Giving an inheritance early

LadyinBlack_2

We have left a bequest in our will to our niece. She may benefit from having it early. If we did this can she sign something which would be legal to say she has already had her inheritance?

Our wills are lodged with the Probate Service and we do not want to retrieve them, change them and relodge them due to the expense.

Thank you for any help.

hcb42

What you are proposing does not sound logical, you cannot give "an inheritance" early, for the simple reason there might not be anything to inherit...

You can of course give her what you like now, subject the the rules about deprivation of assets and inheritance tax etc, and the simplest and cheapest route and one less likely to cause problems down the line is simply to rewrite the will

Mojisola

hcb42 wrote: »

What you are proposing does not sound logical, you cannot give "an inheritance" early, for the simple reason there might not be anything to inherit...

You can of course give her what you like now, subject the the rules about deprivation of assets and inheritance tax etc, and the simplest and cheapest route and one less likely to cause problems down the line is simply to rewrite the will

You wouldn't need to rewrite your wills - you could put codicils with them that revoke the money you had planned to leave her.

Mojisola

LadyinBlack wrote: »

We have left a bequest in our will to our niece. She may benefit from having it early. If we did this can she sign something which would be legal to say she has already had her inheritance?

Our wills are lodged with the Probate Service and we do not want to retrieve them, change them and relodge them due to the expense.

If the expense of doing this is a problem, should you be giving money away now?

Another option is to offer your niece the amount she would have inherited minus the costs involved.

jackyann

As above is simplest.
But just for information:
You can use the rules of "hotch-pot" (if only for the fun of using that term!) but it would mean re-writing the will (and being fairly certain that enough would remain in the estate)

It goes something like this: I leave my estate to be divided between my 3 nieces; all gifts from 1st April 2014 are subject to the rules of hotch-pot. That means that if there is, say £30k at time of death, but niece 1 has had £3k already; then there is deemed to be £33k = £11k each. Niece 1 gets £8k and 2&3 get £11k each.

getmore4less

Many could benefit from getting their inheritance early before the testator spends it on cruises and care.

You could always do it as an interest free loan repayable on your death at a level no more than they would inherit at the time of your death(s)

There is an anomaly as the "we, our" imply there is a complication with more than one person involved.

LadyinBlack_2

Thank you to all who replied.

It's as I thought really - I can't do much about it. I wish I had given more thought to this before doing my will (and my husband's mirror will).

I don't want to give her the inheritance just yet - only when she needs a deposit for a house - so I have a bit more time.

I had thought of just getting her to sign that she had her inheritance early and I do trust her but, having seen on this site how things can turn out if not legally watertight, I decided against this. The cost of redoing the will would probably be a lot cheaper than this.

Thanks again to those who took the time to reply.

jackyann

Lucky niece to have an aunt & uncle so concerned for her!