Guardianship setup?

[Liziz]

How do you have your wills and guardianship set up for your children if both parents die while the child is a minor?

We're getting ready to update ours and a few questions we're pondering...

1. Is the executor of your will the same person to whom you're assigning as guardian of your children?

2. Are you leaving all your assets to your children directly, or having them go into some sort of trust or to the person who will be guardian of your children?

We would want our assets to first cover all needed care for our children (including things like the new guardians potentially needing to move to another house to fit our kids, etc.). Anything left over after they're grown we'd then want given to them at some point in the future.

3. Do you have the guardian of your children control the money/assets directly, or do you have another person do this?
4. At what age would you want the children to get the remaining money?


We are asking one of our siblings to be the guardian of our DDs. However, I'd like to ask a different childless-by-choice, very business saavy and organized sibling to be both the executor of the will and to have some control over the assets that will go to our DDs. This is because 1) I don't think the family dealing with 2 now-childless kids needs to have any more legal mess than necessary and I know being an executor can be a pain and 2) despite knowing they'd love our kids forever and raise them well, DH and I have a very different financial philosophy than the intended guardians. It makes me uncomfortable to think of simply allowing them full control of what would likely be substantial assets. That being said, I also have this feeling of "if I'm trusting them with my kids and expecting them to take them in and raise them, I should trust them fully and allow them to do what they think is best".

I know there's not a single right answer in these circumstances, but I'm just curious what others have done!

[amyx4]

We have a "kid person" who is also good with money but we also thought that adding sad kids to a new household would be enough for the guardians. So, we also have a "money person". The general idea is that the "money person" sends monthly child support to the "kid person."

That's the very short answer.

[AnnieW625]

How do you have your wills and guardianship set up for your children if both parents die while the child is a minor?

We're getting ready to update ours and a few questions we're pondering...

1. Is the executor of your will the same person to whom you're assigning as guardian of your children?

2. Are you leaving all your assets to your children directly, or having them go into some sort of trust or to the person who will be guardian of your children?

We would want our assets to first cover all needed care for our children (including things like the new guardians potentially needing to move to another house to fit our kids, etc.). Anything left over after they're grown we'd then want given to them at some point in the future.

3. Do you have the guardian of your children control the money/assets directly, or do you have another person do this?

4. At what age would you want the children to get the remaining money?

I know there's not a single right answer in these circumstances, but I'm just curious what others have done!

1. The executor of our will is different than the couple who would be the guardian. The guardian couple is very able to handle the task if needed though but when we did ours in 2019 we decided it would be best to keep it separate.

2. Our assets would go into a trust. Our executor would be in charge of selling our home and then dividing the profits in half equally to both children. Our life insurance, and retirement funds (pensions plus 401k/457 plans) are to be split between the two as well.

3. I believe we had it set that the guardian would be given control once the estate is settled, but I could be wrong (I really need to read the will again). Our guardians are a cpa, and an auditor plus they own their own small business. If it isn’t the guardians it is our executor.

4. I believe we did age 25 as to when they would have access to the money to manage on their own. I believe we also stated that we would require that the money be professionally managed even after they have access to the trust.

Good luck and there are so many different types answers but you will eventually sort through it all and make decisions that are right for you.

ETA: our executor is my sister and the guardian are my BiL and his wife. Our nephew is Dd2’s age (13) and our niece is almost 10. We could’ve easily chosen my sister as well, but Dh thought it might be a better fit if we chose his brother as he owns his own home and would have space for our kids in their current home.

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[georgiegirl]

My sister is the guardian person and DH’s brother is co-executor (money person) with my sister I think. BIL didn’t have kids or a wife when we wrote our will. We’d still pick my sister since she and her husband are more stable. But she has one really difficult kid, and practically they couldn’t really raise that kid and my difficult kid. But DD will be 18 in a year, so maybe we can saddle her with her brothers like in Party of 5 .

[erosenst]

Answers in line below of what we did the last time - she no longer has a guardian but we would do similar. (ughhhh - it made everything italics, not just my answers - and i don't have time to re-edit - sorry!)

