Couples With No Children
Should couples with no children make a Will?
The directors of Will Drafters
Ltd, David Crossland and Michelle Hanover, are now urging all couples
without children to make a Will. Mary Harris met up with them recently
to find out why.
Mary: “My elder brother and his wife don’t have any children, but
why do they need a Will?”
David: “Jointly owned assets, like a property, automatically goes to
the survivor. However, when a couple are married, if either of them
were individually worth over £200,000 when they died, the surviving
partner would then only get £200,000 plus half of any amount over that.
Everything else would go to the deceased partner’s parents, if alive,
otherwise to his or her brothers and sisters”.
Mary: “With property prices as they are I can see this might cause
a problem where one partner solely owns the property. So, tell us about
unmarried couples without children”.
Michelle: “At present the law does not give equal status to unmarried
couples. If one partner died then everything they own would go to their
parents, if alive, otherwise to their brothers and sisters”.
David: “And you mustn’t forget that even if, say, the wife has children,
if the man has none, even though he may treat his wife’s children as
his own, if he hasn’t legally adopted them, by law he is childless.
Therefore everything he has goes to his parents or brothers and sisters”.
Mary: “That’s very concerning, is there anything else to consider?”
Michelle: “Indeed, there is one further and very important matter that
couples should take in to account and that’s what they would want to
happen if both were to die together, such as in a car accident?”
Will Drafters offer a convenient Wills-by-phone service and have written
over 90,000 Wills since the two directors founded it in 1990.
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