If you and your husband or wife have been married before, you may be wondering about the best way of providing for them, without disinheriting your children.
This has proved a dilemma for many couples and sadly many have misunderstood how a basic Will works.
The Problem:
- If you are the first to die and leave your entire estate to your husband or wife, you no longer have a ‘share’ of what had been the jointly owned assets. Your husband or wife (your ‘spouse’) will be the sole owner of everything and will be free to dispose of everything as they choose.
- Your spouse may choose to pass everything to their own children, with the result that your children receive nothing. This could mean that your spouse’s children take everything that had belonged to your first spouse, too. This is probably not an outcome that you would choose, and your children are likely to find this particularly distressing.
The Solution:
You can give your spouse the right to benefit from and enjoy your ‘share’ of jointly owned assets (such as your family home) but without making an outright gift to them.
This means that your ‘share’ will still ultimately pass to your children, after the lifetime of your spouse.
This could also help protect your share if your spouse needed to pay care fees in the future. This is because his ability to pay would be assessed on his own income and capital, and not the value of the assets in your Will trust.
If you would like to know more about how this works , please get in touch by using the telephone or email tab to the right or the contact form at the bottom of this page.
We’ll be pleased to explain how your Will could work to protect your children’s inheritance whilst still making provision for your spouse.
Any questions?
T: 07860 772274