Blended families and the wills that survive them

A second marriage with children from a first is the most common arrangement we see, and the one most likely to end in a dispute if the wills are copied from each other.

Why mirror wills fail

Two wills leaving everything to each other, then to “our children”, rely on the survivor keeping their promise. The survivor can make a new will the following week. Courts undo mutual-will agreements more often than people expect.

Why the promise does not hold

A mutual-will agreement can be enforced, but only by litigation after the person who broke it has died, funded by the people who were meant to inherit. That is an expensive way to keep a promise, and it usually splits the family the arrangement was designed to protect.

Structures that do hold

Instead of a promise, the will carries the arrangement itself. These four do the work.

• A life interest in the home, with the capital preserved for the children

• A testamentary trust for a beneficiary who should not receive a lump sum

• Binding superannuation nominations, checked against the fund’s rules

• A written record of why the arrangement was made, kept with the will

Talking to the children

Most disputes we see are surprises, not injustices. A short conversation while everyone is alive, or a letter kept with the will, removes most of the heat. We can draft that letter and keep it with the original.

What it costs to leave it alone

A contested estate rarely costs less than forty thousand dollars, and it is paid out of the money the argument is about. The drafting that prevents it is a fixed fee and one extra conversation.