Wills favouring blood line only

Oh yes, I see.

It has to be a specific after I marry Joe Smith or whoever though.

It can’t just say if I ever marry in the future.

Wasn’t even thinking over £250,000?

You learn something every day.

My parents in law redid their will when their daughter separated from her husband and when there were two young grandchildren. Lest the daughter die before those children were of full age, her parents put her share of estate into a trust fund so the estranged partner would not have access to the inheritance even on behalf of his children.

I don't think it's lawful to leave everything to your children if your surviving spouse is in any way dependent on you (e.g. living in the house you share). You can't totally disinherit any dependents. You can, however, alow your spouse to stay in the family home while it is owned by (or held in trust for?) your children. Definitely see a solicitor about the best way to do this.

When we made wills several years ago the solicitor highlighted this scenario to us, so we wrote that should any of our children predecease us, and they had children their share would go to their children but not until they were 25 years old. We also don’t want our own children to inherit until they are 25 years old should we die before then either. We’ve worked damned hard for what we have got, don5 want them wasting because of their age!

Perfectly possible. my late FIL remarried and everything was left to 2nd wife, not a penny to his 3 AC or 6 GC. C’est la vie!

It can get pretty unfair. A friend’s grandmother was having an affair with a local businessman. He had been married for many years but he and his wife had no children. The wife had bought him his business and was extremely well off, with several houses. As she was much younger than him, everyone expected her to outlive him. She had several nieces who were very close to her and expected to inherit when she died. Apparently Will left everything to husband or in case of him predeceasing her everything split evenly between her nieces.
Unfortunately she took ill and died whilst still in her 50s and her husband inherited everything. He changed his will and left everything to his mistress. He only outlived his wife by 6 months. Imagine how horrified the nieces were to find that their aunt’s husband’s mistress ended up inheriting all her estate, which was worth over a million pounds and they, her closest family got nothing!

I know someone who gave their very large expensive house to their married daughter, as long as they could continue to live there. Daughter died, her OH remarried and the wife then kicked parents out, and pocketed the money when he died. You have to be so careful.

As my mum used to laugh and say ‘where there’s a will there’s a relative!’.

I’ve left everything to my child. My OH is not dependent on me, and he would keep his half of the house. He’d have to get a mortgage for the other half or sell up and move somewhere cheaper if I die first.

Am I misreading? The op doesn't seem to me to be saying she is remarrying. She asked about the case where you leave assets to your ac and the ac predeceases the cil who then remarries, and is outlived by their new spouse.

Nanny, are you concerned that this may happen with your ac and cil? If so, I believe you can write your will so that it says if your ac predeceases you (God forbid), their inheritance will then go to their children/your gc. But if, sadly, you're gone and your ac has already inherited the assets? What happens to them after that? Idk. That might be up to ac and cil to decide. They can probably set up trusts, etc. that would go directly to the gc and a new partner couldn't get control of. But that's up to them, surely.

But I may be wrong. Best to ask a solicitor, Imo.

Yes you've understood me Starlady. I can well imagine that if my children in law were widowed they might not think about safe-guarding the grandchildren's inheritance, or just assume that a new partner would be fair. I think I need to have a chat with our AC.

You can include or exclude whoever you like.

However I did think it very nice that a childless aunt who left all her money to nieces and nephews, stipulated that in the event of their deaths beforehand, the money should go instead to any children, 'whether natural or adopted, legitimate or illegitimate'.
(Presumably her solicitor had advised the wording to make it 100% explicit.).