Trusts can be powerful tools and are deeply rooted in centuries of English legal history. For almost 1,000 years, families have been using trusts to preserve and manage their wealth for the benefit of their heirs.
Some of the main benefits a trust can provide include:
- Safety net – asset protection from life events such as bankruptcy or divorce
- Safeguarding the family – protection for a family member who lacks mental capacity
- Spendthrift beneficiaries – asset protection from those beneficiaries who may wish to spend, spend, spend
- University and education – provision of education fees for children or grandchildren
- Residential care – provision of care home fees for elderly parents or grandparents
- Tax and succession planning – reduced inheritance tax (IHT) payable on death
Benefits of using trusts in the modern world
The increase in multiple marriages and relationships is adding layers of complexities to the family landscape, with many families now embracing step-parents and step-children as well as half-brothers and half-sisters.
Combine this with our ageing population and the resultant growth in care responsibilities, and we end up with strains on both family finances and family interactions.
Creating a trust is an effective way of sheltering family wealth, particularly for parents and grandparents who are concerned to ensure that the savings and investments they have worked so hard to achieve will definitely benefit their descendants.
But for all settlors (where they are also trustees) the trust remains a unique vehicle to enable them to retain control of what happens to the trust assets and when. Effectively, settlors can give away their property but with strings attached.
Another advantage of establishing a trust is that the settlor can dictate who benefits from the trust and when, ensuring assets pass to the ‘right’ people at the ‘right’ time.
By contrast, under English and Welsh law, if you leave a gift in your will to your children, the default age at which they will benefit is 18 – unless you state a later age expressly in the will. Even then, if you do state a later age in the will, there could be adverse IHT consequences if the stated age is later than 25. Generally, no such constraints exist with a trust.
So when might a Trust be a possible solution:
- Control
Do you wish to give assets away but say who will benefit and to what extent; whether the property may be sold or used for certain purposes and who will benefit from it in the future? - Protection
Do you wish to give away some of your wealth to benefit other members of the family, but is concerned that it will be dissipated? A trust can restrict the amount and type of benefit received from the trust assets. For example, a grandparent may want to help his grandson with university expenses, but does not want him to spend the money on a fast car. - Flexibility
A trust allows trustees to adapt to circumstances as they arise. If an individual makes an outright gift, they cannot change their mind and give it to someone else. Suppose someone has two adult children: one has highly-paid employment and the other is still studying. With a flexible trust, the income could be used to benefit the child with a low income. If, in later years, if the highly-paid child takes a career break to raise a family, whereas the other child is earning a good salary, the trust income could then be used to help with the costs of raising grandchildren, for example.
If you feel that you are not taking full advantage of the benefit of a trust, please feel free to get in contact by calling 01825 76 33 66 or complete the contact form to book a consultation.