How do you have your wills and guardianship set up for your children if both parents die while the child is a minor?
We're getting ready to update ours and a few questions we're pondering...

1. Is the executor of your will the same person to whom you're assigning as guardian of your children No. Separated when at one point guardians were an aunt/uncle on one side of the family and executor would have been on other. My brother (executor nominee who declined) rightly pointed out he didn't want to be Uncle X fighting with Aunt Y - which in this case 100% would have happened.

2. Are you leaving all your assets to your children directly, or having them go into some sort of trust or to the person who will be guardian of your children? Definitely a trust. She's financially responsible so far, but we want to insure that continues. I'd have to double check but pretty sure 1/3 at 25, 1/3 at 30, and 1/3 at 35. The terms of our will initially stated that 'reasonable costs of the guardian' would be covered out of the trust. Ditto for educational costs - there was a well-written clause. We also were clear with the executor that we wanted to be more rather than less inclusive of what costs were covered until she reached the age of first payout.

We would want our assets to first cover all needed care for our children (including things like the new guardians potentially needing to move to another house to fit our kids, etc.). Anything left over after they're grown we'd then want given to them at some point in the future.

3. Do you have the guardian of your children control the money/assets directly, or do you have another person do this The executor has those responsibilities.
4. At what age would you want the children to get the remaining money?See above - think 25/30/35.


We are asking one of our siblings to be the guardian of our DDs. However, I'd like to ask a different childless-by-choice, very business saavy and organized sibling to be both the executor of the will and to have some control over the assets that will go to our DDs. This is because 1) I don't think the family dealing with 2 now-childless kids needs to have any more legal mess than necessary and I know being an executor can be a pain and 2) despite knowing they'd love our kids forever and raise them well, DH and I have a very different financial philosophy than the intended guardians. It makes me uncomfortable to think of simply allowing them full control of what would likely be substantial assets. That being said, I also have this feeling of "if I'm trusting them with my kids and expecting them to take them in and raise them, I should trust them fully and allow them to do what they think is best".

I know there's not a single right answer in these circumstances, but I'm just curious what others have done!

Our executor is NOT our favorite relative. But he's a recently retired attorney, and was the executor for my mother-in-law and handled it well. His questions once we named him were on point/appropriate, so we ended up being ok with him doing this. Hoping we live long enough to need to name someone else!

[wendibird22]

Our guardian is SIL. She will also be executed. She will also get all funds to use for care of DDs. She's a very smart, trustworthy, budget conscious woman, and we trust her to serve all of those roles without any hesitation.

We actually need to update our will now that we have DVC deed that we'd need to put into trust if we both pass. Given that and that my oldest is only a few years from being 18, there may be modest changes we'd wish to make to what happens to the money to support her.

[mom2binsd]

Our guardian is SIL. She will also be executed. She will also get all funds to use for care of DDs. She's a very smart, trustworthy, budget conscious woman, and we trust her to serve all of those roles without any hesitation.

We actually need to update our will now that we have DVC deed that we'd need to put into trust if we both pass. Given that and that my oldest is only a few years from being 18, there may be modest changes we'd wish to make to what happens to the money to support her.

I love that you plan to execute your children's guardian

[georgiegirl]

I love that you plan to execute your children's guardian

Can’t stop laughing. It’s definitely a poor choice to execute your child’s guardian…because then you need to find a new guardian. Not sure who would agree to that job after the first one has been executed.


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[DualvansMommy]

Our family and estate attorney actually recommended guardian(s) should be different executors. We did it few years ago when kids were really young.

BIL/SIL will be guardians. Savvy financial cousin will handle the estate and kids needs. Our assets will go into trust.

I’ll have to update and get new will since I’ll be divorcing and kids are bit older. My ex and I will put each other as guardians of kids, he’ll pick his same cousin as executor and I’ll look for someone else to handle my estate, probably a close friend as she is an experienced with estates and deceased people wills.


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[mom2binsd]

Wendibird- I'm still waiting to hear about how you will be executing the guardians????