Wills & Probate
© InHouse Wills
Home Protection Trust
The family home is often your major asset, which you hope to pass on to the family. Yet we all know of stories of how it could all disappear before your family can inherit it - perhaps lost to some unscrupulous person preying on us in our vulnerable old age, or given to the surviving spouse’s new younger partner, or eaten up by expenses such as care fees. For care fees the recent Dilnot report suggest contributions at a ‘mere’ £35,000 - but even if that is accepted it will be many years before that limit comes into effect. Whatever is left to pass on to your family, it can still be hit by other attacks upon family money such a child’s divorce. However, there are ways you can protect some (or indeed nearly all) of the family’s inheritance - without falling foul of the rules.
Property Trust Will
Anyone (whether married or not) can use their Will to leave assets in ‘Trust’. For example, rather than simply leaving your share of the house to a spouse/partner it could go into a Property Trust. The exact terms of the Trust will be specific to your instructions, but usually they allow your partner to carry on living in your share of the family home just as if they owned the whole property. Normally this includes being able to sell the house and buy a replacement in the usual way.
However, your partner never actually owns your share of the house. So they can only use their own share for whatever they wish - be that blowing in all on world cruises, or giving it to a new spouse/partner or indeed having to spend it on their own residential care. Your share of the house is still owned by the Trust, protected according to the terms you specified and typically ensuring that eventually it passes to your children.
Lifetime Family Trust
With a Lifetime Family Trust you can protect all of your major assets (not just your house) during your lifetime. The trust operates straight away, unlike a Will which has to wait until you die before the protection can apply. The trust includes you as a beneficiary and you can remain in control of the trust. Trust assets are protected against all sorts of possible attacks in your lifetime and can be managed for your benefit even if you lose mental capacity (without the need for a Lasting Power of Attorney). When eventually you pass away the assets can then go to your family quickly without the costs and delays of Probate, but with protection for future generations that can continue for up to 125 years! It is a very powerful solution - please contact us so that we can explain the details to you.
These approaches are becoming increasingly common practice and InHouse can arrange this for you. We also check the details of how your house is owned, in case Severance of Tenancy is required to change from Joint Tenants to Tenants in Common so as to make your Will effective.
Protecting the family home
You’ve worked hard all your life, invested in a house, but then there is little left for your family because of the costs of old age. A Home Protection Trust can protect your house to pass on to your family.