Asset Protection Trust
Why put a house into a Trust?
A Will can only dispose of the assets that you own at the date of your death and if the value of these is eroded during your lifetime, there will be little if anything left for your beneficiaries to inherit.
Lifetime Asset Trusts are specifically designed to protect your assets for you during your lifetime. They give you the peace of mind that your estate can be passed on securely and intact to your spouse, your children and their bloodline.
Principal Beneficiary of the Trust
Once the Trust has been created, you can use it to ‘ring-fence’ your assets. Most people will protect their home, leaving capital in their bank or other savings accounts for ongoing living expenses. You are named as the ‘Principal Beneficiary’ of the Trust and retain full control of the assets within the Trust while you are alive and have mental capacity. You are free to move home, or release equity from the Trust at any time.
As the Principal Beneficiary of the Trust, you have a guaranteed right of occupation in the property for the remainder of your life. The Trustees, usually your children, cannot evict you under any circumstances.
You can direct the Trustees to sell the property and to buy a new property of your choice. If the new property you are acquiring is more expensive, the Trustees can only be required to buy the new property if the additional capital required is paid into the Trust by you.
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What are the benefits of Asset Protection Trusts?
Asset Protection Trusts are a powerful means of achieving this control. They can:
Avoid claims on your estate after your death
With the use of appropriate Trusts you are able to exclude someone from your estate, such as a relative or an estranged child and, unlike a Will they are unable to make a claim on a trust. This also avoids any court costs and lengthy court proceedings on any attempts to upset the terms of a Will by a disgruntled family member.
Reduce the time it takes for beneficiaries to receive their inheritance
By having your estate protected and held within a trust, you can avoid any lengthy delays due to probate. This will also help avoid potential costly legal fees and your chosen beneficiaries can be paid out quite quickly.
Protect your assets from bankruptcy
A Trust may also help if you are self-employed or run your own business. By holding your personal assets within a trust, you can protect them should you suffer financial difficulties or become bankrupt.
Protect your assets from divorce
Placing your assets into a Trust prior to cohabiting with a new partner protects them and ensures they are safe should the relationship fail.
Protect your children against disinheritance
If a spouse remarried their assets and any inherited from the deceased spouse could pass to the new spouse rather than to the children of the family, or assets may pass to their sons or daughters in law instead of blood relatives. A Trust ring-fences your assets and ensures that only your nominated beneficiaries will receive their inheritance. This avoids any in-law children from benefiting should any of your children marry and then divorce.
At Late Life Planning we believe that you should have total control over what happens to your assets, who benefits from them, and who controls them.
From only £3540 INC VAT
(including Trust Registration and Land Registration fees)
Help with long term care planning and protect your assets from the impact of long term care fees
Should you need to go into a care home later on in life then the local authority may demand that your house and other assets are used to help pay for the care.
Current legislation demands that anyone owning assets valued in excess of £23,250 is required to make a 100% contribution towards the cost of their care. However, anyone requiring care with assets worth less than £14,250 is not required to make any contribution from their capital.
The legislation also prevents people from deliberately moving their assets in order to avoid paying care fees. But it does not prevent anyone in relatively good health, who is not presently intending going into long term care, from estate planning and establishing a Trust.
By placing your assets into an appropriate Trust you are (technically) no longer the owner of the assets, but rather the principal beneficiary of the trust. So it can fully protect your assets for your children, provided the local authority cannot prove that at the time the trust was set up it was reasonably foreseeable you would enter long term care.
Each Trust specially drafted by our specialist panel of solicitors according to your unique set of financial circumstances and to meet you particular needs and future wishes.
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