I am someone who is probably overly fixated on the possibility of both parents dying at once since that happened to me. I was not a minor (I was 24 years old), but I am undoubtedly more focused on that possibility than the average person since it is relevant to my own experience.
I am also an only child and neither dh’s sister nor his parents were someone we felt comfortable naming as a guardian, so it was extra important to us to have our wishes in a legal document. We considered dh’s parents to be too old.
The idea of who is named a guardian is a bit tangential to the OP’s original sentiment of hurt feelings. I have no doubt that had something happened to us, both dh’s parents (who wouldn’t have considered themselves to be too old, even though we did) and his sister would have been incredibly hurt that they had not been named as guardian of our ds. And, there was no explanation as to why that was the case. I don’t think including an explanation would have made anyone feel better about who we chose because said explanation would not have been flattering to sister-in-law.
As an aside the access to/control of our resources for the care of our ds in the event that we died simultaneously was separate from the persons who would become his guardians.
All that to say that I breathed a huge sigh of relief when ds turned 18.
We never made a will when our kids were young because we could never figure out who a good guardian for our kids would be.
I’m glad nothing ever happened. Now our kids are our executors (sequentially, not together) and they all know our wishes. If all five of us were to die at once - would have to be on a trip together - we don’t really care who gets what’s left over. There are no grandkids yet.
We also couldn’t agree on who should raise our kids so we didn’t appoint any guardians when they were under 18. Now both are >30 and shown themselves to be very fiscally and otherwise responsible. We are glad no guardian was needed and are happy they are able to manage their own assets.
We did make one when the kids were small to name an executor and guardian. It cost us $700 which was about 6 months worth of savings for us back then. I can see why many people don’t do it! I know there are free options, but I tried that and got all confused, so we paid up.
Last year, we redid our will because having an executor with advanced Alzheimer’s isn’t a good thing, and the kids are gown. I mostly just wanted that one to be null and void. Again, I tried to go the free route, but got nervous. Fortunately, the attorney down the hall did it for free as long as it was simple. And ours is. Once H & I are both gone, everything is split 50-50 and older S is executor. We don’t have any fancy assets: just a house, life insurance, and meager retirement accounts that seems to be 1/10 of what the average CCer has at the moment. We don’t have any kid spouses or grandkids yet. We didn’t go past the kids, because if all 4 of us are gone, I don’t care what happens to it. Let the courts figure it out.
Once the kids have spouses and grandkids, I could see doing it again.
A good attorney can draft for such contingencies without having to keep redoing it upon birth or marriage. Estate planning is expensive. I’ve been (half jokingly) recommending that my bff quit her stressful corporate law job and go into estate planning.
When my Aunt died many years ago, she had no children. She left her home and all contents (the bulk of her estate) to one niece and divided the rest among her other nieces and nephews. The rest of us thought the niece unduly influenced our aunt and told her a sob story about her failing marriage and plan to move out and live in aunt’s house. She never did, first rented and then sold the house and all the contents. She probably spent somewhat more time with the aunt in her last year than the rest of us, due to distance and, in my case, young kids. The aunt also resented that her sisters didn’t visit as often (neither was really capable of driving that far at that point in their lives). However, for most of her life my mom and her sister were very good to the aunt.
We certainly could have used our share of the house money. It didn’t make me upset with my aunt, only with my cousin.
I don’t have a problem with grandparents leaving some or all of their money to their grandchildren, divided by the number of grandkids. Each grandchild, regardless of who their parents are, is an individual who could use the money for school, kids, homes, etc. I don’t see why the grandkids in the family with 3 kids should get less than the only child grandchild. Of course, if the money is left to the children, not the grandchildren, then the grandchildren in the larger family ultimately will get less.
@kelsmom My uncle also left his money to nieces and nephews, and none to his living sibling (my mom). She (and possibly a sister- or brother-in-law) would have gotten all the money in that case! It did not go through probate and was not contested. Why did the judge void the will?
Wow, so many interesting stories about people do/don’t do their wills. We did ours when kids were tiny. We had a plan at work that made it cost-free… We set it up then to have kids inherit at 30 years old. Now that our kids are almost grown, I think I’d like to revisit the age they’d inherit something. They’ve proven themselves to be responsible so I’d prefer that this point that they manage their own inheritance rather than have my sister and SIL control things (as we originally set things up).
Exactly; there’s no sense in redoing a will (and paying the price) every time there is a major change in the family situation, like a child gets married or grandkids come along. The will can be easily drafted to account for these and many other future possibilities.
Funny story about will wording; we made our will before flying to Europe when older children were 3.5 and 2. the wording named them and ‘any subsequent children of this union’. Our third child was in our will by that phrase until age 23.
We have you beat. We did our wills when our first child was a baby and number two was just a thought for the future. We redid them earlier this year. The youngest is turning 30 this summer.
Hey, as long as it works. Here’s similar language that also accounts for a child not surviving a parent and grandchildren that may not yet exist:
A. If my wife Jane Smith Doe survives me, to my wife outright.
B. If my wife does not survive me, then in equal shares to those of my children Jill Ann Doe, John Smith Doe and any other children which I hereafter may have (hereafter sometimes referred to as “children,” “my children” or “children of mine”) and to any issue of any of my children who shall not survive me, by right of representation.
There are a lot of ways attorneys have of drafting wills/trust docs to include yet to be born children/grand children. So changes simply because there are additional children or grand children shouldn’t be necessary. If your views of what should happen change, that is a different issue though.
Estate plans ideally should be reviewed periodically as laws change, circumstances change (people die, are born, marry, divorce, etc), relationships change, etc. We are due for a revisit of our estate plan in the next year or two.
Taken from real case. Money goes to surviving spouse. Kids not named in will. Surviving spouse marries floozie or hunk in late life. Keeps same type of will. Dies. Floozie/hunk get everything. Kids get zero, zip, nada.
I’m replying to you but really this is for everyone who is redoing their will with adult kids. Things we considered: who is the executor and why; whether/how to provide for their spouses and kids, if any; how to split assets if multiple kids.
We also cleaned up beneficiaries on various things as general housekeeping. I discovered that on one asset ds1 was listed as the only beneficiary after dh. That’s probably because ds2 hadn’t been born when I did that. Yikes! Can you imagine how ds2 would have been hurt even though it was an oversight caused by not updating our paper work more than 20 years ago?
It’s a whole other thing doing a will when the kids are grown.
And I hate to bring it up… but if you haven’t looked at your insurance beneficiaries in a while- go do that. People often sign up on day 1 at work and then forget about it… which causes a world of pain if the hated ex-spouse is listed as the beneficiary… You may be up do date with your will but you have other assets-- easy to forget assets. If your benefits package offered 3X your base salary and you were making 30K you might not have given it much thought. But now that you’re earning 130K-- that’s real money.
I disagree. I’m not talking about the litigation side, just creating the estate plans. None of the attorneys I know that do it find it stressful and it’s very lucrative if you have good referral sources. It’s also a flexible law job.
