If you have young children

Two of the concerns that parents with young children have are:

Who will take care of our children if we parents die?
Who would take care of their inheritance until they’re old enough to inherit?

Guardianship

Having a professionally written Will can answer both concerns. Firstly, having a Will allows parents to name people who they absolutely trust to become the legal guardians for their children.

It’s important to understand that no members of the family or friends have any legal right to care for the children. In the absence of a Will appointing guardians, it’s for Social Services to identify who they decide will look after them.

Social Services will make their decisions in the best interests of the children. This could include placing them with foster parents, either temporarily while they make their decision, but those foster parents could be a permanent appointment. Members of the family wanting to take legal responsibility for the children have to apply to and be vetted by Social Services, which can be a protracted and complex process.

Trustees

When parents with young children unexpectedly die, everything they owned usually passes to their children. However, when one thinks about it, the children are almost always too young to inherit. So, who looks after their inheritance until they become adult?

Having a professionally written Will allows the parents to name trusted people, usually family members, who will take care of the children’s inheritance. They can even specify the age when the children should inherit.