You’ve written your Will and you’ve instructed us at willfinda.co.uk to keep it safe for you, but what about appointing a guardian for your children? If you have children under the age of 18, it’s essential that you include guardians within your Will. This ensures you know who will look after them should you pass away.
It’s not something that people like to consider, but if you are writing your Will anyway, it’s definitely worth including. If you don’t choose a guardian, then the court will pick one for you. This could result in court battles between families, impacting everyone – especially the children – left behind.
You don’t have to pick your closest family member. You don’t even have to pick a family member at all. If your family are not the right people to look after your children, then you can think differently. Either consider extended family or think of good friends for appointing guardian.
Friends can make excellent guardians, particularly if they have known your child all their life. The best way to decide is to consider who would be able to bring your child up comfortably and with your morals, ethics, and rules. Similar styles of parenting can be much more useful to your child than a blood bond. Your children will be going through a difficult time after losing you. Keeping things as similar as possible to how they were is the best idea.
It’s not about who has the most money or the largest house. If this worries you, why not ensure that your children are financially secure? Simply name them as beneficiaries of your life insurance or set up a trust that the guardian can use to take care of them until they are old enough to take over the account themselves.
