New parents get an enormous amount of information. Feeding, sleeping, vaccinations, the red book, a health visitor, several apps and a great deal of unsolicited advice.
What almost nobody mentions is the paperwork that determines what happens to your child if something happens to you. It is a short list, it is not expensive and most parents have not done any of it.
Register the birth, and the surprise about fathers
You have 42 days to register a birth in England and Wales, 21 days in Scotland. That part everyone knows.
What catches people out is parental responsibility. A mother has it automatically. A father has it automatically if he is married to or in a civil partnership with the mother. An unmarried father gets it by being named on the birth certificate, which is why joint registration matters.
Parental responsibility is what lets you consent to medical treatment, deal with schools and make decisions. Without it, an unmarried father can find himself with no legal standing at exactly the wrong moment. If you are unmarried and not on the certificate, a parental responsibility agreement fixes it.
The guardianship question
This is the one that matters most and the one that gets postponed.
If both parents die while a child is under 18 and no guardian has been appointed, the courts decide who raises them. A judge who has never met your family, working from applications, deciding among relatives who may disagree with each other. It can take months and the outcome may be nobody’s first choice.
You appoint a guardian in your will. That is the mechanism. It is the single strongest argument for parents making a will, and it is why “I have nothing worth leaving” misses the point entirely. You are not leaving money, you are naming a person.
Choose carefully and practically. Ask them first, because it is a substantial thing to accept. Think about age, location, whether they could actually take on children and whether their circumstances might change. Name a backup.
Make a will, even a simple one
Around half of UK adults have no will. Among parents of young children it should be closer to none.
Without one, intestacy rules apply. They can produce genuinely unwanted results, particularly for unmarried couples, who inherit nothing from each other under those rules regardless of how long they have been together or how many children they have.
A straightforward will from a solicitor is usually a few hundred pounds. Will Aid in November lets you have one drafted in exchange for a charity donation, which is worth planning around.
Life cover, honestly assessed
Life insurance is at its most valuable when children are small and a mortgage is large, which is precisely when money is tightest. Level term cover for the years until the children are independent is usually the cheapest sensible option, and it is far cheaper in your thirties than it will ever be again.
Two things people get wrong. Check whether your employer provides death-in-service cover and what multiple of salary it is, because it may change how much you need to buy. And consider writing the policy in trust, which usually means it pays out to your family quickly without waiting for probate and generally sits outside the estate for inheritance tax. Most insurers offer this at no cost and a lot of people never tick the box.
Do not forget cover for a parent who is not earning. Replacing the childcare they provide has a real and significant cost.
The small things worth doing
- Check for a Child Trust Fund if your child was born between September 2002 and January 2011. Large numbers are unclaimed and HMRC has a free tracing tool.
- Nominate beneficiaries on your pension. This is done by an expression of wish form with the scheme, not in your will, and out-of-date nominations are extremely common.
- Update the beneficiaries on any death-in-service cover after a marriage, separation or new child.
- Keep the birth certificate, NHS number and any passport somewhere both parents can find.
Where FamilySafe fits
FamilySafe holds all of it in one place: the will and where the original sits, the guardian you named, the life cover and its policy number, the pension nominations and the children’s documents. Shared with the person who would step in, so that if the worst ever happened they would not be starting from nothing.
This is general information, not legal advice. Speak to a solicitor about your own circumstances, particularly for wills and guardianship.
