Married couples with children understand that they need to make their Wills. Even then many still do not do this.
Sometimes it is the mistaken assumption that even if there is no Will the children will end up inheriting everything anyway. So people think there is no urgent problem.
A lack of understanding of the the real problems is possibly the root cause of a failure to have Wills made.
Two questions
Many people assume that if they were to pass away unexpectedly their spouse will take care of things. However, they fail to take the next step and ask what happens if BOTH parents were to pass away suddenly.
They also fail to ask themselves :
- who will raise my kids if my spouse and I both pass away suddenly?;
- what happens to my kids’ inheritance when they reach 21?
We will deal with the first question in this blog post.
Young children and guardianship
Some times parents may disagree as to who should raise the children if both of them were to pass away. This may result in that not making their Wills altogether.
There is an equally important question that gets forgotten when there is no agreement as to the guardian.
Parents need to ask what will happen with the kids’ inheritance when they reach 21. We will deal with this in the next blog post.
What happens if there is no Will appointing a guardian
Even if parents cannot agree on who should be the children’s guardian they need to think about happens if this question remains unresolved at the time of their passing.
Each spouse’s side of the family will be left with the difficult task of sorting out who should be guardian. Such a discussion between in-laws will not be easy.
What should you do if you cannot agree on a guardian
Even if you disagree on the guardian you should still go ahead and make your Wills as soon as possible. You can do it without naming a guardian for now.
Later, when you have reached agreement on a guardian you can do a codicil (which is a testamentary document that alters your Will partially) to name the guardian.
That way you will at least have made a start towards fixing the problem. Otherwise there could be a lot of unhappiness with each spouse’s family thinking the kids would be better of being raised by their side of the family.
However, the best is for you and your spouse to agree on and name a guardian for your children in your Will.
Don’t forget to visit our site (https://ezwills.com.sg) after reading this post.
8th March 2019