Parents usually want to give their children more opportunities than they had in life. You may have always intended to pass much of what you achieved and earned during your life on to your children when you die.
However, when you remarry, your children’s inheritance could potentially be at risk. If you don’t update your estate plan carefully, everything you want your children to receive could become the property of your spouse.
How can you protect your children’s inheritance?
There are numerous different approaches to protecting the assets you would like your children to inherit when you remarry. One of the more common choices involves the creation of a trust. That way, you can provide for your new spouse while still leaving everything to your children.
For example, you could transfer ownership of your home to a trust. You can then structure the trust in a way that allows your spouse to live there for the rest of their life without passing the property to their children or other people when they die or selling it for money while still alive.
They can use the property but cannot sell it because it belongs to the trust and not to them personally. You could do something similar with financial resources. You may set some aside for your spouse with the instruction that the balance goes to your children when your spouse dies.
If you don’t want to add a trust to your estate plan, then you may need to update your beneficiary designations and last will so that your children inherit the property when you die. Creating estate documents or updating them when your family changes can protect your legacy and the people you love.