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How to protect your children in a second marriage

On Behalf of | Feb 15, 2019 | Estate Planning |

Are you headed for a second marriage? Are you already married for a second time? Do you have children from your first marriage? These are all important questions you will need to answer when putting together your estate plan or modifying your current plan. If you answered yes to these questions, there could be some considerations you missed that will help protect your children.

If you’ve remarried, you likely have joint accounts with your new spouse to pay the mortgage and the utility bills. However, if you are entangled with a former spouse, having these joint accounts could be an issue. It might be better for you and your current spouse to keep your money in separate accounts, especially since you could be on the hook for old debt.

You need to think about what will happen to your assets after death. If your spouse marries again, your assets could wind up commingled, unless you create a trust that can protect your children from the first marriage.

What about the family home? Does your second spouse get to remain in the home after your death? You can put the home in a trust to protect the spouse from having to sell it and move out. You can put stipulations in the trust as to how long the surviving spouse can remain in the home with the children.

Making sure that your children from a first marriage are protected when you enter into a second marriage should be a priority when updating your estate plan. Take the considerations mentioned above into account so that there are no issues for your children when you die.

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