Wills and step children

[Jbibby]

I've booked into to see a solicitor to draw up mine and my husband wills. However finding it quite difficult as we both have children from previous marriages and want to make it as fair as possible. We both owned a house each and recently sold 1 so now have a joint mortgage. We have agreed that in the event of either of us passing the house will go to the other person including the mortgage cover. And when the surviving partner passes the house will be split between the children equally. However we both know the surviving partner could meet someone else and there is the possibility of Wills being updated and the children of the deceased receiving nothing. To protect the children of the person who passes first we are thinking of splitting the remaining estate between their natural children and the surviving spouse equally. This would mean the children of the surviving parent getting nothing at this point and would only inherit when their parent passes. So when the surviving partner passes the house will be split equally but the remaining estate to go to their natural children. Does this sound fair, or does anybody have any better ideas of splitting this fairly?

[Amethyst]

Sounds pretty similar to what we're planning on doing ( must get on with it !) I'll tag Peridot but she might not get chance to pop in before you see the solicitor. What you can do is leave your share of the property to your children but a life interest in it to your spouse with certain conditions. To do this you will need to ensure you have the property registered as tenants in common with specific shares rather than as joint beneficial tenants. So check with land registry ( https://www.gov.uk/search-property-i...-land-registry ) how the property has been registered - I know our conveyancer had pre ticked the joint beneficial box on the purchase papers and we had a faff to amend to 50/50. Bit of info on that https://www.co-oplegalservices.co.uk...ncy-in-common/

Hopefully you already sorted that particularly as you sold one property so have likely put differing amount in to the house purchase/remortgage and your % shares account for that.

[Jbibby]

Thanks for your advice however we have already signed as joint beneficial Tennant's. Think I will just stick to what I intended this is all way to complicated... Good luck with yours :-)