What a will need not say

Reed_Richards

My wife's will was drawn up by a solicitor. In her will, I get a share of the residue of her estate and the rest goes to charity; I am perfectly happy with this. The will explicitly gives me my wife's share of the house despite the fact that we own our house as joint tenants; that surprised me a little. But the will makes no mention of the possessions in the house. Some of these were owned by my wife before we met; some were owned by me outright originally. We have been married for over 25 years, can we now regard everything in the house as jointly owned? Is that why the will makes no mention of anything in the house? Or is this an omission that needs to be corrected?

AP3

If you own the house as joint tenants, then your wife owns half of it, and can to with it what she wants. I expect that she's simply ensuring that her whole estate isn't taken in to account, and you and up having charities trying to get you to sell the house to give them "their" share.

That said, it seems to me to very very unusual to split the estate open the first death, with the exception of giving a share directly to children etc.

Would it not be better to both have wills giving everything to the other partner, then charity on the death of the last surviving partner?

Dead_keen

If you own the house as joint tenants, then your wife owns half of it, and can to with it what she wants.

Are you sure you have this the right way around?

Dead_keen

The will explicitly gives me my wife's share of the house despite the fact that we own our house as joint tenants; that surprised me a little.

It future proofs the will.

But the will makes no mention of the possessions in the house

Then get the draft will changed so that it is explicitly sets out what she wants (e.g. you get the Monet she had before you were married).

sammyjammy

If you own the house as Joint Tenants then the house is yours on her death.

If you own the house as Tenants in Common she can gift it to who she wishes, she appears to have chosen to gift it to you.

The contents of the house needs to be in the will, depending on how and what she has left to the charity they will come after whatever isn't nailed down!

NedS

Does the will mention her personal chattels? These are her physical movable personal possessions including those possessions contained within the property including furniture, any jewellery etc.

Reed_Richards

No, we own the house as joint tenants so it is indeed mine in the event of her death and hers in the event of mine. That's why I find it odd that it is even mentioned in the will (although I can see this future-proofs us for a change in circumstances).

No mention of "chattels", personal or otherwise. There is an unsigned painting that my wife owned before we met but I don't think it's a Monet.

Is there a form of wording you can use to say that your surviving spouse should get everything in the house irrespective of who owned it originally. Or a form of wording to agree that everything in the house is now jointly owned?

sammyjammy

house and contents…..

poseidon1

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82145067#Comment_82145067

Not mentioning chattels/ personal possessions is a strange and probably negilgent omission

Pretty much all traditional and modern English Wills precedents used by private client lawyers will have a range of clauses pertaining to the gifting of chattels, to ensure no chattels fall into residue of the estate by default.

In the case of your wife's Will this is an important omission since you apparently share the estate residue with charities, so you definitely don't want to get into any discussion with them as to who is entitled to your wife's jewellery ( for example).

Unlike Scotland which has a presumption of 50 :50 ownership of household possessions between spouses with the surviving spouse automatically inheriting 50% of the deceased's share , no such presumption or concept exsists under English estate law.

What's yours is yours whats hers is hers.

Therefore the beautiful diamond ring you gave your wife on your last wedding anniversary ( for example ) does not revert to you on her death where her will is silent about her possessions, it falls into residue to be potentially disputed by the residuary beneficiaries.

She must either give specific instructions in her will over chattels, or where there is an ever changing list of valuables, give the executors unfettered discretion to decide who gets what or leave a letter (with the will) directing the executors as to her preferred choice of recipients. The following article explains:

https://communities.lawsociety.org.uk/may-2020/mere-chattels/6001008.article

You may not consider you have any chattels worth anyone's time fighting over, but you maybe surprised when you start taking inventory.

No point trying to supply sample chattels clauses, since have no idea whether your wife's solicitor opted for traditional legalese , or a plain English ( modern) precedent. Even within those categories there are differences amongst the various precedent providers.

I would just make sure there is no extra charge for correcting the oversight. That said it would set me wondering what other rookie errors has been committed in the will drafting, and how would you even know?

Reed_Richards

Panic over! I found a page that had got displaced from the draft I was looking at and that does indeed leave me my wife's personal; chattels. So the "rookie error" was mine.

Does "personal chattels" cover the entirety of someone's physical possessions? My wife's car, for example; is a car a chattel? Is it like moving home; everything that you have a right to take with you is a chattel and everything that is deemed to be part of the property is not?

NedS

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82145318#Comment_82145318

Yes, that's pretty much my non-expert understanding.

It's everything that she owns that is not nailed down (tangible movable physical possessions) and are not financial assets (e.g, bank accounts, shares, land, property). So it's stuff like furniture, paintings, jewellery, cars etc

Google will probably do a pretty good job of telling you if something is a chattel - e.g, is a car a personal chattel?