Your children may be the main beneficiaries of your Will, but what are the pros and cons of dividing your state? It is becoming more common for people to divide their estate amongst their children with equity rather than simply splitting the estate equally. If you are thinking about how you are going to divide your estate but aren’t sure what is best for your family, here is a look at the pros and cons of equity.
The Pros
Dividing your estate with equity can help you provide for children with different needs, especially those who may become ill with a long-term illness, get hurt in an accident, or have a debilitating disability. Dividing your estate with equity can ensure that those with greater long-term needs are provided for in a trust.
If you have children that have not had equal levels of financial support during your lifetime, you might want to balance the scales through your Will. For example, you may have given one child £20,000 to help pay for their wedding, another child £5,000 to help them buy a new car and your third child £50,000 to help them buy a house. If you left behind an estate of £300,000, rather than dividing the estate equally and giving each child £100,000, you may want to split it, so that child one gets £120,000, another gets £105,000, and the final child gets £75,000. When you take the money that each child has been given and add it to their total of the inheritance, you get the same figure, so no one has been given any more than the other.
You can help your children who need more. If you have two children, one who is a police officer and another who is a senior executive at a pharmaceutical company, the child who works for the pharmaceutical company is unlikely to need the same level of financial support as the police officer.
The Cons
Splitting an estate with equity can cause some feelings of resentment amongst some children, especially if they feel that one child has always been and is still being unfairly favoured by the Will.
If you are writing your Will to provide for children under the age of 18, you may find that dividing your estate with equity is not really appropriate. As long as the children have no disabilities or illnesses that you need to provide for, you may find that dividing your estate equally between children and placing the assets in a trust until they turn 18 is much better.
Bear in mind that whatever you decide to do with your assets, you should always show your Will to your family and explain your decisions to them so that no one feels slighted or that they have been overlooked in your decision-making process. Be sure to also mentioned that as significant life changes occur, the Will is going to be updated to reflect them.
Need help with dividing your state? Want to put your affairs in order and get your Will written? Call our Will writing experts today to see how we can help you.
