if he has no will.  I would get legal advice on what you entitled to without a will, and is a widow given any minimum rights even if the will says otherwise. 

So, if your husband dies, you should immediately vacate your home? He's okay with you being homeless? Hmm.

 I also feel, and this is what I'm not sure about and would like some feedback on, that I'm being lumped in with the kids, as a sort of dependent, as it were

That's what is sounds like to me, too, and I don't think it's right. I don't have kids, but if I did, they wouldn't be getting the house, or any proceeds from it's sale, until after BOTH, DH and I die.

In our will, we each leave everything to each other; anything left goes partially to SS and partially to my nieces and nephew. 

That's the standard marital will, why should it be different because there are stepkids? Maybe he could figure out some other way to leave them something in trust and not boot you out of your house. 

This is always a raging debate on here, between the few who think it's fine to leave everything to the kids and the majority who think a spouse should be cared for after the death of the other spouse - BEFORE the kids get anything. 

The only caveat I have is if the second marriage is very late in life and much of the assets were built up in the first, long-term marriage. Then I think the kids should get more of what was left by their other parent.  I don't know how old your skids are. 

I'm sure that one of his concerns might be that you would remarry and then you might decide to not leave things to your skids after he passes. 

Perhaps another way of going at this would be to allow you the right to live in the home as long as you need to and then the kids get control of it at that point in time?

If he wants his kids to get "something" sooner.. perhaps you need to take a good hard look at what you have invested into the home.. and what appreciation has happened during your marriage?... 

It sounds like the solicitor was being pretty fair.. but it does sound like your dH has concerns you might not honor his desire to pass things to his kids?

That is way out of line in my view...adults should have to take care of themselves. Spouses should take care of one another. Adult children should not need parents to provide for them if they can provide for themselves. 

Assuming that children have a financial stake in a home that was purchased by couple, when one person in that couple continues to be alive is wrong, in my opinion. If he wanted to stipulate that a certain amount of the proceeds of the sale after your death go to his children, then fine, but to say you have to move out if he dies first, so his kids can have half of the house...if my husband even nodded his head when someone suggested that, I would put our home on the market and file for divorce. 

Since you are married to your husband, you and he have essentially agreed to provide for one another for life. Once children are adults, parents are not under any obligation to provide for them. I would be most concerned over the fact that your DH feels as if his obligation to his kids is the same as his obligation to you. That puts you and the kids on an equal playing field, which is not the way things should be. Maybe it's easier for me to feel this way, since my DH had nothing when I met him and any "assets" he has now are the result of my managing our finances and making smart moves on our behalf. However, your husband should desire that you are provided for upon his death, considering that you may be a pensioner at that time and have limited other options to provide for yourself. He assumes 50% of your living costs or needs will disappear when he dies and I don't think that's true. 

No, you are not being unreasonable. Your DH on the other hand, is being a dick.

I am not sure how UK law deals with this kind of thing but in the US if DH were to die intestate and there is no prenup you would likely get it all as the surviving spouse. His kids could of course contest that but.... as the spouse you would for the most part trump his kids.  A lawyer could give you far better input than I can though.

I would do as STaround recommended above.  Engage a solicitor to outline what the likely outcome would be if DH predeceases you without a Will.   Have everything ready to immediately protect your interests in the event DH kicks the bucket before you do.

You can leave your Skids everything in equal shares upon your demise, if you make a Will, but for damned sure you should not tolerate being just what for financial purposes would be just another of DH's spawn.  I would do whatever you can to insure that you at least get half of any estate out right upon DH's demise and lock up the principal of the rest so that you benefit from the market growth of the Skid's half as retirement income.

Adult kids can wait their turn until you pass.  Then let the vultures fight over whatever may be left.

In my legal layman;s opinion of course.

In our case. our joint Will names each other the sole heir and beneficiary of our collective estate.  If we co-decease or if the survivor does not revise the Will it all goes into trust for SS-27 until he either completes a Bachelor's degree from an accredited institution or turns 40 which ever is first.   It all goes to him regardless.  He just gets it earlier if he he follows our from beyond the grave expectations of him. I have no BKs so SS is my heir if DW predeceases me.

If she does go before me and I remarry, I would change my Will to leave any growth in my Estate from our wedding date forward to my next DW and would put the rest into a trust that my next DW could live off of the proceeds from until her demise at which point the principal would go to my son (SS-27, who I adopted at his request when he was 22).

