Ideas on setting up a trust for my Son...

vonsworld

My Dad plans to write a will which leaves his property and savings to me, but if I happen to die also, he would like to leave this to my Son in a trust for when he is 21.

At the moment my Son is 7 and unfortunately his mother and I do not get along and so she cannot help us in any way. We also do not have another relative who we can rely upon to administer the estate.

We are going to a solicitor next week to get the will done properly, but I wondered if you could give me some ideas on how trusts work in these situations so we know a bit more before seeing the solicitor?

In the unlikely event that my Dad and I die, what would happen to my Dad’s house? Can we ask the solicitor to act as executor and arrange to empty and sell the property and put the proceeds into a trust for my son?

Would the trust be run and monitored by a completely separate investment company or by the solicitor until my Son is 21?

Apart from solicitors are there any other companies who can help out in these situations? What happens if the solicitor goes out of business before my Son inherits?

Any ideas on the above topics would be appreciated

Brighty

Interested in this also, as wife and i need to sort our wills and we have 2 young kids we'd want to set up trusts for.

"In the unlikely event that my Dad and I die"
Although unlikely that your father and you die at the same time, you could die before him leaving the same scenario, that wouldn't be that unlikely

Once you get the trust sorted for your dads will, probably makes sense to do your will at the same time with the same

Brighty

Yorkshireman99

Brighty wrote: »

Interested in this also, as wife and i need to sort our wills and we have 2 young kids we'd want to set up trusts for.

"In the unlikely event that my Dad and I die"
Although unlikely that your father and you die at the same time, you could die before him leaving the same scenario, that wouldn't be that unlikely

Once you get the trust sorted for your dads will, probably makes sense to do your will at the same time with the same

Brighty

Both the OP and you need to see a solicitor who is a STEP member and therefore has specialist knowledge of trusts.

TBagpuss

In the unlikely event that my Dad and I die, what would happen to my Dad’s house? Can we ask the solicitor to act as executor and arrange to empty and sell the property and put the proceeds into a trust for my son?

Yes, the standard instructions to trustees are for them to 'get in' the assets, which would mean selling things such as a house, car etc, and then to invest the money.

You can arrrange for the solicitors to act as trustees, or you could appoint the solicitor plus a friend or relative.

There are strict rule sabout what trustees can and can't do, and how they can invest money for a child, so it is very common, when setting up a trust, to give the trustees more discretion, so they have a wider choice about how to invest any money, and when and for what purposes they can release any of it.

You would need to discuss this with the solicitor to make sure that you were happy with the arrangments.

The trustees don't need to be family members or to be the same people who your son will be living with, but they do need to be people whom you trust.

You could consider making your son's mother and your solicitor the trustees, mum may not get along with you but presumably she has your son's interests at heart, and including the solicitor would give you confidence that the money would not be misused.