Topic: Uncategorized

Trusts

Helping you control and protect your assets

One of the most effective ways you can manage your estate planning is through setting up a trust. The structures into which you can transfer your assets can have lasting consequences for you and your family, so it is important that you obtain professional advice, as the right structures can protect assets and give your family lasting benefits.

Dying intestate

If there’s no valid will

When you die, your estate has to be distributed one way or another. If you have a will, your executors have to gain
a Grant of Probate in England & Wales or Northern Ireland (a Grant of Confirmation in Scotland). If there’s no valid will, or the named executors in the will are unwilling or unable to carry out their duties, a Grant of Letters of Administration is needed. This is known as ‘dying intestate’.

A will is the first step

Sharing out your estate

Planning your finances in advance should help you ensure that when you die, everything you own goes where you want it to. Making a will is the first step in ensuring that your estate is shared out exactly as you want it to be.

Living outside the UK

What happens when someone dies?

When someone living abroad dies, the rules for paying Inheritance Tax (IHT) usually depend on:

• How long they lived abroad
• Whether their assets (property, money and possessions) are in the UK or abroad
• If their assets in the UK are‘excluded assets’
• If their assets were put into a trust

Giving to charity

Reducing an Inheritance Tax – it’s good to give

A new rule began on 6 April 2012 that reduces the amount of Inheritance Tax due on an estate if at least 10% of the taxable amount is given to a charity – but not to one of the other exempt bodies, unless of course it is also a charity.