Including beneficiary with mental health difficulties in a will

planningahead

ameliarate wrote: »

Hi can I just jump in as I am currently (still) trying to sort out my sister's will and she had exactly this situation. Her son has mental health difficulties and drug abuse problems. She left myself, my daughter and a friend as trustees of a discretionary trust. I had always had a good relationship with my nephew but after her death he became increasingly paranoid and psychotic to the point where we now have no relationship at all.

Our plan now is to change things to a life interest trust with Solicitors as trustees, as the pressure of being trustees is becoming too much for us.

As someone pointed out we can not know what might happen in the future.

He has now married a girl he met through an Escort Agency (yes I do know this for a fact) :eek: they had only known each other three months when they got married.

I would strongly suggest NOT using your daughters as trustees for this reason.

Thank you. This type of scenario has been one of our concerns about using our daughters. It's one thing dealing with issues around our son ourselves and another inflicting it on them.

Dr._Shoe

Have you discussed it with your daughters?

I don't know how old you are and how old they are but it sounds as if you're middle aged and they're all adults. If this is true then I doubt that this has not crossed the mind of one or the other of them.

planningahead

Dr._Shoe wrote: »

Have you discussed it with your daughters?

I don't know how old you are and how old they are but it sounds as if you're middle aged and they're all adults. If this is true then I doubt that this has not crossed the mind of one or the other of them.

All three 'children' are mid-late twenties. We've not raised it directly with our daughters yet and I don't think they will have considered it . They are supportive of their brother but understandably can be wary of involvement at times. They are more involved when we go on holiday, but inevitably having a sibling with these kind of difficulties has been problematic.

RAS

planningahead

Whilst I fully agree with ameliarate, can I suggest a "compromise". Set up a discretionary trust but talk to your daughters now about the probable need to change to a life interest or similar after your death.

None of us know what the legal situation will be when that happens and if you appoint a solicitor now, they may or may not be around, may have been taken over etc. It will take a bit of time but they should be able to identify a good lawyer practicing at the time rather than risking whoever happens to be running the firm when you finally go.

My mother had a very kind solicitor who was named in his personal capacity as executor. The will was held in the firm's archive. It took over 6 months to extract the will from them and we had to get another lawyer to achieve that. Their lies and obstruction were appalling and their attitude to the ex-colleague wholly unprofessional. There is no way we could have predicted that the newer partners in the firm would be so different to the executor.

planningahead

RAS wrote: »

planningahead

Whilst I fully agree with ameliarate, can I suggest a "compromise". Set up a discretionary trust but talk to your daughters now about the probable need to change to a life interest or similar after your death.

None of us know what the legal situation will be when that happens and if you appoint a solicitor now, they may or may not be around, may have been taken over etc. It will take a bit of time but they should be able to identify a good lawyer practicing at the time rather than risking whoever happens to be running the firm when you finally go.

My mother had a very kind solicitor who was named in his personal capacity as executor. The will was held in the firm's archive. It took over 6 months to extract the will from them and we had to get another lawyer to achieve that. Their lies and obstruction were appalling and their attitude to the ex-colleague wholly unprofessional. There is no way we could have predicted that the newer partners in the firm would be so different to the executor.

Another thanks! We had solicitor problems after my father's death too - it hasn't helped in inspiring confidence for our situation.

planningahead

I'd just like to thank everyone who has contributed to this thread. It's been very helpful indeed and much appreciated (by my husband too).

ameliarate

planningahead wrote: »

Thank you. This type of scenario has been one of our concerns about using our daughters. It's one thing dealing with issues around our son ourselves and another inflicting it on them.

I really believed it would be ok when my sister asked me to be a trustee, we had no idea what would happen. It has affected my health quite badly. I don't want to add to your concern, but you really need to consider this very carefully before leaving your daughters in such a position. I hope you won't mp end this for a long long time anyway.

planningahead

ameliarate wrote: »

I really believed it would be ok when my sister asked me to be a trustee, we had no idea what would happen. It has affected my health quite badly. I don't want to add to your concern, but you really need to consider this very carefully before leaving your daughters in such a position. I hope you won't mp end this for a long long time anyway.

Thanks. We are taking everything on board. There will be a lot of discussion before making any sort of 'final' decision. We certainly don't want to leave our daughters in a difficult position despite having similar concerns to RAS. Ultimately we'd rather have our son's inheritance take the fees hit than create problems for our daughters.

We'll just have to live forever!

BobQ

RAS wrote: »

planningahead

Whilst I fully agree with ameliarate, can I suggest a "compromise". Set up a discretionary trust but talk to your daughters now about the probable need to change to a life interest or similar after your death.

None of us know what the legal situation will be when that happens and if you appoint a solicitor now, they may or may not be around, may have been taken over etc. It will take a bit of time but they should be able to identify a good lawyer practicing at the time rather than risking whoever happens to be running the firm when you finally go.
My mother had a very kind solicitor who was named in his personal capacity as executor. The will was held in the firm's archive. It took over 6 months to extract the will from them and we had to get another lawyer to achieve that. Their lies and obstruction were appalling and their attitude to the ex-colleague wholly unprofessional. There is no way we could have predicted that the newer partners in the firm would be so different to the executor
.

It is very difficult for us to know what sort of people we are dealing with in terms of how difficult OP's son can be and how "resilient" the OP's daughters are likely to be.

If the OP's will establishes a trust that appoints the daughters as trustees but makes a firm of solicitors the fall back trustee if they are unable or unwilling to act then this leaves is daughters with the option of what to do (immediately or at some point later). This solution can also allow the daughters to appoint an alternative trustee including a solicitor if they think that is best at the time. The OP can grant the trustees all sorts of discretion or not as they wish. A life interest is simply the discretion to spend income but not use capital.

I take RAS's point that things can go wrong with solicitors, but I think it is wrong to take one example as typical. The authorities regulating firms of solicitors do have procedures in place when a firm of solicitors goes out of business or partners retire. This ensures that the business can be transferred to another firm. Also problems of the type you mention are less likely if copies are held by the two daughters. You can also register a Will with the Probate Registry so that it is not lost.

One question the OP may also need to think about is whether there is ever going to be a situation where their son can be trusted to have the money and if so in what circumstances. Only the OP can work that one out.

planningahead

BobQ wrote: »

It is very difficult for us to know what sort of people we are dealing with in terms of how difficult OP's son can be and how "resilient" the OP's daughters are likely to be.

If the OP's will establishes a trust that appoints the daughters as trustees but makes a firm of solicitors the fall back trustee if they are unable or unwilling to act then this leaves is daughters with the option of what to do (immediately or at some point later). This solution can also allow the daughters to appoint an alternative trustee including a solicitor if they think that is best at the time. The OP can grant the trustees all sorts of discretion or not as they wish. A life interest is simply the discretion to spend income but not use capital.

I take RAS's point that things can go wrong with solicitors, but I think it is wrong to take one example as typical. The authorities regulating firms of solicitors do have procedures in place when a firm of solicitors goes out of business or partners retire. This ensures that the business can be transferred to another firm. Also problems of the type you mention are less likely if copies are held by the two daughters. You can also register a Will with the Probate Registry so that it is not lost.

One question the OP may also need to think about is whether there is ever going to be a situation where their son can be trusted to have the money and if so in what circumstances. Only the OP can work that one out.

Thank you for another thought-provoking post. It's been difficult to know how much detail about my son to give - hopefully enough to allow responses such as there have been here but also bearing his privacy in mind. I think that using a different user name has covered that, so I will answer any questions if there is anything specific it would be useful to know.

I only wish I knew the answer to the question posed by the last paragraph!