Discretionary Will trust question

Bernythedolt

Hi, first post, hope I'm in the right forum area.... and apologies for the length!

My wife's father passed away in 2009, leaving her half his house & estate in trust, written into his Will as a discretionary trust (approx value £200k if that helps). His widow, my wife's mother, continues to live in the house. My wife's parents had their house deeds amended showing them as tenants-in-common some years before he died, in conjunction with writing their (matching) Wills.

They paid for legal advice for all this at the time. The idea was twofold, to avoid a potential double dose of inheritance tax and to limit the potential for the local authority to take the whole value of the house as care fees for the widow at some later date. I understand this was a standard and legitimate tax avoidance practice back then.... and it was his express wish to his only child.

My wife (as trustee and executor) and I didn't understand the intricacies of that part of the Will, so recently approached the solicitor's practice who drew it up. Their advice, after reading the Will they'd drawn up, was along the lines of "Yes, we can see this is a discretionary Will trust, quite standard in its day, and we can draw up the trust papers for you now.... at an approx fee of £1500".

After some internet research, I'm now beginning to think the Will itself forms the trust document, is entirely sufficient as it stands, and my wife doesn't actually need anything further to safeguard her interests. Am I correct, or does she now need some further legal document or instrument, besides the Will, which somehow more formally sets up the trust?

I suppose another way of looking at this is -- if the local authority or anyone else came asking for the entire value of the house to underwrite care fees, would showing them a copy of his Will be sufficient to demonstrate that my wife owns half of it, so they can't touch that half? Or do we need something more formal?

The same solicitor also wanted approx £600-£800 to obtain probate, something my wife then went away and achieved very easily by herself and for next to no effort or cost.

We want to get his affairs in order, and are quite happy to pay whatever that takes, but obviously don't want to be shelling out for unnecessary work, or unreasonable fees. Based on the probate example, I'm rather sceptical.

What (if anything) do people generally pay to "draw up a trust" after somebody dies with what I think is also termed a testamentary trust already written into his Will?

If appropriate -- is DIY a possibility and if so any advice on where we start please?

Thanks for any advice.

Bernythedolt

Oh dear, 100+ reads, no replies.

Loads of mumsy threads about chickenpox*, babies, pregnancies and any number of relationship difficulties, think I even saw one or two threads about money saving...!

Seem to have stumbled into the agony aunt section of Womens Own by mistake... will try elsewhere.

Was it something I said, or was it because I mentioned the m word? (money!) :eek:


*PS. Why would any money saving expert want that made sticky? If my child had symptoms, I'd try the NHS site, maybe a Google search, but MSE wouldn't naturally be high on the list... actually second thoughts, maybe it should be!

property.advert

I would also like an answer.

I did look at this very briefly some years ago and from memory, there would have been some hefty charges up front and then some ongoing costs. I relate these to the drawing up of the documents and the acting as trustee and dealing with the periodic request from the beneficiaries. I do not remember any cost to be borne by the beneficiaries and assumed that the costs of running the trust would be borne by the trust, though how that works without investment income I do not know.

My gut feeling is that this solicitor is out for a slice of whatever pie is around. You saw that before and avoided his greed. Now he wants £1500 or thereabouts, which is ballpark for the fees I was quoted to establish the trust but just what work it requires I do not know. My only useful experience is the writing of life assurance in trust which is totally simple and free at the most basic level.

We need a legal expert here, perhaps there will be one around over the weekend.

Bernythedolt

PA, thanks for your reply.

I'm trying my luck elsewhere on the site now, if you want to keep an eye, at /forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=3075220

You'll need to insert http before the colon (it won't allow me as a newbie to post a link).

Rach39

Hi, so long as the full terms of the D T are detailed in the will, ie trustees, their powers, possible beneficiaries, residual beneficiaries after date of perpetuity etc, then no it is not necessary to draw up a separate Trust Deed in my opinion. If the terms of the Trust are not sufficiently detailed or defined then it will be.

Rach39

and by the way yours is one of a large number of posts in this section requesting advise in respect of probate and trust matters - it is a large section with a large variety of themes but please don't diss the other posts just because nobody was able to help you immediately!!

Mojisola

Link to other post - https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3075220

This board is for general family stuff. It's probably a good sign that people who don't know anything about the subject didn't try to answer!

SailorSam

Before paying out to much for a solicitor i think i'd go and see the CAB and see can they point you in the right direction.

Bernythedolt

Rach39, thanks for that, very helpful. The Will does seem written up in a watertight manner by a solicitor, so based on what you say I think my wife's favoured approach here ("masterly inactivity" ) should be okay.

Rach & Mojisola, point taken. In my defence, I did read the rules and their "predominantly money-saving oriented" instruction, so my light-hearted criticism isn't entirely unfounded, as ten minutes spent reading in this particular section would attest.... but slap on wrist taken like a man.

Not here meaning to spoil anybody's fun.

Thanks for posting the new link in full. I've received further advice there, so suggest we allow this thread to take its natural course into oblivion...

Cheers all.