making a will - OH not aware of content

I can understand a man feeling hurt about this, and thinking his wife didn't love or trust him, but OTOH I have heard of so many cases of a widower remarrying within quite a short time, and leaving just about everything to wife no. 2.

Having said that, my will is a mirror of Dh's - whatever we have will go to the other until they die, after which except for some charity bequests, it will all go to dds and Gdcs.

I do trust Dh absolutely, but I dare say plenty of women have said that, and truly believed it, before their Dh remarried, made a new will and disinherited their children.

My Mil's father remarried not long after her mother died - the new wife whisked him off to her home country on the other side of the world and got everything when he died not many years afterwards. Poor MiL, who could really have done with a windfall, got nothing. Wife no.2 refused even to send her a piece of furniture that had belonged to her mother.

It's not as if she was young or attractive, either - she was what my father would have described as an 'old flannel drawers', ?but as my mother always maintained, having known similar, she was one of those women who know very well how to fuss over a man and make him extremely comfortable. She apparently went through 3 widowers - and buried them - before finally pegging out herself.

ahh thanks jane

Above post reported. Not Janes obviously.

biker You are right - executors can also be beneficiaries, but witnesses cannot.

Message deleted by Gransnet.

So what if you next of kin are executors...I am for my mum...and my elder dd will be for me(who will benefit from my will) am I thought you could leave monies to executors....I always thought you couldn't leave them to witnesses of your will...I may have got it wrong...I need to be thinking of making one , it would only be a very simple one, and did think of using one that you can buy from post office.

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.

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.

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.

.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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?