Saving Inheritance Tax with Discretionary Trust Wills

wee-pat

Hi!
Have any forum viewers or contributors had or know of any body that has had any experience with discretionary will trusts made by a program on the web where you fill in all your details and they prepare a will trust ready for signing after been checked by a solicitor. I have found one that is very informative and reasonable priced compared to solicitors who seem very exorbanent in their prices.
I’ve been given a quoted a package £970 by one solicitor, and they require you to tell them the details on the phone and they prepare the same will ready for signing.
The price for changing from Joint Tenants to Tenants in Common is over £100 and all is required is for you to fill in a form RX1 from the Land Registry (very help full)
With your all your details and send it them, and there is no fee required.
There are a lot of older people who property rich but cash poor but still feel having paid their taxes and all my due’s their all live don’t want the taxman to take any more than necessary.

moonrakerz

Welcome to MSE !
I went TIC and Discretionary Trust a few years back, it cost me a few hundred then but compared to the savings it could make, that was peanuts.
Try several solicitors, the prices can vary quite bit.
I would not suggest trying to do it yourself, either on the back of an envelope or on the web. If you get it wrong, it could turn out to be a total disaster and cost your estate thousands to sort out and even then you may not have achieved what you intended to. Sitting across the table from someone is the best way to do it, by far.
Solicitors make more money from sorting out badly drafted "DIY" documents than they do from writing a decent one.

dunstonh

For that price, I would have thought a local solicitor giving advice would do it.

elliebean_2

sloughflint wrote:

And if my current ongoing experience isn't too unusual, I bet they make a lot of money from badly drafted Solicitor's Wills.
Just because a solicitor does the Will doesn't necessarily mean it's any good. My parents trusted a supposedly reputable firm and I am now trying to sort out the mess.

We see too many solicitors' Wills which are badly drafted or don't do what they are supposed to and some that haven't even be correctly signed and witnessed!

Tiggs_2

wee-pat wrote:

I’ve been given a quoted a package £970 by one solicitor, and they require you to tell them the details on the phone and they prepare the same will ready for signing..

To give you an idea of alternatives:

My firm (which deals only in financial advice on IHT - and so knows a whole lot more about the issue than most solicitors who arent even able to give financial advice) would charge £600 for that...........for that you would get an inital 2hr meeting covering ALL the issues surrounding the Will, a further 1-2hr meeting presenting the Will and explaing anything within it thats unclear AND all your RX1 forms, etc done for you.

£1000 for a Will on the phone while they tap the details into a PC is a joke IMO - a Will is cheap, its only a few bits of paper - probable cost is 90p.....what you pay for is the advice as to whether its right for you and the implications of its use.

Tiggs_2

they can be the same.....and the house value doesnt ned to be exact until someone is dead.

wee-pat

Tiggs
Thank you for the imformation,
wee-pat.

Tiggs_2

sloughflint wrote:

Thanks very much Tiggs.
Just to clarify.... Someone ( the first spouse) is dead and DWT is going to be done to rectify a mistake made many years ago so does that mean exact value is required now even though surviving spouse will hopefully continue to live there for as long as possible? If so how can I improve accuracy in figures?

not sure exactly how your situation is working out but the value of the house at the time the person died is relevant as its their share that they owned at that time that is passing to the trust.

as for values - if i had 3 quotes that were similar (within £15k say) i would take those and use the average (if i had another for £150k more i woul assume they were being a bit stupid and ignore it)

elliebean_2

sloughflint wrote:

Could someone explain the taxation side of DWT's please?
If there is a 20k element of cash in the Trust and this earns say 5% interest in a year. Am I right in thinking that trustees must pay 40% tax on this interest ie £400 until the trust is wound up?

The idea of the Nil Rate Band Discretionary Trust is that there is no cash in the Trust, just a promissory note. The surviving spouse borrows the assets from the Trust and so s/he can use that cash or invest it in his/her own name.

SMARTY29A_2

my mum died over a year and finally all sorted out with solicitor , probabte etc. my dad owns his house out right, no debts and they both have/had a will leaving all to either spouse and upon the last survivor leaving all to me and my sister.
financially i am secure i.e. i also own my house etc - no debts but my dad is now wondering what best to do with the savings and the deeds etc as he doesnt need this money to live on.

could he a) transfer house to me and sisters names?
could he gift us some monies so that in future we could maybe buy a flat or at least a deposit for our children - what implicatoin sare there here

SMARTY29A_2

do you know the costs involved of deed of variation