Can My Husband Disinherit His Kids From His Previous Marriage?

Q: I have been married for 16 years. My husband and I have four kids. He also has two older children from a prior marriage. We want to leave what we have for our own four children. How can we protect our life insurance, homes and other accounts just for our four children? We don't want the kids outside our marriage to benefit from our assets if anything happens to us. – DV, New York

 

A: If your husband really wants to disinherit his two older children, he can do it by leaving them out of his will, naming other beneficiaries on his life insurance and retirement accounts, and making you the joint owner of your houses and other financial accounts.

There's nothing illegal about this. No law requires parents to leave anything to their kids.

But you'd be wise to discourage him from following through on this plan.  

There's much more than money at stake. To disinherit a child is to deliver an irrevocable emotional blow.

And your stepchildren won’t be the only victims. Your own four children will eventually witness the pain their father has caused. Are they likely to think better of him for leaving nothing to their half-siblings?

A more generous alternative would be for him to leave them a small legacy and a loving letter expressing his hope that they will understand that it couldn’t be larger because he had to provide for a surviving spouse and four younger children.