Ally Web Directory: Free Articles » Family » Rewriting Your Will After Divorce

So, the only way to manage to have one’s ‘will’ obeyed is by updating it each time something affects our legal status. This may sound terribly pessimistic but a divorce strikes people with more warning than an accident or a heart attack, so it would be a good idea to prepare for the ‘event’ by changing one’s Will. Online services, such as lifetime-wills.com allow you to change your will as often as you like for free. <br><br>The Consequences Here a valid question might come up: “But I want my ex to still inherit my house – so why go to all the trouble?” The problem is the law may think otherwise, even if there is a Will. These are some of the things that might happen to someone who does not change his or her Will post divorce:

• In case of remarriage, the former spouse Will not get anything mentioned in the Will. It Will now automatically go to the new family. So the ex won’t get the house, nor would any children of the former marriage. A divorce turns all claims by former family members null and void in the eyes of the law, unless there is a fresh Will.
• In case a divorcee does not remarry, but co-habits with a partner, sad but true, everything Will go to the family of the former marriage in absence of a new Will. So the memories of all those beautiful years of living together might be wiped forever by this law, and the husband or wife who was ejected might turn out to be the winner in the end.
• This can get hopelessly muddled in the case of multiple relations and children. If there are children of a former marriage living with a currently co habiting couple who are both divorcees – everyone Will be in for a lot of grief and confusion. And yet, this is a common scenario now, as the trend of co habitation is on the rise (all over the world), though the legalities do not seem to be very clear.
• If there are children born out of wedlock they Will not get anything, even if they have spent a sizeable portion of their life growing up with their now dead parent. Everything Will go to the former family again.
• If the divorced spouse is dead, and the marriage had not yielded any children, then the present live-in partner Will not get anything either. All property would be confiscated by the state. Of course, the present partner and children (if any) can make a claim. But it would be difficult to pursue it.
• If anyone intends to leave property or capital to a charity or any other organisation, no matter how good the intent, it would be useless in the absence of a properly documented Will.

A Case Study This is the case that was recorded in England last year – and it is a perfectly ordinary family to which this happened. A man with two grown sons divorced his wife, married again, but unfortunately died shortly thereafter. He had made a Will a few days before his death, where he leaves all his property to his present partner. The man in question was a legal practitioner himself, and many of his colleagues agreed that the Will was probably a result of the heady euphoria of remarriage, and would have been revised. The sons of the former marriage took the case to court, lost the case completely, and even had to pay the current wife her legal expenditures as the losing party. This is a lesson as to what might happen if one is not composed enough while making a Will. A Will is a very serious thing – even more than the Will maker him or herself might feel.