This is how I would deal with providing for a next spouse and protect the Estate that his mom and I have built together for the benefit our son.  I would not allow for any crap between my son and my widow.  It would be tightly locked up in order to prevent any mucking about by either my son or my widow as much as I could provide for the killer legal counsel.

I have a very close friend, she and I and her elder brother were pretty much raised together and if I have a sister, it is her. Her mom passed when she was in her mid 20s.  Her dad ended up remarrying.  He married her brother's MIL.  His second wife had 6 kids with her first husband.  She insisted that his estate would go to all of their kids equally upon their demise.  Then ended up being married for around 30 years.  Her dad just passed in September.  She got screwed.  Her brother and his wife get 1/4 of the estate and she and her SIL's biosibs each get 1/8.  I would not tolerate that kind of crap if I was her dad.  I would have told the next wife to take a hike with that crap.  Even worse, the beautiful jewelry that was her mother's that IMHO should have gone to her and her brother when their mom died ended up on the next wife.  Custom jewelry made in Saudi Arabia for their mom. Much of it had her name on in Arabic. Yet SM had it draped all over her for 30 years.  I was pissed for my friend. Her SM did nothing to build on the estate that her BM and dad built over the years.  He was retired a few years before he remarried.  She had to fight with her father in order to refinance the loan he made her for the purchase of her home.  It is a home that her mom and dad bought for her to live in while she was college.  When her dad remarried her SM would harp on the home they owned in Fla, etc, etc, etc....  My friend felt threatened so she told her dad she wanted to buy the house rather than have he and her SM on the deed.   He agreed and set a price and owner financed her purchase.  Her SM continued to play the "our Fla house" crap.  I advised her to refinance through a mortgage company and end the drama by getting her dad and SM out of the picture on her home completely.  She did it.  It took a while but the drama faded a bit once she ended SM's crap regarding her home.  Interestingly when they married SM separated the home she and her deceased first husband had purchased and raised their 6 children in from the "equal estate distribution" between all 8 kids. Only her 6 shared that asset upon the SM's demise.  Yet.... the estate that my friends mom and dad established prior to her mom's death was diluted by the 6 step sibs.  One who is my friends SIL.

It just torqued my butt that her dad lost his balls upon the demise of his wife who was an amazing woman.  She was my mom's BFF.  I still have a bad taste in my mouth over it and it does not effect me in the least other than the injustice of it for my friend.  Her brother, also a very close friend, has never said a word about it. Not even when I asked. He just got a pained look on his face when I broached the topic of his sister's heart break over it all.  He made no comment when I asked. So, I never brought it up with him again. His sister still calls me to discuss my opinion of her weird extended blended family issues. Rarely but she does bring it up.  

IMHO it is the responsibility of the parent that remarries to both protect their estate for the children they and their deceased spouse had together and treat a subsequent spouse equitably.  IMHO it is one those smell test things. You know a screwy situation when you smell it.

Just my thoughts of course.

Take care of you.

Why would you continue putting thousands of pounds into a home you don't expect to be yours?  It's foolish.  What you need is a financial advisor to draw up how much you should be saving or spending so if you surrvive your DH, you have the means to be independent and you don't have to rely on the graciousness of your step kids.  

I think that 1) your DH should put you on the title of the house 2) you should have the right to remain in the home as long as you wish and 3) if you decide that you're ok with leaving things to the step kids, he should be happy enough with that. Unfortunately I agree you are being shoved into the mix with the kids. 

We spent about 18 months on our trusts and wills (it is very helpful that my Dad happens to be an estate planning attorney!). Basically we each have a trust which owns all of our respective assets. We keep all of our finances separate, and I own 78% of the equity in our home/DH has 22% based on what we've put in - our home deed resides in both trusts aligned with that split. In our wills, we leave 40% of our trusts to each other and 60% to be split among our respective kids - my 3 each get 20%; his 4 get 15%. If I predecease him, the 40% he inherits from me cannot eventually go to his kids; it reverts to mine upon his death. We felt that we need to balance taking care of each other, while acknowledging that we want to leave assets to our (own) kids. Now if one of us had substantially more than the other, we may have thought about this differently, but we pretty easily agreed on this.

