Around one in every 10 weddings in the UK is a remarriage for both partners. Modern family circumstances are often more complicated if you’ve been married before. If your Will isn’t clearly written this can lead to difficulties when one partner dies. 

 

If you die without a Will and have children from other relationships they could receive much less from your estate. Your new partner will receive the first £250,000 of your estate and all your personal belongings. The rest of your estate is then divided equally between your partner and your children. 

 

If you don’t have any surviving children, grandchildren or great-grandchildren, the whole estate will pass to your partner and your surviving brothers or sisters. 

 

The results of a three-year-long court case might surprise you. It involved the children of a couple who had remarried. 

 

Both husband and wife had a child from a previous marriage. They were joint tenants of their property and their assets amounted to £300,000. 

 

In their Wills the couple had left everything to each other. When the surviving partner died each wanted to leave everything to their own child. 

 

Sadly, the couple died together at home from hypothermia. It wasn’t clear who had died first, or which Will should apply. 

 

The two children couldn’t reach an agreement about how to divide the estate, so the question was decided in court. The judge made the decision based on The Law of Property Act which is almost 100 years old. The eldest of the two was therefore presumed to have died first. 

 

Since the husband was older than his wife, the estate passed to her and then to her child. The husband’s child didn’t receive anything. 

 

This is an unusual example, but writing your Will carefully can help to make sure disputes like this don’t arise. 

 

One thing you can do is to make sure you are tenants in common rather than joint tenants for the property you own. This means you each own a half share of the property rather than owning the property together. Each partner can then pass their own half share to their children. 

 

By including a life interest trust in each partner’s Will assets in their sole name are held in a trust for their partner’s benefit until they die. The assets are then passed on to their respective children.