Shield your assets with a Family Protection Trust
Your Will is what you want to happen, an FPT ensures that it does happen.
There are six main problems that put your estate under threat
Probate is the legal process of administering the estate of someone who has passed away. It can be expensive and time-consuming, often taking 9-12 months to complete. Most people will use their bank or solicitor, who on average charge 3% of the value of the estate to carry out the work. For any assets you hold in in trust, there is NO probate. Priced at a fixed fee, a Family Protection Trust offers a significant financial saving, as well as saving your family the burden of the stress and administration of the probate process at what will already be a very difficult time for them. Assets held in trust are usually transferred to the beneficiaries within 28 days of the death.
If you or your partner dies and the surviving partner remarries, the inheritance can pass to another family, leaving out your children. This is known as sideways disinheritance. Assets in a trust are protected from sideways disinheritance so you can have peace of mind that your assets will go to those you intend.
Surprisingly, it might not always be convenient for your loved ones to inherit at the time that they do. If, for example, they are in the process of a divorce, their inheritance could form part of the divorce settlement. If they are receiving benefits, the inheritance could cause their benefits to be lost or reduced.
Currently, anyone with assets above £23,250 in England or £50,000 in Wales may not receive state help with Care Costs, meaning that many families would have to sell their home to fund Care.
- There is no legal way that you can dispose of assets to avoid paying care fees.
- This is called deliberate deprivation of assets and the Local Authority will contest this and succeed. Whether you’ve transferred assets to children or set up a trust with the purpose of avoiding care fees, it will not work.
- Care cannot be the reason for setting up a FPT but may be a benefit if set up at the right time (when care isn’t foreseeable), for the right reasons and for the right people.
- As a result, many of our clients have found that the assets held within their FPT have been disregarded during care fees means assessments
Families can be complicated and occasionally, parents choose to leave a child out of their Will. By law, that child has a right to contest the Will and make a claim on the estate and are quite often successful. It is considerably more difficult to contest a Trust, making it unlikely for assets to pass to a family member that you did not intend.
Even though you might not have an IHT issue, without a Trust you can unwittingly create one for your children. Assets left to them in Trust will not form part of their estate so will not attract IHT.
What is a Family Protection Trust
To put it simply, a Family Protection Trust is like a safety deposit box, where you can put your house and other financial assets.
This ring-fences those assets against risks that may arise in the future. You have complete control as trustee and beneficiary, meaning that you can still move, sell and invest just as you normally would.
Who are the Trustees?
You are the trustees of your own Trust, giving you complete control. You can, however, appoint other trustees if you wish. One option is to appoint a professional trustee, which is a service we offer. This has a number of benefits:
- We are one of only a handful of companies with a proven track record of effectively setting up this type of Trusts.
- Our advice will continue after you have passed away to ensure your loved ones inherit 100% of what they are due, at the right time.
How do I set up a Trust?
It takes around 4-5 weeks to set up a trust and we hold your hand through the whole process. Nothing is binding until you have seen the trust documents and are happy with the content.
Why should you trust us?
Quality Service
More than 63% of our existing clients come back to us for further advice and support.
Longevity & Reliability
Over 120,000 people across England & Wales have benefited from our Wills and Legal Services.
Charity Support
During the last 5 years, we have donated more than £2 Million to our Charity Partners.
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