Hi All,
My husband and I have children together and he has a child from a previous relationship. We all get on fine and we get on with the childs mother so we are lucky in this regard.
I had a casual conversation with someone about wills over the weekend and got thinking about it as neither my husband nor I have made one.
We don't have a lot to leave, no property but we do have some small savings and life assurance of about €200,000 upon either of our deaths.
My understanding of things is that if my husband dies with no will, then I get 2/3 of estate and all of his children get a share of the remainding 1/3. If this is the case then I have no problem with this.
Where I would have a problem is (God forbid) we should die together. Does our entire estate get divided between the children (incl stepchild)?
My way of looking at things is that if the worst happened then my children would need all the financial help they can get. Stepchilds mother has a house and the child is the only grandchild in her family so the stepchilds inheritance is going to be pretty good. I would never leave the child nothing but I would like his share to be considerably smaller than the amount my children would get. Sounds terrible but I have to make sure they are looked after first.
If in future we do buy a house then I would want the house left to my children only.
I want to see a solicitor about all this asap as I was told that a stepchild will be considered a child of a couple (if the couple are married) when it comes to wills - this sounds mad to me bec much as he is a part of my family, I am not the childs mother, he has a mother.
Just wondering if anyone has any experience of this or of making up wills where step children are involved as I'm not even sure how to word it.
Hope this post makes sense - sorry it's long!
Rebekah
My husband and I have children together and he has a child from a previous relationship. We all get on fine and we get on with the childs mother so we are lucky in this regard.
I had a casual conversation with someone about wills over the weekend and got thinking about it as neither my husband nor I have made one.
We don't have a lot to leave, no property but we do have some small savings and life assurance of about €200,000 upon either of our deaths.
My understanding of things is that if my husband dies with no will, then I get 2/3 of estate and all of his children get a share of the remainding 1/3. If this is the case then I have no problem with this.
Where I would have a problem is (God forbid) we should die together. Does our entire estate get divided between the children (incl stepchild)?
My way of looking at things is that if the worst happened then my children would need all the financial help they can get. Stepchilds mother has a house and the child is the only grandchild in her family so the stepchilds inheritance is going to be pretty good. I would never leave the child nothing but I would like his share to be considerably smaller than the amount my children would get. Sounds terrible but I have to make sure they are looked after first.
If in future we do buy a house then I would want the house left to my children only.
I want to see a solicitor about all this asap as I was told that a stepchild will be considered a child of a couple (if the couple are married) when it comes to wills - this sounds mad to me bec much as he is a part of my family, I am not the childs mother, he has a mother.
Just wondering if anyone has any experience of this or of making up wills where step children are involved as I'm not even sure how to word it.
Hope this post makes sense - sorry it's long!
Rebekah
