Blended families are increasingly common. A second marriage may bring together children from previous relationships, shared children, stepchildren, former spouses, new property, retirement accounts, and financial obligations that did not exist when an earlier estate plan was created.

That can make estate planning more complicated.

For a traditional family, leaving everything to a spouse with the expectation that the children will eventually inherit may seem straightforward. In a blended family, however, that approach can create unintended consequences. Children from a previous relationship could ultimately receive less than expected—or potentially nothing at all—depending on how assets are owned, how beneficiary designations are structured, and what the surviving spouse later chooses to do.

A carefully designed estate plan can help protect a surviving spouse while also preserving an inheritance for children from a prior relationship.

Why Estate Planning Is Different for a Blended Family

Imagine that you have two children from your first marriage and later remarry.

You want your new spouse to be financially secure if you die first, but you also want to make sure your children eventually receive part of your estate.

Simply leaving everything outright to your spouse may not accomplish both goals.

Once property becomes your surviving spouse's property, that spouse generally controls what happens to it. They may change their own estate plan, spend the assets, remarry, add different beneficiaries, or leave remaining property to their own children.

That does not necessarily mean anyone acted improperly. It may simply mean the original estate plan did not account for what could happen after the first spouse died.

Blended-family estate planning is therefore often about balancing two important objectives:

Providing for a surviving spouse and protecting an intended inheritance for children.

What Happens If You Die Without a Will in New Hampshire?

If someone dies without a valid will, New Hampshire's intestacy laws determine how probate assets are distributed.

Those rules specifically take family relationships into account.

For example, when someone dies leaving a surviving spouse and one or more descendants who are not also descendants of the surviving spouse, New Hampshire law generally provides the surviving spouse with the first $100,000 of the intestate estate plus one-half of the remaining balance. The portion not passing to the spouse then passes according to the state's rules governing the decedent's descendants.

The law treats the situation somewhat differently when all of the deceased person's children are also children of the surviving spouse, or when the surviving spouse has children from another relationship.

This is an important reminder that getting married does not necessarily mean your spouse automatically receives your entire estate if you pass away without a will.

It also means relying on New Hampshire's default inheritance law may produce a result very different from what you intended.

Do Stepchildren Automatically Inherit in New Hampshire?

This is one of the most important questions for blended families.

New Hampshire's intestacy statute generally distributes property to a person's "issue." New Hampshire law defines issue, for purposes of inheritance, as the person's lawful lineal descendants.

A stepchild who has not been adopted generally is not a lineal descendant simply because of the stepparent-stepchild relationship.

Adoption can change the analysis. New Hampshire law provides that inheritance rights between an adopted child and the adoptive parents begin when a final adoption decree is issued.

Therefore, if you want a stepchild to inherit from you, it is particularly important to address that intention directly in your estate plan rather than assuming state inheritance law will treat biological children, adopted children, and stepchildren the same way.

Why "I'll Leave Everything to My Spouse" Can Create Problems

Many couples create simple wills leaving everything to one another and then leaving the estate to the children after the second spouse dies.

That plan can work well in some families.

For blended families, however, it deserves closer examination.

Suppose a husband has two children from his first marriage and his new wife has two children from hers. His will leaves everything to his wife because he trusts that she will eventually divide the property among all four children.

After his death, circumstances change.

His wife may live another 20 years. She may need substantial assets for retirement or health care. She might remarry. Her relationship with her stepchildren could change. She could revise her estate plan so that her own children receive the remaining assets.

The husband's children may then receive little or none of the property their father originally intended for them.

A stronger estate plan can address those possibilities before they become problems.

Using a Trust to Protect a Spouse and Children

A trust can provide more control over what happens to assets after death.

Instead of leaving property outright to a surviving spouse, an estate plan may be structured so that certain assets are held in trust for the spouse's benefit.

Depending on the family's goals and the terms of the trust, the surviving spouse might be allowed to receive income, use certain trust property, live in the family home, or access funds for specified purposes.

After the surviving spouse dies, the remaining trust property can then pass to the beneficiaries selected by the person who originally created the trust.

For someone with children from a previous marriage, that structure can potentially accomplish two goals at once: caring for the surviving spouse while preserving the remainder of designated property for the children.

Russman & Phinney Law already helps clients use revocable trusts and other estate planning strategies to establish more specific instructions for how and when beneficiaries receive property.

The appropriate trust structure depends on the family's assets, goals, ages, relationships, and other circumstances, which is why blended-family planning should be individualized.

Don't Forget Beneficiary Designations

A will or trust is only part of an estate plan.

Retirement accounts, life insurance policies, payable-on-death accounts, transfer-on-death accounts, and certain other assets may have their own beneficiary designations.

These designations deserve particular attention after divorce and remarriage.

New Hampshire law recognizes beneficiary designations for assets including insurance policies, annuities, payable-on-death accounts, securities, retirement plans, and other non-probate transfers at death.

That means the overall plan should consider more than the language contained in a will.

For example, someone might create a new will leaving property to a new spouse and children while an old retirement account or life insurance policy still names a former spouse or another beneficiary.

Blended-family estate planning should therefore include a coordinated review of the estate-planning documents, account ownership, and beneficiary designations.

What Should Happen to the Family Home?

The home can present one of the most difficult estate-planning decisions in a second marriage.

You may want your spouse to continue living in the house after your death while ultimately leaving the property's value to your children.

Leaving the house outright to the surviving spouse gives that spouse control over the property. Leaving it immediately to the children, on the other hand, may put the surviving spouse's housing at risk.

A properly structured estate plan may be able to establish more specific instructions.

For example, depending upon the circumstances, a trust could potentially allow a surviving spouse to use or live in the property while establishing what happens to the property later.