My point is - this requires a lot of thought and planning and at least for tax reasons you NEED to take care of this asap. In my opinion, DH should not be treating you as another child and it is a bit disturbing that 1) he'd allow you to be essentially kicked out of your home and 2) that he would not want you to be taken care of in your standard of living. Not to mention - why do you not get credit (literally, from an equity perspective) for capital improvements into *his* home? This is problematic.

It is your husband’s money and assests he can do what he wants. 

Personally I would rather everything is sorted out and set straight immediately after my husband’s death rather than waiting years to divide up the house and then being expected to leave money to the step kids when I die. (If the money is not legally tied somehow up you can change your will after his death to do whatever you want with the money.)  If everything is sorted straight away then I would not owe the step kids anything or have them come ask me for “their share” early or anything like that. They will argue that you are not selling the house at the right time or that you are not asking selling the house for enough money or that you are holding up the sale by asking for too much....best that your husband sets out exactly what he wants clearly and that everything is sorted ASAP so that you can move on with your life. 

Having said that, it is unusual that your husband wants to treat you as a dependent rather than a spouse. Most of the time I think it is usual to allow a spouse to live in a house until death or re-marriage and then the house sale can go to the step kids. 

I might set out for him monetarily what it would all mean for you if he died tomorrow. Perhaps he hasn’t really realized how little you would get? 

Either way, this is your wake up call to stop investing in the house and your relationship money-wise and start investing in your own future. You need to save up a good emergency fund for yourself and build up your retirement plan.  Don’t forget to leave 5/6ths of your money to your favorite relative or charity in your will should you die before your husband. You don’t owe his kids any money. 

I'd make sure I got the house in agreement that in the event of your death it would go to skids.  Maybe keep individual finances separate so your not homeless and broke in the event of anything happening to him. There will be a fight so I would cover myself very carefully. 

You should have titled that what does a wife deserve to be left in the will.

moneyadviceservice.org.uk has some useful advice.

i would get legal advice ASAP One of your questions to the solicitor might want to be ‘what if he has made a will and not showed it to me.’

people that have accumulated money usually have a will. Most couples are transparent about this and show each other the documents or whatever. 

A Steparent may not warrant mention or inheritance in a Will, a Skid's Will that is ... but a Spouse certainly does warrant mention in the Will of their own Spouse.

My thoughts are that an X gets nothing beyond what is stipulated in a Divorce decree.  In the case of two people that create a child together out of wedlock, when that relationship ends they go their own way taking with them what is theirs.  CS not withstanding.

In the case where one of the new spouses had former relationship children what makes general sense to me is for the Skids to  be given at least a significant part of the estate of their BioParent based on the value of that estate at the point where the BP and the SP marry.   Any estate growth from that point forward goes to the surviving spouse with the Will providing for the surviving spouse adequately if rthe estate growth is inadequate to support the surving SParent spouse.

Parents have no duty to support adult children or leave them anything.  The duty to a widowed spouse trumps any duty to support adult children.

Just my thoughts of course.

What? No. Just because it's a second marriage, it doesn't mean you deserve to be treated like a second wife.

If I die, all assets are transferred to my wife, then my wife can decide.

If she dies, all of her assets are transferred to me, then I decide.

Almost like it's a real marriage.

We have back to back wills, been together 16 years too and my husband is 8 years older than me. SD gets nothing, just like our kids together until we have both passed. You aren't being unreasonable. As you too get older you need to have that security.

Our situation is different from yours. DH gave BM absolutely everything to get her to finally agree to the divorce settlement, so we started from scratch with their debt. My FIL has however been with his partner for about 20 years and not married (all children adults and out of the home when they got together). She moved in to his house (DH's childhood home), and sold her home and invested the money. Over the years she has paid for lots of improvements and extensions to the house. The house has also doubled in value in that time. I'm pretty sure she covers all groceries and they share holiday costs etc. FIL came to DH and I about a year ago quite sheepish. Made a lot of small talk before asking if it was ok if he changed his will to give his partner 40% of the house. DH and I were quite shocked as we assumed she would get the house and DH would get a share once she passes too. FIL partner was so relieved after that was all sorted. She had been really worried for a while but didnt know how to bring it up. Anyway, FIL has put in will that partner can stay in house as long as she wants after he passes, but if she should want to sell it DH gets 60%. We suggested 50% so may be that.