making a will - OH not aware of content

Thank you Seacliff....I have been pondering doing EXACTLY the same as you have posted today! St the moment my OH and me have ‘mirror wills’ but over the past ten years our relationship has gone from bad to worse... my husband has cashed in every insurance policy and our endowment just so he could retire early (50) and spen the rest of his life watching tv. He doesn’t even have life insurance! If he goes first I will be in a really bad state financially...and when I mooted this to him he says he doesn’t care anything about that. I believe that if my half of house were left to him he would ‘downsize’ and blow whatever money he has on holidays and other crap!! You’ve made me decide to change my will and leave my half of house to my two kids and grandkids. Of course allowing him to live there for the rest of his life! He won’t be financially worse off when if I die first ...his three pensions are more than adequate for his wants and needs. Rge way I see it...if he doesn’t give a damn for me if he goes first...then why should I consider his feelings!?

Hi Hooty, we did this as I have a daughter from a previous marriage. My DH was totally on board, we have 2 men in the family who jumped quickly into new relationships depute one in 70's other in 80's! He appreciates that I want to ensure assets I brought to the marriage get passed on to her. It cost £150 each, 2 visits -one to draft out and one to sign. We had to change the ownership which would have been £100 but they waived that fee for us. Only took a couple of weeks. I checked out free wills but they are usually only for very simple wills

Hi Hooty I did one visit where I explained what I wanted to do. I took the names and addresses of people I wanted to leave things to, and also names of my chosen executors. I'd already asked if they were agreeable.

On the computer he pulled up one version of a standard blank will, and took me through it. Some parts were amended depending on what I wanted. He took my name address and dob and all the other peoples details.

I had applied through the cancer research offer. This means certain solicitors will do a simple will free of charge, on the hope that you will leave some money to cancer research. There is no obligation. He originally put that in will as a bequest, but I preferred to donate now which was fine.

He also suggested I might want to bequeath a smallish amount to the executors - my choice, I agreed.

He asked if I wanted burial or cremation, that was noted in will.

He asked if there were any particular items of value I wanted to leave anyone, doesn't have to be of great value, can be anything. For me one item was my Dads signet ring.

We made an appointment for 1 weeks time, for me to go and sign will in front of their staff as witnesses. And that would be all done. Very easy!

Except that mine has gone a bit wrong - see above!

I have found this which may be of help - free wills in March offer - www.ageuk.org.uk/get-involved/donate/leave-legacy/free-wills-month/

If you pay for a simple will direct with the solicitor, a lot seem to charge about £120 ish for a single will in this area. I would ask friends for a recommendation. I hope you all can sort yours, just for peace of mind. Good luck.

I forgot to say that I said I wanted to put a sealed and dated letter with the will to my OH. The solicitor would store them both free of charge.

I also emailed my executor with a copy of the will, plus details of my solicitors address, my works (death in service payment) and details of where exactly all my money is - banks premium bonds etc. . With passwords etc to access the accounts (not sure if that's needed)

As my OH has PD dementia, my will leaves my half of our property and my assets to DD's, should I die before him. I didn't want him to inherit my assets, as, though his will have to pay for his care when I'm no longer here, I didn't want mine to pay for someone else's care.

We have been considering making our will and it was suggested that we each leave our half of the house to our daughters ( our ownership is set up so we can do this). However I have since realised that this means that if either of our daughters move house in the future then they will have to pay the extra 3% second home stamp duty (on the whole of the new house), an awful burden on their mobility. So unlikely to go down this route.

How do you know if the house is joint or Tennants in common? Does it actually have to say that (tennants in common)on the document as I can't see anything on ours, it just has "Proprietors" then both our names. Does that mean it is a joint one?

Hereshopping. Are you sure? they will only get your half of the house when you die, they don’t actually own it yet.
Hooty, unless you bought the house and stated that you wanted to be tenants in common then I would think that you are joint owners.
I don’t think it was very common when we bought our first home so we were always, until recently, joint owners

Sea cliff, it is really bad news that your solicitor let you down regarding ownership of the house.
But you can sever the joint tenancy and become tenants in common without his agreement if necessary.
www.gov.uk/joint-property-ownership/change-from-joint-tenants-to-tenants-in-common
This link gives clear advice how to do this.

Then you can leave your share to your children. There should be a clause in the will about your husband paying the costs of insurance and repairs or maintenance of the property whilst he continues to live there.

Good grief Seacliff you need a different solicitor! That was a ridiculous oversight on his/her part!!

Yes Ready, I will. They are an old established company, he is owner. I assumed he'd know what he was taking about, absolutely terrible, considering what they charge (usually). It would have meant my will was invalid, if I'd followed his advice.

I will go elsewhere ... I'll ask for recommendations. I'll stick to my original plan to leave a lump sun to each child. Forget the house. It seems too underhand to change land registry, even though it's possible.

There is a free wills offer for March if anyone is interested.

