‘I trust no one!’ My fiancé wants my share of our home if I die, but I have a disabled adult son. Is this the kind of man I should marry?

December 06, 2021

If you do go ahead with the wedding? Seriously consider a prenuptial agreement. In the absence of such an agreement, your fiancé would have the legal right to take a share of your property on your death, which would leave even less money for your son, says Neil Carbone, a partner at Farrell Fritz, a law firm in New York.

You could create a trust to hold your interest in the house until your fiancé’s death or sale of the house.  “The remainder interest in that trust could then be held in continued trust for her disabled son — most likely a ‘supplemental needs trust’ that would not jeopardize her son’s eligibility for governmental benefits,” Carbone says.

“Additional considerations come into effect when there is a large age gap between the spouses,” he says. “Indeed, in some blended families, the second spouse may be the contemporary of the children from a prior marriage and it doesn’t help to have those children wait until the spouse’s death to inherit something.”

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