Cowardly Will Question
Discussion
Mr A wants to leave a will, where his estate goes equally to his 2 sisters, Mrs B & Mrs C. But for reasons I won't bore you with, he can't leave the money to his sisters, so needs to leave it to their children. Don't ask why, just take it as read.
Can he draft a will saying "I leave 50% of my estate to the children of Mrs B and 50% of my estate to the children of Mrs C" ? And leave to at that, without naming the children? Or does he have to name them? Problem is Mrs B has 3 kids and Mrs C has 2 kids and 2 stepkids. If he leaves the money to named kids, and doesn't include the stepkids, Mrs B's side of the family 3/5 of the estate and Mrs C, 2/5 of the estate. If he names the stepkids, Mrs B's side get 3/7 and Mrs C's side 4/7.
He wants to be a coward and not deal with the stepkid inclusion issue at all. He just wants to leave 50% to the kids of each sister, and Mrs C can have the fallout over whether to split her families half between just her biological kids or her own and her husband's kids from his 1st marriage.
For the record, I am not Mr A, although I am also a coward.
Can he draft a will saying "I leave 50% of my estate to the children of Mrs B and 50% of my estate to the children of Mrs C" ? And leave to at that, without naming the children? Or does he have to name them? Problem is Mrs B has 3 kids and Mrs C has 2 kids and 2 stepkids. If he leaves the money to named kids, and doesn't include the stepkids, Mrs B's side of the family 3/5 of the estate and Mrs C, 2/5 of the estate. If he names the stepkids, Mrs B's side get 3/7 and Mrs C's side 4/7.
He wants to be a coward and not deal with the stepkid inclusion issue at all. He just wants to leave 50% to the kids of each sister, and Mrs C can have the fallout over whether to split her families half between just her biological kids or her own and her husband's kids from his 1st marriage.
For the record, I am not Mr A, although I am also a coward.
[quote=
He wants to be a coward and not deal with the stepkid inclusion issue at all. He just wants to leave 50% to the kids of each sister, and Mrs C can have the fallout over whether to split her families half between just her biological kids or her own and her husband's kids from his 1st marriage.
[/quote]
Make sure you see a solicitor and do it properly, but yes it can be done. You can be as specific or ambiguous as you want.
He wants to be a coward and not deal with the stepkid inclusion issue at all. He just wants to leave 50% to the kids of each sister, and Mrs C can have the fallout over whether to split her families half between just her biological kids or her own and her husband's kids from his 1st marriage.
[/quote]
Make sure you see a solicitor and do it properly, but yes it can be done. You can be as specific or ambiguous as you want.
BertBert said:
I don't think it can be done in the way stated so that Mrs C has discretion on what constitutes kids. The wording of the will will technically determine what kids are included.
Couldn't Mrs C do a deed of variation in any case?Mr A needs to be less cowardly though. Their position is totally illogical. Either they'll be a ghost, soul tormented forever by this cowardice and forced to haunt the residence of Mrs C until released in some kind of quasi-satanic ceremony by the step kids... or it makes no difference whatsoever because they'll be dead.
Somewhatfoolish said:
BertBert said:
I don't think it can be done in the way stated so that Mrs C has discretion on what constitutes kids. The wording of the will will technically determine what kids are included.
Couldn't Mrs C do a deed of variation in any case?Mr A needs to be less cowardly though. Their position is totally illogical. Either they'll be a ghost, soul tormented forever by this cowardice and forced to haunt the residence of Mrs C until released in some kind of quasi-satanic ceremony by the step kids... or it makes no difference whatsoever because they'll be dead.
My understanding is that if you write a will and name "my children" as beneficiaries, then this doesn't include step children. Step children have to be specifically mentioned if they're going to inherit anything.
Not sure if that would apply if you named "the children" of other people as beneficiaries, though.
Definitely one for a solicitor, to ensure that the wording is unambiguous and the will achieves the desired outcomes.
Not sure if that would apply if you named "the children" of other people as beneficiaries, though.
Definitely one for a solicitor, to ensure that the wording is unambiguous and the will achieves the desired outcomes.
C69 said:
My understanding is that if you write a will and name "my children" as beneficiaries, then this doesn't include step children. Step children have to be specifically mentioned if they're going to inherit anything.
Not sure if that would apply if you named "the children" of other people as beneficiaries, though.
Definitely one for a solicitor, to ensure that the wording is unambiguous and the will achieves the desired outcomes.
Father-in-law's Will referred to his "issue". It was a little awkward as one of his sons pre-deceased him by a couple of years, so that son's wife didn't get anything. He (father-in-law) was aware of that but declined to change his Will. Not sure if that would apply if you named "the children" of other people as beneficiaries, though.
Definitely one for a solicitor, to ensure that the wording is unambiguous and the will achieves the desired outcomes.
Father-in-law did have all his grandchildren named in his Will but got very miffed that he wasn't seeing one set, so he took them all out - which was irritating to us as our kids did a lot for him.
Steve H said:
Is there any reason why the will can’t just allocate 25% of the estate each to two of the kids by name and 16.6% each to three others?
He could do, but that's including the step kids. he doesn't want to include or exclude them. He wants that to be Mrs C's problem. If, as said above, just saying children excludes step children, he'll be fine with that. No one (apart from me) will know he knew they would be excluded. After his death, he doesn't want Mrs C to think he excluded them. And he doesn't want Mrs B to think he included them to the financial detriment of his biological family. As I said in the title, cowardly.
Edited by TwigtheWonderkid on Wednesday 27th November 20:43
TwigtheWonderkid said:
TownIdiot said:
When you say "can't leave to the sisters" do you mean "doesn't want to"?
It doesn't matter. All that matters is that it isn't happening. As they will have no say what happens to the dough once they are 6 ft under.
Quick family discussion deed of variation signed and that's that.
There is definitely a wording that allows for inheritance by natural offspring only
TownIdiot said:
TwigtheWonderkid said:
TownIdiot said:
When you say "can't leave to the sisters" do you mean "doesn't want to"?
It doesn't matter. All that matters is that it isn't happening. As they will have no say what happens to the dough once they are 6 ft under.
TwigtheWonderkid said:
Steve H said:
Is there any reason why the will can’t just allocate 25% of the estate each to two of the kids by name and 16.6% each to three others?
He could do, but that's including the step kids. he doesn't want to include or exclude them. He wants that to be Mrs C's problem. If, as said above, just saying children excludes step children, he'll be fine with that. No one (apart from me) will know he knew they would be excluded. After his death, he doesn't want Mrs C to think he excluded them. And he doesn't want Mrs B to think he included them to the financial detriment of his biological family. As I said in the title, cowardly.
Edited by TwigtheWonderkid on Wednesday 27th November 20:43
Gassing Station | Speed, Plod & the Law | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff