I’m soon to get divorced and we’ll need to arrange wills to leave money to the 9 and 6 year old kids.

Would be a quite a lot of money involved (house + life insurance payout). Hoping to minimise fees since I’m a little short of cash at the moment. Separation is amicable and I can trust my ex with the money if necessary.

Can anyone give me a start on how I should be looking to set this up please?

We have a company we refer clients to that seem pretty good, they do a full will for £89/person and the process is straightforward.

PM if you want the details.

Separation is amicable and I can trust my ex with the money if necessary.

Can anyone give me a start on how I should be looking to set this up please

Whilst it’s amicable and trust is there, when new partners are involved it’s not always as rosey as it may have been. Wills can be very simple, they can also be complex involving deeds of trust (i have these), but they still do not fully protect money and assets.

I’m with a company called the “WSL Will writing”. Our joint wills cost ~£1500, but they are done with experts and allow infintie changes and them holding the wills and carrying out probabte services. If you go cheap, you will not protect what you want!

If you’re divorced and they are your only next of kin they get it automatically. I recently set up my will* with this in mind and the will fella said I didn’t actually need one for this to happen.
You could use a very basic will to set percentages and the age they receive the money.

There is a free will service, search online – it only is available certain times of the year IIRC

*£13 via my work

I think I’m more concerned with what actually happens to the money as much as getting the will written. Do I need to create a trust? If so do I do that now or is it done by the executor when I’m dead?

Just to add – i’d urge you to stress the legal aspects of what you write and the possible outcomes – it’s a bit like a game of chess, but it will help you in the long run – think about family memebers, the relationships with them, and their relationships, who holds the deeds of trust and to what ages, what if you were all wiped out, where does that money then go to, do you really want that – try to think a few steps down the line.

Worth a look – https://www.freewills.co.uk/

Like sl2000, my divorce was amicable and remains that way years down the line. It does work for some people.
Yes, you do have to set up the trust. A will writing company can do it for you (probably not that free one 😉 )
https://www.gov.uk/topic/personal-tax/trusts

Thanks all, especially @dezb – very helpful.

This reminds me to sort out the will. Although me and MrAdamW are civil partners (so if one should kick the bucket the other would get everything) I read about something which made me a little worried the other month.

Assume you and your partner are in a car/plane/kinky fetish dungeon and something happens and you both die at the same time – car crash, plane crash, allergy to rubber etc. For legal purposes the *oldest* person is considered to have died first. Since MrAdamW is older than me by 7 months legally he would have died ‘first’ and his estate would flow to me which would then become part of my estate, which if uncontested would flow to my siblings and their kids.

I don’t like this, so need to make sure my will is sorted to give monies to wherever I want and not my nephews to pee up the wall.

Assume you and your partner….both die at the same time

This was the hasrdest part of writing our wills, making provision for the custody care of the children in a “parental wipeout scenario” and allocating who gets what if the whole family were to be wiped out at the same time.

Ah the King Ralph clause.