We were advised that you cannot leave half of a house to the children - HMRC will say that the occupier of the house should be paying rent to the children and will tax them accordingly even if they haven`t received rent. One solution is to put half of the house into trust for the children - to be paid out when the house is sold. Obviously you need legal advice to do this correctly

That is wrong eddiecat78 at least in Scotland . You have to pay rent if you make over a house to your children while you live in it ( to avoid care home fees etc. ) but you can leave your half to anyone if jointly owned. If you in theory pay rent to your children they then are liable to pay tax on the income. Our neighbour left her half of the marital home to her children and her DH lived in it for years afterwards.

Floradora - I think you are right that you can do it - but HMRC don`t like it! It might be difficult to get the occupier to pay rent to the children but they will be taxed as if he has paid them rent. I believe it has to be a realistic rent too not just a nominal amount

It is a difficult situation and as a mother you wish to protect your children but you say your husband worked very hard to build the house up. You also say you would be shocked if the boot was on the other foot. Would you feel betrayed? Had you thought of leaving him a cash sum too and explaining to him in the letter that you appreciate he worked hard on the house and the cash sum recognises that effort. I just know I would be devastated if my dh did that to me. He is my 2nd husband and I have 3 children from 1st marriage. I am leaving them a lump sum and some shares when I die but will be leaving our house and B2L houses to my dh. He has no children and has helped me bring up my children since the youngest was 8. They will inherit more after he dies. I suppose it is different if you don't love and trust you husband.

In my view it isn't as simple as "loving & trusting your DH/partner."
Once someone has inherited money/ property they can leave it as they wish in their will. My father adored my mother but after her death met & married someone else who then inherited his estate. My DM would have been heartbroken that her DC & DG inherited nothing when she had worked so hard all her life.

I am wondering how many people go to make a will without having a clear idea of what they are actually doing, I still find the fact the the OPs solicitor suggested various things to her, ie. leaving money to her executors!
I also wonder how many people are aware that if you make cash bequests, but at the time of death there is not enough cash available, then your house WILL be sold to make the payments.
Far better IMO to leave money as percentages of whatever is left at the time of death.
Maybe getting a free Will is a very false economy.

I have no previous experience of making a will. Although I consider myself "quite savvy" in some areas, like banking and insurance etc, when it comes to legal matters, I would take the advice of the so called expert. Like tax, the rules of law are always changing, so that's why you pay the expert to know what's correct in your circumstances.

He suggested certain things, as quite normal, I took his advice. Thank God I didn't just agree what he emailed me, and go back and sign it. Well, actually I did feel uncomfortable about his house suggestion, and am glad I posted here.

As regards cost, it would have been approx £120 as his fee, and I was going to donate more than that to the cancer charity.

This local solicitors have been going over 100 years, he is the owner!!

I had googled local solicitors and dismissed another because of some dodgy reviews.

I will go to another solicitor asap. This time, I'll just leave the lump sum which was my original intention. I note the point about selling if not enough money, will keep that in mind.

I am trying to find one that has been recommended this time.

Use a solicitor, If I had not , I would have been in a very difficult position because of a law I didn’t know anything about. Unless your situation is very very straightforward you need sound legal advice .

I DID use a solicitor. It turned out he gave me wrong advice.

Seacliff, sorry but I don’t think its normal for a solicitor to suggest things to you, you can ask a question and he will tell you the, hopefully, although not in your case, correct way of doing things, but I have never heard of a solicitor suggesting that you leave money to executors.
Normally you go in and tell them briefly what you want to achieve and they tell you the best way to go about it, also telling you the pitfalls, if any, of what you are suggesting.
I really think that if you are unsure, then a personal recommendation would be best for you, although each Will is different.
My DM had a ‘free’ Will some years ago, it was very costly to get it sorted and her money still went to relatives that she specifically didn’t want to inherit, because of the way it was worded, as she had put it away we didn’t know until we took it to our Solicitor.
We recently went to have our Wills remade including POAs, when we went back to sign it, we had a long list of questions, mainly legal terms that we didn’t understand, but we got exactly what we wanted to achieve. Yes, it was costly, but it could save your DCs a lot of headaches.

Forgot to mention that we went in with a long written list with everything on it, it took us a while to write down everything we wanted to achieve. Handed it to Solicitor and he went through it with us point by point, we ended up with the Will that we wanted.
Don’t forget that you can always rip it up and do a new one if circumstances change.

I have said the truth Oppsadaisy, whether you believe me or not. What would be the point of me lying?

I would never have thought of leaving an amount to executors, but he suggested it (and he even said a figure of £2,000) . I though actually it it was quite a nice idea to do, to thank my relatives for the work entailed in carrying out my wishes.

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Seacliffe, I wouldn’t dream of saying you were lying!
I was questioning the ethics of your Solicitor!
I have never heard of a Solicitor having the cheek to suggest who you leave your money too.
£2000.00 ?? I am astonished!
I’m not sure it’s even ethical.

Personally I think it's only considerate to leave something to executors who aren't otherwise beneficiaries.

Dh has been an executor 3 times, and depending on the person's affairs, it can involve a lot of work and hassle, which is why solicitors charge quite a lot for doing it.