Control how your assets are managed and distributed after your death.
Creating a will that includes a trust, often referred to as a “testamentary trust,” can be a powerful tool for estate planning.
Trusts within a will allow you to control how your assets are managed and distributed after your death, offering benefits like protecting assets, reducing tax liability, and ensuring that your wishes are followed.
We offer a range of trusts to suit your needs such as life interest trusts, protective property trusts and discretionary trusts.

What is a Severance of Tenancy?
Normally, when people buy a property together, they purchase as Joint Tenants, meaning that they both own the property 100% together. The main limitation of owning the house in this way, is it does not allow your will to protect what happens to your share of the house when you die because it automatically becomes the survivor’s.
When a Severance of Tenancy occurs you own the property together as Tenants in Common and usually by default this means you own the house 50% each. By owning the house in this way, it allows your will to protect what happens to your share of the property when you die.

What are the benefits of owning the house as tenants in common and having a trust in your will?
Tenants in common is beneficial if you want to protect your share of the property for children, against new partners for example, if the surviving spouse remarried and preventing the house passing to new partners ahead of your children.
It can protect your property from having to be sold further down the line, if the surviving spouse went into long term care.
If a Severance hasn’t taken place and one of you dies, the property will automatically transfer to the other owner – severing the tenancy avoids the automatic transfer to the joint owner and your share can be protected for someone other or as well as your partner.
No one likes to think about their spouse re-marrying after they have died but it could happen and in turn affect whether or not your children would inherit because your estate could pass to your spouse’s new partner. By simply having a trust written into your will, your half of the house would be held in trust for your children equally, but the surviving spouse still benefits fully as they would normally, for the rest of their life.
A trust is also beneficial if you have vulnerable children with special needs, as it allows other people (trustees) to look after money on behalf of another beneficiary.
A trust is also strongly advisable if you have blended families and there are children from previous relationships, as it maintains bloodline links and cements where your share of the property ultimately ends up.
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Give yourself and your family the peace of mind of knowing your affairs will all be looked after and book an appointment today.