Should a parent who is preparing a revokable trust document name the spouse(s) of the children that would 'inherit' property when the parent dies? If only the children of the parent are named, does the spouse of any child have a claim if s/he is not named in the document?
Example: a mother, age 85, has two children, a son 50 and a daughter 60; the son is married, the daughter is divorced. She wants her shildren to share equally in her estate when she passes on. When the mother prepares the revokable trust document, should she specifiy a 50-50 percentage split between the son and the daughter or should she specify 50% for the daughter, and split the remaining 50% between the son and the daughter-in-law? If the daughter-in-law is not named in the document, would she still have a claim against the property at some later date (in divorce proceedings, or when the property is sold, etc.)?

Hello reviewer:

I'm assuming that we're not talking about chump change here. These are complicated legal questions that are well beyong the scope of an internet legal site. You need the services of an attorney.

In addition to the obvious ones, the benefit of hiring your own attorney is, if he's wrong, you can sue him. If I'M wrong (or anyone else here), then you should have known better than to take financial planning advice from an exconvict.

excon

The answer is, it depends on the wording on how the children are listed, or if you include a note of their heirs or name who gets their share if preceded in death.

As excon mentioned, a trust has to be worded exact, or they can be contested in court after your death. ( and god only knows how nasty people get to fight over someone's money)

Hire a great attorney and do it right the first time.

Unless you plan in advance to avoid any such ambiguity, a spouse might try to stake a claim in the event one of your primary beneficiaries (i.e. your children) pre-deceases you, his/her sibling and his/her spouse. If you don't want a surviving spouse to have a claim, provide for an alternative distribution of your assets and specify that if one of your children predeceases you, the surviving sibling then gets 100%. Then designate a secondary beneficiary, such as another family member, should the surviving child also predecease you.