Helping parents with will. Need to revise Trust. Advice please

On-the-coast

That makes sense. Thanks.

On-the-coast

Quick question about the Nill Rate Band trust - if it is a standard simple one... would the act of creating a new will remove the trust entirely? Does it need dissolving?
I.e. if we decided to walk across the road to a new solicitor and draw up a standard will, do we need to worry about the old one at all, assuming that no-one has died before the new will is finalised.
Thanks.

xylophone

The new will should contain a clause that specifically revokes any old will or codicil.

It is best to destroy any old will once the new one is duly signed, dated and witnessed.

kidmugsy

On-the-coast wrote: »

Regarding question about tenants in common... i dont know. If that is the simplest arrangement, then probably yes. If it is a big deal i can find out.

It is a big deal and you should find out. I suspect that a couple that age who were (I assume?) married when they bought the property might well have bought it as joint tenants.

Dox

On-the-coast wrote: »

Should i trust the solicitors advice.. since i imagine that i trust is going to be more expensive to modify/maintain in the future.

It's your parents who are making wills, not you, so they need to be sure they are working with a solicitor they trust. Nobody here could have a clue whether the solicitor in question is trustworthy/knows their stuff - why go to them if there is any doubt about their competence/trustworthiness?

Malthusian

On-the-coast wrote: »

Quick question about the Nill Rate Band trust - if it is a standard simple one... would the act of creating a new will remove the trust entirely? Does it need dissolving?

Not 100% sure of my ground here, but my understanding is that the Nil Rate Band trust does not exist until the first life dies and assets up to the Nil Rate Band are passed to the trust. So at present there is nothing to dissolve and it is a simple matter of changing the Will.

System

You need to check exactly waht kind of trust it is. A NRB trust transfers only the NRB into a trust (£325,000 ?) and any remaining is distributed per the will.
A mirror-image will-trust simply leaves the proportion of the estate of the individual in total into trust for specified beneficiaries - usually the survivor for life, then children.
The former is a discretionary trust which will already be set up, but contain no assets other than a usual nominal £10 note pinned to the trust deed. A will-trust has no existence until after death when the will has been proved.
I understand, but don't know, that under new rules for registering trusts with HMRC, a trust that has had no income and no tax liability does not need to be registered, so perhaps has no legal existence yet and can be cancelled simply by tearing it up? (retrieve the £10 )

On-the-coast

Thank you all. I certainly found a lot of information here, and very rapidly too. I need to do a bit of due diligence now, and particulalry take a look at the wording re the existing trust.

On-the-coast

Update: I reviewed my parents wills and supporting documentation.
I think it quite likely they will want to revert to a more standard will.

The solicitors charges are not cheap - probably because they specialise in trust planning (around £500 inc VAT to modify the wills)

Given that the only purpose of the trust was to gain the double IHT saving, it would seem sensible advise (to me) that they just get a new will drawn up by a local solicitor... this Will would replace the more complex one, and save money in the drawing up process.

Does this seem like a good plan? Read on for more details.

The Wills are exact mirrors of each other, created in 2002.

Leaving aside the trust details which forms most of the Will, the intent could be easily summarised as:
I leave everything for the benefit of my spouse, and on death of spouse, everything 50:50 to my children
Without the trust I imagine that a paragraph or two would suffice.

A few notes on the Trust itself:
- The will sets up a Nil Rate Band Discretionary upon first death, by transfer of a Nil Rate Sum...
- The Nil Rate Sum is... the largest sum of cash which could be given... without any inheritance tax becoming due... So maybe that accounts for the new RNRB too.

The supporting notes tell me that if necessary, the house ownership would have been changed from joint tenants to tenants in common at the time the 2002 will was created.

Any problem with remaining as tenants in common?
Thanks in advance for your comments.

Mojisola

Don't modify these wills - go to a new solicitor and write new ones.