Trusts and Estates

Protecting your wealth

For many of our clients, protecting their families’ wealth for the next generation is important and can cause unnecessary worry.

Trusts can be a useful tool for lifetime planning, both as a tax planning tool but also as a way of managing succession and gifting, as well as asset protection during your lifetime. In some circumstances trusts can be a used to help with grandchildren’s school or university fees. Alongside this, consideration of your will to ensure that your estate devolves in a tax efficient and suitable way on your death is a key part of planning. Trusts are not the answer in all circumstances as there is never a one size fits all solution, and there are other options such as Family Investment Companies.

We work with clients and their families to put appropriate structures into place, and also realise circumstances (and tax laws) change and so we aim to have an ongoing dialogue to flex or alter plans when necessary.

We also have expertise to assist executors and advisors in dealing with the filing and consequences of the distribution of an estate in the correct manner. We make sure executors receive the best advice to minimise income tax or capital gains tax arising post death.

On occasions, lifetime structures and wills create problems for the executors, and our experience in regularly working with executors and lawyers mean we are well versed in finding the appropriate solutions.
We are also well aware that trusts have important formal registration requirements with HMRC, and trustees will face penalties if these requirements are not met on a timely basis.

If you need information or help with anything trust or estate related, we would love to speak to you.

We’ll work by your side to devise the best plan that considers the makeup of your estate and complies with your wishes. The main idea is to bring the value of your estate as close to the threshold at which inheritance tax is chargeable and make sure all available reliefs and exemptions can be accessed. There are many ways this can be done, by making sure extra reliefs such as the residential nil rate band apply, making sure the will is tax efficient and considering the benefits and impacts of effective lifetime gifts.

We will also advise you on trusts, which can protect your hard-earned assets for the next generation and can in some circumstances be tax effective.

The best time to start your estate plan was yesterday. The next best time is today, so get ahead of one of the most controversial taxes and contact us today.

Ask us about trusts today.