Including beneficiary with mental health difficulties in a will

BobQ

planningahead wrote: »

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!

You do not need to reveal anything. Only you can make a judgement about what might change in his condition or the available treatments now or in the future.

My point is only that with a discretionary trust, if there is a possibility he might improve you may want to give a trustee the authority to give him some of the capital rather than just the income from it.

I do not envy you the decisions you have to make. For a period of my life I had to make and update a will that created a discretionary trust that was needed to protect the interests of a vulnerable person. This meant I had to ask myself some difficult questions about whether I could really trust a relative, friend or professional to do what I wanted.