How can I prevent my children from having to take on my mortgage?

Life insurance and a revocable trust to avoid probate. Probate is a process to distribute your property if you do not have a trust.

There are several types of insurances offered to protect against this.

You can get mortgage insurance. Or, maybe what would be better is if you bought a term life insurance policy (Make sure it's a term insurance policy, don't let them sell you a whole life policy). Make the face amount equal to the current mortgage and make it for as long as you owe on the mortgage. So, for instance, if you owe 200,000. And you will be paying for another 20 years. You can make it a 200,000 policy for a 20 year term. Now, this is a little trickier than it sounds. You can either make the kids joint beneficiaries so they can use it as they see fit, and if that means to pay the mortgage, that's fine. BUT, if one kid says he just wants the 100,000, the other kid won't have enough to pay the mortgage. BUT, that may be fine. They can then sell the house, and still have 100,000 each to make sure they're taken care of, have money for school, whatever. And if they chose to pay the mortgage, that's fine. The other thing you can do is to do a will (which you should have anyway), and set up a trust that is only used to take the insurance money and pay the mortgage, and if there is anything left after the mortgage is paid, the kids split it. For instance, say you've got that 200,000 insurance policy and when you pass away, you only owe 150,000. The 200,000 goes to the trust, the trustee pays the mortgage, and the rest of the 50,000 is paid to the kids. They also have the home free and clear. It sounds to me like you need a simple estate plan, including a will with a minor trust. We do these simple plans for single persons for a flat fee of $500.