Trusts

Trusts can range from simple bare trusts with a single asset and beneficiary, to ‘new’ lifetime trusts set for a specific purpose and with a full range of powers and provisions, to ‘Will’ trusts established to facilitate further planning after death. For more information on the types of trust available please visit our Types of Trust section.

A well administered and actively managed trust can be a very useful tool, which can be used flexibly and protectively for a whole host of valuable purposes. With the right systems in place, it should be straightforward to manage a trust as a positive factor rather than a burden.

As part of your lifetime IHT planning or ultimate succession planning many clients put in place trusts to pass on assets before their death.

You may wish to use trusts as part of your lifetime estate planning. For instance:

• Trusts are used to protect family wealth for future generations, reducing the inter-generational cascade of inheritance tax and providing a mechanism that can help bloodline protection for your estate from outside claims (such as divorce and bankruptcy of children/grandchildren).

• To pass money to children or grandchildren so it is not taxed on your death. Placing this money into a trust ensures that funds can be protected until those children reach an age where they can manage the funds responsibly.
• We can help you put in place letters of wishes to accompany any trust deed. A letter of wishes whilst not legally binding on your trustees is a very persuasive documents that is the vast majority of cases is followed. As such, the letter of wishes can be updated as frequently as you wish over the years to reflect changes in a beneficiary’s fiscal, matrimonial circumstances and so on.
• To help children onto the property ladder.
• To provide for vulnerable or disabled family members.
• To create a charity in your name which lives on to promote and support the causes close to your heart.
• Trusts can be created by you and whilst you are usually excluded from benefitting from the assets gifted to the trust you can act as a trustee to have a say and control the use of the trust assets for the remainder of your life.
• We can advise you on legislation beyond tax in relation to trusts such as ‘deliberate deprivation of capital’ in relation to nursing home/care home fees planning.
• It is likely that any lifetime trust created will need to be registered on the centralised Trust registration service. We can assist you with this and advise you on the ongoing administrative requirements in this regard.