What is Probate: Everything You Need To Know

If you have children from an earlier relationship and a new husband, wife or partner, an ordinary will can quietly do the opposite of what you meant. Wills for blended families have to solve two things at once: keeping the person you live with secure for life, and making sure your own children still inherit what you intended. Those two aims pull against each other, and that tension is the whole difficulty. This guide is for anyone planning ahead in a second marriage, and for adult children worried about a parent's will. It covers how children get left out by accident, how a life interest trust works, its real drawbacks, and what it costs. The short version: ● Stepchildren inherit nothing automatically. Under the intestacy rules of England and Wales, only biological and legally adopted children inherit. A stepchild has to be named in a will. ● If you die without a will , your husband, wife or civil partner takes your personal possessions, the first £322,000, and half of the remainder. Your children share the other half. ● Leaving everything to your partner outright puts your children's share entirely in their hands, to spend or to leave elsewhere. ● Mirror wills record two matching intentions. They do not bind the survivor , who can make a new will the following week. ● A life interest trust can give your partner a home for life while ring-fencing capital for your children. It costs more, needs trustees, and has genuine downsides, all set out below. ● Marrying, or entering a civil partnership, cancels an existing will unless it was made in contemplation of that marriage. ● A will that was never updated can sometimes still be corrected after a death , by a deed of variation made within 2 years. What makes wills for blended families different Wills for blended families provide for a new partner and for children from a previous relationship at the same time, without leaving either group dependent on the other's goodwill. They matter because the usual approach, everything to your spouse and then to "our children", assumes one family unit. A blended family is at least two. Nearly everything that goes wrong comes from one place: once an asset passes to someone outright it is theirs, and a promise made to you beforehand changes none of that. Three ways children get left out of a will by accident: None of these happens because anyone behaved badly. They happen because of what the law does when a will is silent, or when a will hands someone outright ownership. 1. When There is no will at all Without a valid will, the intestacy rules decide who inherits, in a fixed order: your husband, wife or civil partner takes your personal possessions, the first £322,000, and half of what is left, and your children share the other half. Stepchildren are not included unless you legally adopted them, and an unmarried partner inherits nothing however long you were together. Our guide to the intestacy rules sets out the full order, and GOV.UK has the official position. 2. When Everything passes to your husband, wife or partner This is the most common arrangement and the one that surprises families most. Once your share of the house and your savings belong to your partner outright, your children have no legal claim on any of it. Your partner may fully intend to pass it on. They may also remarry, which cancels their existing will, or simply write a new one. 3. When You both make mirror wills Mirror wills are two near-identical wills, usually leaving everything to each other and then on to an agreed group of children. They are straightforward, inexpensive, and for plenty of couples exactly right. What they are not is binding: the survivor can make a new will the following week. A mirror will records a shared intention rather than locking it in, and that is the biggest misunderstanding we come across on this subject. How a life interest trust works in a will A life interest trust, also called an interest in possession trust, splits ownership instead of handing everything over. Your share of the home, or a sum of money, goes into a trust rather than to your partner directly. Your partner then has the right to live in the property for the rest of their life, or to receive the income from the capital. When they die, that capital is not theirs to give away: it passes to the people you named, usually your own children. So your partner has security and cannot be asked to leave, your children have an entitlement nobody can rewrite, and if your partner remarries the trust capital does not follow them into the new marriage. Read more about how we set up a trust , or see how GOV.UK explains trust taxation. What are the disadvantages of a life interest trust? Most guides on this subject present a life interest trust as the answer and stop there. It is often a good answer, and it also has real costs and real failure points. Know all of them before you decide: ● It costs more. Our guide fee for a trust is £3,500 + VAT, against £650 + VAT for mirror wills. Full guide fees are on our fees page. ● Someone has to run it. Trustees have ongoing duties: records, tax and reporting, and acting fairly between your partner and your children. That job can last decades. ● It can put your partner and your children on opposite sides. Your partner wants a comfortable home and income; your children want the capital preserved. Choose trustees badly and a structure becomes a standing argument. ● It reduces flexibility. A narrowly drafted trust can leave your partner unable to move somewhere smaller twenty years later. A flexible life interest trust helps, and adds complexity in return. ● The tax position needs thought. Where the life interest is for a spouse or civil partner, the spouse exemption normally applies on the first death, and the trust capital is then treated as part of the survivor's estate when they die. It does not remove value from the estate, and how the residence nil-rate band applies depends on who ultimately inherits. See our page on inheritance tax . ● Sometimes it is the wrong tool. For a modest estate, or a couple whose children are all shared, the cost and administration may buy very little. Specific gifts to your children, a discretionary trust, or a life policy written in trust can do the job more simply. Will a life interest trust protect your home from care home fees? No arrangement can be promised to protect a home from care fees, and anyone saying otherwise is overselling. A trust created by your will takes effect on your death and is not a gift you made during your lifetime, and the deprivation of assets rules local authorities apply are aimed at people who dispose of their own assets while expecting to need care. Those rules sit in Annex E of the government's care and support statutory guidance . Your surviving partner's own share of the home and their own savings still stay theirs, and stay assessable. How a local authority treats a life interest in the other share depends on the facts of the case. What type of will is best for a blended family? There is no single best will for a blended family. Wills for blended families come down to three realistic options in England and Wales, and the right one depends on whether your children need protecting from decisions made after your death, and on whether the estate is large enough to justify the cost of a trust.

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