I broke the legal company

[the_local_echo]

Our old wills became invalid after our civil partnership ceremony, so we arranged to get some new ones written. Today I got a phone call:

Woman: Hello, I'm from XYZ Solicitors, can I speak to Mrs B or Dr K please?
Me: Dr K here!
Woman: Hello! I'd like to go through your will setup, as I'm very confused! So, the situation is, you two are partners

Comments

[bugshaw]

Could be them trying to identify if there's any way Z or kids would count as financial dependents of you and Sarah, or might be seen as contributors to the household economy, in which case it's good to make this clear in the Will to save them making a claim for support or to strengthen their claim to the money you're leaving them in the event of other close relatives wanting to leap in and demand it because Z's "just a friend". I'm using all the wrong technical words for this, but it's late, eh. Miller Sands asked quite a lot about my nephew and ascertained that the money I give his grandma towards his upkeep makes them financial dependents of me, and the Will was written to bear this in mind.

Edited because it's late and I got the names wrong :-)

[the_local_echo]

It's possible - in which case she wasn't doing a very good job, as she didn't actually ask about the kids in any meaningful way.

I expect if she'd had a thought that one of us might be the other parent of the kids, that would have broken her even more (the obvious way I can think of is through one or more of us being a trans parent, although I think you can get same-sex parents on the birth certificate after adoption/IVF these days, and of course there's miscellaneous dependents like you say)

[gerald_duck]

(Minor point: I assume you intended to discuss details of your wills in a public post?)

[the_local_echo]

Yes, doesn't bother me.

[cmcmck]

Sigh :o(

"First thing we do, let's hang all the lawyers" (William Shakespeare)

[naath]

Nosey bat.

It's perfectly normal to have a Will say "everything to X and if they are dead to these people in these proportions". I can't see how your relationship to any of these people is of any relevance at all!

[millicent_h]

Just to confuse matters further if you did all extinguise on the same bit of rope (God forbid!) then I'd end up the trustee most likely as the legal mother of the kids. Gawd alone knows how complicated it's going to get when I get married in October and the parental responsibilty stuff gets involved! LOL, gotta love the modern world :-)