Protecting Assets, Enhancing Futures

Wills

With a large proportion of the UK population dying without a Will, and family structures becoming ever more complex, it has never been more important to express your wishes in a correctly drawn up legal document. It doesn’t matter what your circumstances, you may be surprised to find out how many decisions you really do need to make. Aside from any assets you may have, if you have dependents it is important to make provision for their guardianship.

There are two types of Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA): one relating to health and welfare, and the other relating to finance and property. The purpose of setting up and registering an LPA is to ensure that if you become unable to take decisions on your own behalf, for example due to illness or injury, a nominated person or persons step in and become the people who take those decisions on your behalf. Clearly for important matters such as these you want to have someone you trust in the position of responsibility.

We can offer a service that identifies your assets & liabilities, submits inheritance tax forms to HMRC, and deals with the various official channels involved in registering a death. On receiving the grant of probate, we can then distribute the remainder of the estate to the beneficiaries. The role of an executor is likely to be unfamiliar to most people, which is why a friendly professional service can be enormously reassuring at the relevant time.

If you are writing a Will, you may decide to include an “expression of wishes” relating to your funeral. However, what many people do not realise is that this is not legally binding, and your executors can disregard your wishes. Equally, even though you might have set aside a sum of money in a bank account to pay for your funeral, this in itself does not ensure you get the funeral you want.

If you own and run a family business, have you thought about who were to take over your business upon retirement or death or disability? Depending on the legal structure of your business, it’s entirely possible that your family could be left with responsibilities they are ill-equipped to take on. If the business is a partnership, the surviving partner could find themselves in a difficult position as they are unable to continue to run the business without the involvement of the deceased partner’s family. Talk to us about the options available to you, tailored to your specific requirements.

Family Trusts are Wills that can be set up with a specific trust designed to protect your assets in a specific way. You may wish for example to ensure that a particular person can stay in your property for a defined period of time after you die – or indefinitely. Equally, you may be concerned about potential care home costs (the value of your house can be included in local government means-testing if it is not protected), the impact of a divorce, or future claims against the estate by people you have purposely excluded. All of these scenarios and more can be addressed by building in a trust within your will planning.