Remarriage Disinherits Family.
Remarriage after widowhood. No one really wants the widow or widower to be alone for the rest of their lives. The problems arise typically where the widow inherits everything. That sometimes that includes the children of a previous relationship, not technically related at all.
A few years later, she or he enters a new relationship and makes new Wills leaving everything to the new spouse or partner as he needs it. The expectation is that the now grown-up children of the first relationship will be “looked after” by the second partner. But the partner has his own problems and needs every penny he has inherited to look after the “new” children or can’t see why the “old” children need anything. However much he wishes to be fair, there may be nothing spare to give to the “old” children. Things being what they are, two years later he is remarried to a widow with two children of her own and the chances of the very first set of children ever inheriting anything are rapidly reducing to nothing. (Unless you have set up The Family Bank of course.)
Remarriage – the “old” family lose out, big time.
No one has tried to be unfair, but life has conspired to make certain that the “old” children lose out completely, their inheritance effectively mostly in the hands of unrelated strangers, and nothing anyone can do about it this late in the day. Unless…..
Remarriage New Relationships and Fairness.
If in the early days a Family Bank had been put in place, this would have meant that all the flexibility needed by the widow/er could have been available. She would not have been disadvantaged, but eventually, the wealth created in the first relationship would find its’ way back to the “old” children. If the “old” children didn’t need the money by then because they were already well off, then the trustees could pass the money on to their children or even grandchildren, skipping generations and potentially saving substantial amounts of Inheritance Tax in the process.
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