Advice/Opinion on divorce and future will situation

peannoir

Hola.

Just wondering if any of you folks might be able to share some of your knowledge and experience in a potential legal matter.

The scenario is this. A couple has recently separated although I am not sure if anything more formal has been carried out. It is as most of these things are still in the 'very tricky' stages and overall is a very complicated situation and would likely become even more so.

If the situation were to move on in the future and divorce proceedings began, during the division of assests, would either party be entitled to know about future inheritances? What I mean by this is if one party was a beneficiary in a will (parents) but at the time of the divorce proceedings and division of assets, the will was not yet active, i.e the person or persons who made the will had not passed away, would these future 'assets' have to be included in any divorce? There are children, but all are young adults.

Does this make sense?

Thanks in advance.

Peregrinus

In general in a family breakdown the totality of both parties' financial and property situation is considered. This includes any benefit or advantage they have or expect to have from family money.

However, barring exceptional cases where one spouse comes from a very wealthy family, this tends to be a very minor factor in the overall picture. Expectations of future inheritances in particular are largely discounted, because there is really no way of knowing when the inheritance will materialise, or even whether it will materialise. Sure, your parents in law may be wealthy now, but one or both of them may live for another thirty years and by then they may not be, or they may have fallen out with your current spouse, or a dozen other things might happen that mean your spouse does not inherit very much. The expectation of inheriting an uncertain amount at an uncertain date is hard to value, but it generally isn't valued at very much.

3DataModem

As above.

However note two things
1. Wills can be changed.
2. No beneficiary has an entitlement to see a will before it is probated (and after its probated, anyone can see it).

peannoir

Thank you to both Peregrinus and 3Data for your most informative responses. Apologies for delay in acknowledging.