Inheritance Rights of a Spouse?

Hello,

What are inheritance rights of a surviving spouse in the UK?

Many Thanks

Amal.

Dear Amal,

I left school in the year the compact disc was launched. There was, there is much merit to buying music in physical form: to our purpose here, you could easily read the track listing. In the long ago, before the Relief of Mafeking, I bought an album in which a tune titled Life is a Samba was followed by song called The World is a Ghetto. That album cover always brings the thought ‘life is what you make of it’ to my breast. Those who know of these things assure me the sequence of music tracks on an album in an art, and my experience on reading the album cover was the intention of the record designer.

In short, the situation of your question is what you make of it.

Inheritance rights of a surviving spouse are what you make them.

Inheritance Rights of a Surviving Spouse – How do You Want Them?

In the first inheritance rights exist, but they are for folk who’ve failed the use their natural opportunities to mould their circumstances to their design. Therefore, the inheritance rights of surviving spouses are what we make of them. The first question is, if you survived your spouse, how would you expect your estates to be distributed?

Inheritance matters in a blended family are complicated by the fact of two families coming together. This means at least two sets of children and as you are settling into middle age, you might have built some assets of your own, including pensions, and you might be expecting inheritances from your own relatives distinct from your new spouses.

Inheritance Rights of a Surviving Spouse – Intestacy

The only rights in this enterprise relate to intestacy. Intestacy is what happens when someone dies without a will. Intestacy is ugly. Intestacy is a product of irresponsibility yoked with immaturity. Intestacy is expensive.

The rules of intestacy prescribe that a surviving spouse keep the first ￡270,000 of the deceased’s estate. [Like all things, this sum is subject to change]. The spouse gets the deceased’s personal property. Beyond the first ￡270,000, the spouse keeps half, and the deceased’s children divide the other half equally among themselves. These rules are for those who pay no heed to their family’s future happiness, they are for folk who don’t care about their family’s future social and financial status.

Inheritance Rights of a Surviving Spouse – Make Your Own

We’ll return to an earlier question: on your spouse’s death, how would you want your estates distributed? Starting with a blank sheet of paper, make a list of all your assets (with their values), including but not limited to:

·???????? Land and buildings

·???????? Cash – including savings and investments

·???????? Personal property – cars, jewellery etc

·???????? Life insurance policies

·???????? Pension savings

·???????? Overseas property

·???????? Assets held in trust on your behalf

Be certain on who owns what, what items if any are owned jointly (and in what proportions).

List all potential beneficiaries. Finally, list all the people you would actually want to benefit from the estates. Consider who would get what if you died first. Further, consider who got what if your spouse died first.

Inheritance Rights of a Surviving Spouse – Talk is Cheap

The cheapest, clearest and most effective path to securing the inheritance rights of a surviving spouse is to talk to your spouse and the other people involved. Talk to the children. Talk to which other beneficiaries there might be. Tell them your plans, your intentions and your ambitions. They say talk is cheap.

You are thus free to construct the plan of how your estates would be divvied up. You and your other half would say something akin to ‘what’s mine’s mine, and what’s yours is yours’. You may further talk about how the surviving spouse might need certain assets, so those would not be distributed till the second death. Conversely, between you, you might be of sufficiently good fortune to have assets which the survivor might not need. You might even be so blessed as to have assets that you could give away now. Now you’re talking of estate planning.

Often, the phrase ‘talk is cheap’ bears a negative connotation: here, talk is good.

Inheritance Rights of a Surviving Spouse – Estate Planning

You, your spouse, and the rest of your blended family have it in your power to design your make you own inheritance rights. You have it in your power to plan your estate. Estate planning is not merely writing a will. Estate planning is arranging your assets such that the people you intend and no one else enjoys the benefits of your estate. The enjoyment includes both in your lifetime and long after your death. The effect of estate planning would be to keep your money, the fruit of your life’s work in your family till the end of time. Estate planning would keep your money, be it grand or modest in your family till the end of time.

Inheritance Rights of a Surviving Spouse – Bring Your Own Referee

As we’ve seen inheritance rights, when it comes down to it, is a question of who gets what. Estate planning is a matter of who gets what when.

There is value to talking to your family about your intentions and your ambitions for your estate – after all, you, better than anyone else is expert in these matters. But, sanding down the coarse points you may meet, resolving knotty points you’ll chance upon are the task of an expert

Arranging matters so you family pays as little inheritance tax as the law allows, often this could be zero and organising your affairs so you slay the beast of capital gains tax are the work of an estate planner.

An experienced estate planner would help you keep your money in your family till long after the rocks of Gibraltar have crumbled, and the fires of the Sun have burnt themselves out.

You’ve an expert estate planner at your disposal, simply click here to book your free discovery call to see about creating inheritance the inheritance rights you want and your family deserve. Remember, your inheritance rights, like life, are what you make them.