One family in three in the UK now involves children from a previous relationship, and the standard couple’s will was never designed for them. "Everything to my spouse, then to the children" works beautifully when the children belong to both of you. When they do not, the same words carry a flaw big enough to lose an inheritance through, and it happens to careful, loving families precisely because nobody meant any harm.
The problem has a name: sideways disinheritance
Picture the standard arrangement. You leave everything to your second spouse, trusting them to look after your children from your first marriage when their turn comes. Then you die first. Your spouse now owns everything outright, and their will, which they can change at any time, is the only thing directing anything to your children. Years pass. They remarry, or drift from your children, or simply write a new will favouring their own. Nothing they do is illegal. Your children inherit nothing, from an estate you built for them.
It does not require bad faith, only time. Remarriage alone revokes your spouse’s old will automatically. The mirror wills you signed together were two independent documents, and the survivor is free.
The structure that fixes it: a life interest trust
The established answer is to stop leaving everything outright. Instead, your will gives your spouse a life interest: the right to live in the home and receive income from your share of the estate for as long as they live, with the capital itself locked for your own children, who inherit it when your spouse dies. Your spouse is protected for life; your children’s inheritance cannot be redirected by anyone’s later will. How these trusts work in practice is its own subject, but the principle is simple: protect the survivor with use, protect the children with ownership.
For the family home this usually requires owning the property as tenants in common rather than joint tenants, so that your share passes under your will instead of automatically to the survivor. Severing a joint tenancy is a short, standard step done when the wills are made.
The other decisions blended families should make deliberately
- Stepchildren: they do not inherit under intestacy and are not covered by the word "children" in a will unless you include them; if you mean them, name them
- Obligations left behind: maintenance commitments and ex-spouses who have not remarried can found claims under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975; a will that acknowledges reality beats one that pretends
- Pensions and life policies: nominations from a previous life routinely still name an ex; these pass outside the will, so update every one
- Guardians: children from different relationships may need different guardianship arrangements, and the other biological parent usually continues care of their own children
- Explanations: where shares are deliberately unequal, a calm note in a letter of wishes defuses more resentment than any legal clause
Do it while everyone loves each other
The best time to fix sideways disinheritance is now, while both of you can sign the structure into place together. Willful’s blended-family will is one of the ten will types the interview supports: the questions surface exactly these issues, the trust wording is handled for you, and an SRA-regulated solicitor reviews the result before it ever reaches a printer.