The plan should also address practical questions such as taxes, insurance, repairs, mortgage payments, maintenance expenses, and when the property may or must be sold.

Resolving those questions in advance can reduce the possibility of conflict between a surviving spouse and children from a prior relationship.

Choosing an Executor or Trustee in a Blended Family

Who manages the estate can be almost as important as who inherits it.

Naming your spouse as executor or trustee may make perfect sense in some families. In others, asking a spouse to manage assets for stepchildren—or asking an adult child to manage assets intended to benefit a stepparent—could create unnecessary tension.

Consider whether the person you select can make financial decisions impartially, communicate effectively with all beneficiaries, follow the estate-planning documents, and manage potential disagreements.

Some families may decide that an independent or neutral fiduciary is more appropriate.

There is no universally correct choice. The important point is to consider family dynamics when selecting the people who will carry out the plan.

Estate Planning After Divorce and Remarriage

Remarriage is an excellent time to review an estate plan from beginning to end.

Documents and accounts created during an earlier marriage may no longer reflect current wishes. Russman & Phinney Law's existing estate-planning guidance also identifies divorce, remarriage, and other major family changes as circumstances that should prompt an estate-plan review.

A review should consider:

• Wills and trusts
• Retirement-account beneficiaries
• Life-insurance beneficiaries
• Powers of attorney
• Health care documents
• Jointly owned property
• Bank and investment accounts
• Real estate
• Guardianship provisions for minor children
• Executors and trustees
• Prior obligations arising from divorce agreements
• Prenuptial or postnuptial agreements

The goal is not simply to update names. It is to make sure all of the different pieces of the plan work together.

Prenuptial and Postnuptial Agreements May Also Matter

Estate planning and family law frequently overlap in second marriages.

A prenuptial or postnuptial agreement may address financial expectations between spouses, ownership of separate and marital property, and rights that could become important upon divorce or death.

Estate-planning documents can then be prepared with those agreements and goals in mind.

This is another reason blended families can benefit from coordinated planning rather than treating a will, trust, beneficiary form, and marital agreement as unrelated documents.

What If Your Family Has Connections to Massachusetts and New Hampshire?

For families living or owning property on both sides of the New Hampshire-Massachusetts border, planning can become even more important.

Massachusetts also has intestacy rules that specifically recognize blended-family situations.

Under current Massachusetts law, if a person dies without a will and has one or more descendants who are not also descendants of the surviving spouse, the spouse generally receives the first $100,000 plus one-half of the balance of the intestate estate. The same formula generally applies when all of the deceased person's descendants are shared with the spouse but the surviving spouse has another descendant from a different relationship.

Massachusetts law is particularly clear regarding stepchildren. Its Probate Code definition of “child” specifically excludes someone who is only a stepchild.

As in New Hampshire, adopted children are treated differently. Massachusetts law generally recognizes an adopted individual as the child of the adoptive parent for purposes of intestate succession.

Families with a Massachusetts home, New Hampshire residence, property in both states, or family members across the border should make sure their estate plan reflects the laws and assets involved rather than assuming one state's rules will apply to everything.

A Blended Family Estate Plan Should Reflect Your Actual Family

Estate planning software and basic wills tend to assume simple family relationships.

Real families are often more complicated.

You may want to provide differently for biological children, adopted children, and stepchildren. You may want your spouse to use certain property during life without having complete control over where it eventually goes. You may want children from two marriages to inherit equally—or you may have reasons for treating them differently.

Those decisions are personal.

The purpose of an estate plan is to put those decisions into a structure that clearly communicates your wishes and is designed to carry them out.

Frequently Asked Questions About Blended-Family Estate Planning

Can my children from a previous marriage inherit if I remarry?

Yes. Remarriage does not prevent you from creating an estate plan that benefits children from a previous relationship. However, New Hampshire's inheritance rules give a surviving spouse certain rights when someone dies without a will, making intentional planning particularly important for blended families.

Will my stepchildren inherit automatically?

Generally, you should not assume so. In New Hampshire, intestate inheritance through descendants is based on lineal family relationships, while adopted children acquire inheritance rights through their adoptive parents. Massachusetts law expressly excludes someone who is only a stepchild from its Probate Code definition of “child.”

Can I provide for my spouse but still make sure my children inherit?

Potentially. Trust planning can sometimes be used to provide benefits to a surviving spouse during the spouse's lifetime while directing remaining assets to children or other beneficiaries afterward. The appropriate structure depends on the family's circumstances.

Should I update my estate plan when I remarry?

Yes, remarriage is an important reason to review an existing estate plan. Wills, trusts, powers of attorney, beneficiary designations, property ownership, and other documents may need to be coordinated with the new marriage.

What happens if my will and beneficiary designations say different things?

Assets with beneficiary designations require separate attention because they may be governed by the applicable account, policy, or beneficiary designation rather than simply by instructions contained in a will. Both New Hampshire and Massachusetts law recognize beneficiary-designation arrangements for retirement accounts, insurance and other non-probate transfers.

Create an Estate Plan That Works for Your Family

Blended families often have estate-planning goals that cannot be addressed well with a one-size-fits-all approach.

A thoughtful plan can help provide financial security for a surviving spouse, protect an inheritance for children, address stepchildren intentionally, coordinate beneficiary designations, and reduce the potential for misunderstandings or disputes later.

Russman & Phinney Law helps individuals and families in New Hampshire and Massachusetts evaluate their estate-planning needs and create wills, trusts, powers of attorney, health care documents, and related plans designed around their circumstances.

If your family has changed because of divorce, remarriage, children from a prior relationship, or another major life event, now may be a good time to review whether your estate plan still accomplishes what you intend.

Contact us to schedule a consultation. 603-772-3433