How Can I Ensure My Assets Go To My Children If My Spouse Remarries?

Note: The following article is part of our Complimentary Articles Series, designed to provide additional insights and detailed information on specific topics within estate planning.

Alongside this article, we suggest exploring our pillar articles for a comprehensive understanding of general estate planning issues topics.

• What is an Estate?
• What is a Declaration of Trust?
• What Happens If I Die Without an Estate Plan?
• What is a Trust?
• Who Can Be an Executor?
• As a Beneficiary, What Are My Rights?

INTRODUCTION

Making sure your assets go to your children after you pass away is an increasing concern, especially in the age of the "modern family," where divorce and remarriage are a lot more frequent than in the past.

Although Trusts are essential in estate planning, you might wish to consider several other options. This article explains the range of options you can consider to protect your children's inheritance.

HOW TO PROTECT YOUR CHILDREN IF YOUR FORMER SPOUSE REMARRIES

• Trusts: Trusts can be set up to protect the assets of designated Beneficiaries like your children, especially in scenarios where your former spouse chooses to remarry. They ensure your assets are distributed as you specified, giving you a clear plan for supporting your children. You also have the flexibility to support your former spouse should you choose. Trusts can be complicated, and while this article provides an overview, you can find more detailed information in our comprehensive library of articles on Trusts.

• Specific Bequest Within a Will: With this method, you explicitly state the assets you wish to leave to your children. Simple as this method may be, it does not provide the same continuous control over your assets that a Trust offers, especially in cases where your spouse is legally entitled to a portion of your Estate.

• Life Insurance: An effective way of ensuring your children receive assets directly is through a life insurance policy. This bypasses the Estate entirely and gets around any potential legal claim of a spouse.

• Retirement Accounts: These days, retirement accounts allow you to specify Beneficiaries. Again, they offer a convenient way of ensuring certain assets are passed directly to them without a Will or Trust getting in the way.

• Joint Ownership: If you and your children have joint ownership in certain assets like property or certain bank accounts, those assets will be passed directly to them on your death. However, you should also be aware of the tax ramifications of such a move. For more information on this, please refer to our tax articles.

• Prenuptial Agreements: If you remarry, you can arrange a prenuptial agreement with your new spouse before remarriage (if they agree to this). This proactive measure would specify what your children and your new spouse should be entitled to on your death.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

As evident from the above, there are several creative ways you can consider to protect your children's assets. However, these strategies carry specific financial, legal, and tax consequences. For each strategy, we advise you to consult some of our related articles and, where appropriate, reach out to a specialist like Squiggle to discuss your options.

Need to know more?

If you have any questions about your Will or Estate, feel free to contact us for an initial free no-obligation call, where we'll bring you through some options to secure peace of mind for you and your loved ones.

Book a callback and we'd be happy to arrange a no-cost, no-obligation discussion with you to lay out the options available.

Alternatively, call us on 01233 659 796.

Or reach out to us here.