A Will is possibly one of the most important documents of your life. It ensures that those closest to you are provided for.
Woollcombe Yonge has a friendly and approachable specialist Wills and Probate team who are ready to help at any stage, from writing a new Will to updating or rewriting your Will. Not only does a Will help with the smooth transition of assets, but getting a Will right can have a major impact on how little inheritance tax your beneficiaries will have to pay.
The purpose of Will making
Creating a Will helps protect and properly manage your wealth. A well-drafted Will can prevent costly court proceedings and family disputes.
It allows you to:
- Provide financial security for your family.
- Designate specific gifts or legacies to chosen beneficiaries, including family, friends, and charities.
- Appoint guardians for children under 18.
- Ensure financial provision for children's health, welfare, and education.
- Allocate funds for guardians to aid in raising your children.
- Establish flexible provisions for young beneficiaries.
- Set up life interest trusts for your spouse/partner to stay in the family home.
- Create protective trusts to preserve beneficiaries' means-tested state benefits.
- Appoint executors and trustees to manage your estate.
- Safeguard assets for your spouse/partner against care fees.
- Implement tax planning to reduce Inheritance Tax (IHT).
- Plan for the succession of your business.
Protecting your assets with trusts
Trusts are a great way of protecting assets in a lot of different situations.
Perhaps you need to provide for someone who is not capable of managing the money themselves, or you wish to protect your assets against care home fees or your spouse or civil partner remarrying which may result in inheritance passing elsewhere.
You may wish to set up a fund to provide for future generations, or make sure your affairs are arranged in a tax efficient manner. A trust may be the answer to all of these. We are experienced not only in advising on what type of trust may be right for you but also their creation and management.
There are five main types of Will for you to consider:
This is what we traditionally think of as a Will, you can leave money and belongings to who you choose and appoint parental responsibility to a guardian if you have children under 18.
Made by spouses or those within a civil partnership to state that if one were to pass the whole estate should be passed to the other partner. Both Wills essentially mirror each other.
This involves protecting your assets (normally your home) in a trust, particularly useful if you are worried about your spouse or civil partner remarrying or if you are concerned about having to pay care fees later in life.
This type of Will creates more flexibility in terms of who inherits what and at what time. You can name trustees to look after any funds for the benefit of others, and tell them how you would like funds to be managed after your death. This may be useful where you have a child who you worry will spend their inheritance unwisely, or perhaps you want to provide for future grandchildren to ensure they are giving the best start in life.
This type of Will lets your family, carers and health professionals know your wishes about refusing treatment if you're unable to make or communicate those decisions yourself.
What happens if I die without a Will?
Whoever you are and whatever your circumstances, if you die without a Will in England and Wales, then legal rules (and rather outdated, complicated ones at that) called the intestacy rules, will decide who benefits from your estate. In many cases, this means your loved ones are not guaranteed to benefit in the way you would have hoped.
Here are a few examples of how the intestacy rules work:
- If you are not married but in a relationship, your partner has no automatic right to benefit from your estate. This is true even if you are engaged or living together.
- If you are married and you have children, your spouse is not necessarily entitled to all of your estate.
- Step-children have no automatic entitlement to your estate.
- The intestacy rules don’t care about what is or is not inheritance tax efficient. Often tax is charged when it needn’t have been.
- The intestacy rules do not cater for circumstances where your children are unable to manage their own financial affairs, whether that be because they have an addiction which results in them mismanaging funds or perhaps they are for some reason vulnerable to financial abuse.
- Disabled beneficiaries may have their mean tested benefits negatively affected when receiving an inheritance unless a trust has been created by a Will.