Family Trust Will

Preserving your Assets for your Family

A Family Trust Will is a very modern, flexible will structure, which allows you to protect your assets for the benefit of successive generations of your family in turn.

The traditional one-size-fits-all approach of leaving everything absolutely to one person or class of people, wasn’t designed for the way we live our lives and love our families today.

The Family Trust Will provides the flexibility that’s needed in order to provide a complete solution.

Here are some of the ways a Family Trust Will can be of real long-term benefit you and your family: -

• If you are a couple, and one of you needs to go into residential care after the other has passed away, it can help you shield most of the value of your house from being taken by the local authority to pay care home fees.
• If you are a couple, and one of you remarries after the other has passed away, it can prevent your assets being diverted away from your children in favour of their new stepparent.
• It can make your child's inheritance divorce-proof, by keeping your assets out of reach of divorce judges if their marriage breaks down.
• It can make your child's inheritance debt-proof by keeping your assets out of the reach of creditors or the insolvency service if your child got into difficulties.
• If you are a stepfamily or blended family, it enables you to provide fairly and equitably for your other half and your children and stepchildren. You don't have to sacrifice your other half's welfare for the sake of your children, nor do you have to sacrifice your children's future to provide security for your other half. There's no need for a dilemma. You can make sure everyone is taken care of.
• If you have a child who is disabled, you can make sure they have all the support they need in managing their inheritance, and you can ensure that their inheritance isn't swallowed up by the local authority to pay for their care.
• If you have a child who suffers from an addiction, you can make sure their inheritance is looked after for them, so they cannot squander their inheritance on feeding their addiction, but can use their inheritance to fund rehab.

How it Works

When you make a Family Trust Will, the first thing you do is appoint at least two trusted people to be your executors. You might, for example, appoint your other half, your adult children, a trusted friend, your accountant, your solicitor or your business partner.

Next, you give your executors the additional role of acting as your Trustees.

Next, you leave your assets to your Trustees, to look after on behalf of your Beneficiaries.

Your Beneficiaries are, typically, your other half, your children, and the following generations of your family.

Your Trustees have virtually all the same decision-making powers over your assets as if they were full owners. The big difference, however, is that everything they do and every decision they make must be in the best interests of your beneficiaries.

This arrangement can last for up to 125 years from the date of your death, benefiting multiple generations of your family. However, it can also be brought to an end and the assets divided equally between the relevant generation of Beneficiaries, if there is a good reason to do so.

The result is that your spouse, children and subsequent generations can have access to the assets for their comfort and welfare, but because those assets are never in their name, the assets cannot be taken from them by outside claimants such as creditors, ex-spouses or the local authority.

A Family Trust Will costs £660 for a single person and £990 for a couple.