Special provisions in the will of a divorced parent What special issues or topics might a divorced, custodial parent of a six year-old consider in writing a will? What issues or topics might become more important as the child gets older.
The Will Itself The two main points that are exceptional in this case would be: (1) to name a legal guardian for the child, and (2) possibly, depending upon the size of your estate, to name a conservator for the child (like a guardian but for a child's property), or a custodian of property inherited by the child (basically a trustee of a small, simplified trust) or a trustee of a protective trust for the benefit of the child. You might want to name a &quot;trust protector&quot; of the protective trust as well as a trustee, so that there is a designated person to supervise the trustee's conduct during the child's minority who isn't your ex-spouse. A protective trust will have provisions related to age and conditions and purposes of distributions. For example, it might say distributions according to need for health, education, maintenance and support until age 25, then distribute a third outright, then distribute half of what's left at age 35 outright then distribute the balance at age 45, and it might specify &quot;safe harbor&quot; acceptable purposes like higher education, apprenticeships, weddings, and investing in businesses with a reasonable prospect of success. You should also probably provide for any family pets. Many lawyers have standard clauses for that. You may want to identify specific items of tangible personal property that should be reserved for the child's future use at your death (e.g. an heirloom wedding dress), even though it won't be immediately useful. The guardian wouldn't supersede the parental rights of the other parent, but would have priority together with anyone named by your ex, to serve as guardian if your ex is incapacitated as well. There really isn't too much else that you can do in a will as there is a deliberate desire to prevent dead hand control of a child. Non-Legal Economic Options You should consider buying life insurance and making a trust for the benefit of the child the beneficiary of it to fund a trust for the child if you die. Talk to a financial planner or life insurance agent about it. Non-Legal Sentimental Options Of course, there are classic non-legal steps such as writing birthday letters or recording birthday audio/video tapes for the child, if you know that death is imminent and finding someone who will take responsibility for doling them out. Another thing that is sometimes done is to find a trustworthy person to entrust with secrets (e.g. your legal father isn't your biological father). One way to handle such matters is to have a safe deposit box with this kind of stuff in it and to entrust to trustee to deliver these items at appropriate times.
Conditions in a will are.. complicated. As a rule of thumb you can impose conditions but that doesn't mean they are always going to be upheld. Some will be ruled void where they are considered &quot;against public policy&quot; - where it's against the public interest to consider the condition valid. e.g: encouraging someone to commit a crime; inducing the future separation of a married couple; unreasonable restrictions on marriage; depriving a parent of control over their children; requiring a child to change their religion. That sort of thing. Another way is if the condition is &quot;impossible&quot; (or so improbable/impractical as would make no real difference) e.g. you can't say &quot;they have to leap the grand canyon on a skateboard&quot; or &quot;must visit mars and bring back ice cream first&quot; that sort of thing. Alternatively if the condition is too vague or uncertain e.g. &quot;the beneficiary will inherit when they are ‘suitably’ married&quot; or impractical to enforce e.g. &quot;no one with the surname Booth may enter the property on a Wednesday&quot;. I'm not sure those are going to apply here - the condition sounds specific and not particularly difficult to achieve or to measure compliance. That doesn't mean it's going to stick though - you can challenge the condition in court and they might chose to void the condition. Since the condition sounds like what's called a &quot;condition subsequent&quot; (i.e. it comes into effect after receiving the &quot;gift&quot;) the court can use discretion to have the gift still take place if the condition is voided. How about if they were not allowed to sell it for 20 years, or 100? The 100 years variant could fail under &quot;impossible&quot; - since it would take the time period the beneficiary was required to comply with the condition past the point they could reasonably be expected to comply with it (since people typically live that long), similarly with the 20 years (or even the 10) if it was going past the remaining expected lifespan of the recipient. Basically it boils down to &quot;challenge it in court and see what they say&quot; - but as ever consult an experienced solicitor before doing anything along those lines. Having a condition declared void doesn't always translate as &quot;you get it free and clear&quot; - in some circumstances it means the gift becomes part of the Residuary Estate instead.
No state prohibits the executor of a will from being the sole beneficiary. There are generally rules in the various states that the executor must be over 18 and not judged incompetent; there may be rules against felons or non-residents being executors. A person could be excluded as executor in some states (e.g. Texas) if there is a conflict of interest, but being sole beneficiary is not a conflict of interest.
