writing a will as we are not married

[Beatlesfan]

me and Oh need to do this...we are not married and have our LO . we have life assurance etc. but we know we need to make a will. Along the lines of:

I die...everything goes to him
he dies ...everything goes to me
we both die...everything goes to Imogen (but I assume we need to put it in trust until she is 18 and nominate a person to 1. look after her (prob OH's brother and SIL) and 2. to hold what is hers until she is 18.
we all die (horrible thought I know thinking about death, but we have to be prepared).. need to decide who everything goes to?????

anyone been thru this?

Any idea how much roughly it costs? Any recommendations of companies?
Thanks gals.

 

[valentine]

No, but we need to, we went for a free will session when we bought our house 3 years ago but never went back to finalise it! It'll cost about £150 I think.

You just need to go to a solicitor who deals with family law, they have a standard will that they need to amend. You can also specify items to go to particular people (for example my OH wants his bro to have his guitars).

You also need to say who will look after Imogen if you were both to die.

Valentine Xxx

 

[Krystal]

Oooh i've been trying to talk to OH about this but we can't agree who we would want to look after Jack.. then we get all funny about it cos it feels wierd talkng about stuff like that then we forget about it for a bit but I know we have to get this done. Sounds like you have given it a lot of thought though so maybe speak to a solicitor and sure they can sort you out

 

[Becky]

We're married but we have still done a will, mainly to establish our Executor (who manages your estate) and the guardian(s) of our children as I very specifically want my parents or my sister to become Lucy's guardian's rather than anyone else.

It cost £150, we basically said the same as you: if I die he inherits, if he dies I inherit, if we both die it goes to any children equally and that guardianship goes to my parents. The money in this case goes into trust until the children turn 21 (we chose this) but can be accessed by the executor if there is need for the children. For this reason our executors are my dad and my sister so that if they are bringing our children up and need money they have relatively easy access to it.

 

[charlie84]

Sorry to hijack this post but does anyone know what happens if say me and my OH were to die, who would decide who would bring up our daughter? Who is classed as next of kin? Would it be up to them? As we are not married and dont have anything like a will i have started to worry about this.

We did have a discussion the other day about it but its not been mentioned since, but i think i need to sort this out soonish.

 

[Becky]

I'm not 100% sure but I was told by a friend that the next of kin is classed as the next of kin of the last living parent. So if I died first then OH then NOK is OH's mother. Same the other way round.

This was one of the main reasons I wanted a will, then there was no doubt over who would be my children's guardian(s).

 

[MissSara]

I really really need to sort this out............ So if i die then Harrison would go to "nob head" ( sperm donor) who he hasn't seen in 4years ?????

Is their anyway Lee or my parents would get rights to harrison ????

 

[bunnymom1980]

I really really need to sort this out............ So if i die then Harrison would go to "nob head" ( sperm donor) who he hasn't seen in 4years ?????

Is their anyway Lee or my parents would get rights to harrison ????

I think if you see a solicitor you can put something in writing or Lee could legally adopt Harrison, though I don't know how difficult that is to do.

 

[MissSara]

I really really need to sort this out............ So if i die then Harrison would go to "nob head" ( sperm donor) who he hasn't seen in 4years ?????

Is their anyway Lee or my parents would get rights to harrison ????

I think if you see a solicitor you can put something in writing or Lee could legally adopt Harrison, though I don't know how difficult that is to do.

We are wanting to sort out adoption but waiting until we are married first. I think the best bet would be to go and see a solicitor after this LO is born and get it all talked about, i have thought about it all before but this thread made me REALLY think about it. It would destroy my family to see H go to " them".

 

[Becky]

I'm not sure how it would work in your case, especially if you don't have much to do with your "sperm donor". It probably could be argued to have your OH have guardianship over Harrison but it would probably have to go through solicitors/courts etc. whereas if you have a will that is legally binding and "sperm donor" would have to go to court to contest it.

I'm not an expert but from what I've read/been told I think this is likely.

 

[maybebaby]

We got our will done lasr year, it was £50.00 for a joint will but to be honest I wouldn't recommend the company we used. It's all legal and everything, but they spent most of the meeting trying to convince us that we should appoint them as our executors, and we should pay some stupid amount of money for them to store the will for us.

The will itself is a standard 'fill in the boxes' style one too, for example we were only given the option of our children being 18 or 21 when they inherit, I ideally wanted to say they have to be 25 unless they get married, buy a house or have a baby before that age.

Because we don't have a huge amount at the moment, we just have life assurance but no house etc, we're just sticking to the standard one we've got for now. When we buy a house, get married and/or finish having children we'll go to a solicitor and get another one done exactly how we want it.

*****

MissSara - my sister's eldest has a different dad to her OH and other children. She made a will when she was first born to say that our mum would get custody if anything happened, so that she wouldn't automatically go to the biological dad. Obviously he could contest the will & it would go to court, but my sister was advised that they would almost definitely go with the mother's wishes. She changed her will recently to say that her OH would get custody of all 3 girls. Again, she's been advised that even if her ex contested to get custody of the eldest a judge would almost always rule to keep children with their brothers and sisters. I would definitely advise getting some legal advice and definitely do a will so that your feelings can be taken into consideration should the worst happen.