Joint or single will???

Tiggs_2

ok....i assume you dont have £285k in each name? If not then you will be advised to alter your house so its tenants in common - in that way the half of the house owned by the deceased can form part of the asests going to the trust (if its jointly owned it would auto become the survivors on death and cant go anywhere else- hence the change to tenants in com)

now....as the IR dont like the trust owning half the house the common solution is for the trust to simply loan the assets to the survivor - in this way the spouse ends up with ALL the assets in their name and the trust owns nothing but an IOU from the spouse.

when spouse is dead (or sooner*) the trust is repaid thus reducing the esate of the spouse and the IHT.

* the complication will arrise in that the trustees need to protect all benerficaires and they may be advised to do so by taking a charge on your home to cover the IOU (like any bank would)....so can you sell up? yes, of course - but you have the trustees in the background the whole time.

its also worth noting that while many assume the IOU wont be repaid until death (and for older folks that may be true) they could ask for repayemnt sooner and these issues are ones you would have to discuss with the will writer....they are also the more complex issues and many will writers may skim over them if they dont understand it themselves so be VERY clear with them that you want to know the nitty gritty!

cahjubb

Interesting to read these threads, as we're looking to update our wills. I would feel easier dealing with a solicitor, but there are also opportunities to help charity as well, which I'm interested in. The jist is that you pick a solicitor on the list and make a donation or bequest to a charity instead of paying the solicitor. I did a google search on this and found details that the next main run of this will be in November, but can't remember what the search criteria were. Has anybody used this type of service?