Late to the party, but I'll answer anyways. In general, providers have a lot of wiggle room when sharing information with parents, on condition that the patient hasn't explicitly objected despite having opportunity to do so. HIPAA allows the provider to make a judgment call on whether such information can be shared without explicit consent: Quoting Title 45 § 164.510 : (i) Obtains the individual's agreement; (ii) Provides the individual with the opportunity to object to the disclosure, and the individual does not express an objection; or (iii) Reasonably infers from the circumstances, based the exercise of professional judgment, that the individual does not object to the disclosure. HHS does discuss disclosure to family members in their FAQ : A covered entity is permitted to share information with a family member or other person involved in an individual’s care or payment for care as long as the individual does not object. A parent of a child who has just turned 18 is likely still somewhat involved in the child's care, so, absent either an objection or a reason to believe the child would object if asked, sharing is probably not a violation.
The child C cannot receive anything as a "gesture despite the Will" if everything in the Will is left to B; unless B agrees to a Deed of Variation the Executor is legally bound to follow the instructions in the Will. C may have a claim if he is dependent on A at the time of A's death and A has failed to make provision. It is possible that A's sibling S might also have a claim if dependent. Although you have tagged the question as United Kingdom, inheritance and intestacy law differs widely between England and Scotland. Such a Will should be drafted by a specialist trust and executry planning solicitor to avoid the risk of contentious probate.
Yes that seems to be the case. The section after the one you quoted, 551:11 Share of Unnamed Child says: If the property not devised nor bequeathed shall be insufficient to satisfy the just share of such child, after allowing advancements received by him, the same shall be made up in just proportion from the property devised or bequeathed to others. The page &quot;Can I Disinherit My Child?&quot; from a law firm blog, says: New Hampshire has a strong policy of protecting “pretermitted heirs,” which are heirs that were not mentioned in a Will. N.H. R.S.A 551:10 states that [e]very child born after the decease of the testator, and every child or issue of a child of the deceased not named or referred to in his will, and who is not a devisee or legatee, shall be entitled to the same portion of the estate, real and personal, as he would be if the deceased were intestate. Simply put, you do not name or refer to your child in the Will, then he can claim an inheritance as if you died without a Will. Historically and currently, the rationale is that if you did not mention him anywhere in your Will, you most likely forgot about him, because it is human nature to forget things. However that same blog page also says: There are various ways to disinherit a child. The most often used method is to specifically name or refer to the child, or a class, such as “my children” or “my son, Alex, and his issue,” that you intend to disinherit, and you must then state that you intend to disinherit that child. Another way to disinherit a child is to state that you give that particular child one (1) dollar, or a small sum of money. So it would seem that if one chose to include language such as: I leave to any other children I might have, and to their issue, if any, the sum of $10, jointly. then such possible surprises are covered. This would be after mentioning specifically any children one wanted to leave larger amounts to.
tl;dr: Statutory preambles are typically non-binding, and some states have laws to this effect (e.g. Florida, Illinois, Iowa, etc.). The most consistent interpretation I've found is that when the body text isn't clear, the preamble might be helpful in determining context and legislative intent. For example, in Shea v. Clinton, 850 F. Supp. 2d 153 (D.C. 2012), the district court said that where statutory text is ambiguous, courts may look to the preamble and legislative history for clarification. This extends beyond the realm of statutes. In Catalina Marketing v. Coolsavings.com, Inc., 289 F.3d 801 (Fed. Cir. 2002), the court found that considering limitations in the preamble of a patent should be context-specific.
This will depend on the exact wording of the will. If the will is well-drawn, it will provide alternative recipients in case the primary recipient of a bequest dies before the testator (will-maker) does. But as a general rule, if A makes a will leaving particular property to B, but B dies before A does, that bequest is void. If the will specifies an alternate recipient, the property goes to the alternate. If not, or if all specified alternates die before the testator does, the property becomes part of the residual estate of the testator. (The residual estate is that part which is not subject to a specific bequest.) The testator can specify a line of descent for a bequest: "I leave my house to Joan and her heirs". In that case, if Joan died before the testator, the house would go to whatever person or persons inherit from Joan. This was once a somewhat common form of bequest, but now is much less common. A will normally includes language leaving the residual estate to some person (or several people) or some entity (it can be an organization, such as a church or a charity). This is often done with language such as "I leave all the rest of my estate to ..." OR "Everything not include above i leave to..." or "I give all the remainder and residue of my estate to...". The executor does not choose, but rather follows the directions of the will on who gets the residue of the estate. I am not sure what happens if the will does not name a residuary legatee, or if the person so named dies before the testator. That will depend on the specific law of the jurisdiction. In the US, this means state law, and will vary from state to state. The comment by Dale M says that assets not provided for in the will are inherited as if the person was intestate, that is, as if the person had no valid will. The law in each jurisdiction specifies exactly what rules are followed in the case of intestacy. In general this is that property goes first to the teatator's spouse and children, but if there are no living spouse and children, to more distant relatives. Eventually, if no relatives close enough can be found, property escheats, that is, goes to the government. The exact rule varies by jurisdiction -- in the US by state.