Wills

A standard (non-trust) Will might be sufficient for your needs, and they are cheaper. However, they do less for you than a trust Will.

Among other things, a will can:

• Provide flexibility. Decisions can be made about the distribution of your estate in the light of circumstances at the time of your death rather than at the time of making your Will.
• Keep your assets safe (in trust) until your children are old enough and/or sensible enough to inherit.
• Help reduce your estate’s Inheritance tax liability.
• Safeguard your assets in the event that your spouse/partner goes into a new relationship or is made bankrupt following your death.
• Reduce your estate’s exposure to residential care fees in the event that your surviving spouse requires residential care following your death.
• Give a ‘life interest’ to someone in some or all of your assets (eg. your home), rather than an ‘absolute’ (unconditional) gift.

Severance / Tenants in Common

The purpose of severing the joint tenancy on your property is to prevent it passing wholly to the surviving spouse when the first of you dies. Without severance of the joint tenancy, the whole property passes automatically to the surviving spouse/joint owner under the rules of survivorship, ie it by passes your Will.

Why avoid this? Severing a joint tenancy allows each of you to pass your share (usually half) of your home by means of your Will into trust, while still permitting the surviving spouse to continue living in the home during the remainder of their life.

The benefits of such an arrangement (in conjunction with a suitably drafted Will) are that half of the house is ‘protected’ in the event that the surviving spouse:

• Needs long term care. The deceased’s half share of the house is in trust and is therefore beyond the reach of any long term care provider who is obliged to disregard any life interest that the recipient of the care (eg the surviving spouse) has.
• Remarries. The trustees can safeguard the half share of the house for the deceased spouse’s family and prevent the surviving spouse from giving it to his/her new family.
• Goes bankrupt. Again, the half share of the house in trust is safe from the surviving spouse’s creditors.

Severing the joint tenancy can be done whether your property is registered or unregistered. It has no effect on the value of your property. It does not put your mortgage or your home insurance at risk. Your lender or insurer would only be interested if you were changing ownership of the property. But severance does not change ownership – it simply changes the way you both own the property.

Lasting Powers of Attorney (LPAs)

If you are no longer able to make your own decisions about your property and affairs or your health and welfare due to an accident or illness (which can happen at any age, remember), a loved one(s) nominated by you as your attorney(s) can make those decisions for you with minimal delay and cost.

There are two common misconceptions:

1. I am married. My spouse can make all the necessary decisions without an LPA.
   Your spouse can, but only in relation to items you jointly own. If anything is in your name alone, without an LPA your spouse cannot deal with it simply because they are married to you.
2. It’s the kind of thing that is really only relevant in old age.
   True, powers of Attorney are more commonly used if you suffer senile dementia, alzheimer’s or some other brain damaging disease (usually diagnosed in people over the age of 65). But it can also affect younger people. Early onset of the disease can begin when people are in their 30s, 40s, or 50s. Also, what if you are involved in a road traffic accident tomorrow and are unconscious? Then who would make decisions for you? This is not just for old age – it could be required at any age.

Without an LPA, your loved one(s) will have to apply to obtain the necessary power to make those decisions on your behalf – all very stressful, inconvenient, lengthy and costly at a time when life has just become stressful enough following your accident/illness.

Contact us for a quote to draw up finance and health LPAs, and to register them for use with the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG).

Secure Document Storage

Have you got secure, fireproof storage for your legal documents? In particular, it is important to store your will safely because your executors cannot obtain a grant of probate following your death with only a copy will – it has to be the original.

Why not store your documents with us and enjoy peace of mind. We send you copies of any documents which we have prepared and which you store with us.

Your wills can be returned promptly upon request to any authorised individual, whether that is you or the executor(s) named in your will.

General Advice

You might require general estate planning advice, specific advice about the terms of a will, the probate process or any number of other related matters. We can help you.