wife looking after things. Unless I’ve misunderstood, this covers most things.

If one kid dies prematurely, the estate would go to the other, if both do, it would go to the remaining grandkids; at present 6 between 1 and 18.

So, no issues regarding my former wife you feel?

Thanks again!

poppystar

MikeFloutier said:

RAS said:

There are a number of issues to think about:

Firstly the surviving spouse could remarry, which invalidates any will. And the new spouse inherits everything if there is no will.

Secondly, your adult child dies before you. 

In this sort of situation you need a STEP solicitor to ensure what you want actually happens.

Oh and if you die first, a will would be irrelevant under the current situation regarding the house and accounts, so it would entirely depend on your widow's will and later decisions. You need proper advice.

Many thanks RAS, I’m quite happy with my wife looking after things. Unless I’ve misunderstood, this covers most things.

If one kid dies prematurely, the estate would go to the other, if both do, it would go to the remaining grandkids; at present 6 between 1 and 18.

So, no issues regarding my former wife you feel?

Thanks again!

It’s good that you have trust in your wife to do what you want regardless of any future relationship she might enter in to but there are other advantages to a life interest. If you set one up it would mean that that half of the house could not be taken in to account should your wife need to pay for care in the future. Without it all the house could be eaten up by care home fees leaving nothing for your children. So do think if you and your wife would be happy with that. 

Keep_pedalling

Please do not attempt to DIY this, your wills are the most important documents you are likely to every make and getting it wrong could be disastrous. Your will at least should set up an immediate post death interest trust to protect your childrens inheritance if you are the first to go. 

You should also be looking at setting up lasting powers of attorney for finance and welfare, but these you can DIY.

Mojisola

MikeFloutier said:

I’m quite happy with my wife looking after things.

If you die first, it's not just your wife you need to be happy with, it's anyone that she may marry (and the same applies to anyone you remarry, should she die first) 

The wills you're planning to make would become invalid if either of you remarried.  That new spouse may have no interest in seeing money going to your children or grandchildren. 

It's not unknown for wills to go 'missing' because the intestate rules give the second spouse more inheritance than the will; second spouses pressurising their spouses to write the new will and dramatically reduce the children's share; second spouses using the law to challenge a will that doesn't adequately provide for them as the law expects a spouse to do;  a lone survivor in poor health being 'befriended' by a neighbour and manipulated into changing their will to the benefit of the 'carer'; etc. 

MikeFloutier

Many thanks for this guys, you all make good points which I will ponder.

Again, I take it that you’re all in agreement that my former wife is not a factor I need to consider.

RAS

We have to assume you are divorced from your previous wife? If so, unless you are currently supporting her financially she has no claim, but at least a will would make this explicit.

getmore4less

Id cases where there are potentially multiple deceased spouses and large estate some careful IHT planning needs to be done to avoid losing potential nil rate bands.

Not an issue with divorced ones.

 there may be issued for kids with their estates growing too big.