Amendment to wills

Motormad

Just after a bit of reassurance hopefully. Wife and I had discretionary trust wills drawn up 12 years ago,simple affairs but probably into IHT territory. I made the mistake of letting the solicitor be appointed as administrator and legal agent which I now want to remove,is it sufficient to put a note with our wills signed by us both renouncing this clause. Thanks.

Keep_pedalling

Motormad wrote: »

Just after a bit of reassurance hopefully. Wife and I had discretionary trust wills drawn up 12 years ago,simple affairs but probably into IHT territory. I made the mistake of letting the solicitor be appointed as administrator and legal agent which I now want to remove,is it sufficient to put a note with our wills signed by us both renouncing this clause. Thanks.

You should both get new wills drawn up as a matter of urgency. Yes you need to change your executors, but that trust is almost certainly redundant as well since the transferable nil rate band came in just after you made those wills, and the residential nil rate band has come in more recently.

Motormad

Keep_pedalling wrote: »

You should both get new wills drawn up as a matter of urgency. Yes you need to change your executors, but that trust is almost certainly redundant as well since the transferable nil rate band came in just after you made those wills, and the residential nil rate band has come in more recently.

Thanks, I think i need to change our solicitor as well as he said they were still adequate when I enquired a year ago.

Keep_pedalling

Motormad wrote: »

Thanks, I think i need to change our solicitor as well as he said they were still adequate when I enquired a year ago.

Do you have adult children?

Marcon

Keep_pedalling wrote: »

You should both get new wills drawn up as a matter of urgency. Yes you need to change your executors, but that trust is almost certainly redundant as well since the transferable nil rate band came in just after you made those wills, and the residential nil rate band has come in more recently.

Depends why the discretionary trust will approach was used. The solicitor may well be correct that the wills are still perfectly fit for purpose, so there is no urgency at all simply because the tax position has changed. OP, don't be too quick to dismiss your solicitor; the advice may well have been sound.

Motormad

Keep_pedalling wrote: »

Do you have adult children?

Yes 2 daughters in their 30s.

Motormad

Marcon wrote: »

Depends why the discretionary trust will approach was used. The solicitor may well be correct that the wills are still perfectly fit for purpose, so there is no urgency at all simply because the tax position has changed. OP, don't be too quick to dismiss your solicitor; the advice may well have been sound.

If I remember it was set up to allow discretion to pass some assets to daughters on first death to reduce IHT. Resident in Scotland and I remember asking for clarification on the new RNIB and transferable NRB and he had no idea it had changed and consulted a colleague and admitted he didn’t know about it.

badmemory

Motormad wrote: »

admitted he didn’t know about it.

Well to me that would definitely go onto the OMG pile. What else doesn't he know, surely it is his job to know!

Motormad

badmemory wrote: »

Well to me that would definitely go onto the OMG pile. What else doesn't he know, surely it is his job to know!

To be fair I think he was more a conveyancing solicitor but even then he should’ve been aware,he tried to say that it was only in England that the changes had been made. We have both written and signed notes to attach to wills meantime renouncing them as administrators and legal agents.

Savvy_Sue

Motormad wrote: »

To be fair I think he was more a conveyancing solicitor but even then he should’ve been aware,he tried to say that it was only in England that the changes had been made. We have both written and signed notes to attach to wills meantime renouncing them as administrators and legal agents.

Moral of this story: use a specialist ...

We had an employment issue. I rang 'our' solicitors for advice. They wrote our wills, they acted for us in house sales and purchases. They don't 'do' employment. I hope never to need a criminal specialist, but they don't do that either.

Keep_pedalling

Motormad wrote: »

Yes 2 daughters in their 30s.

OK so new wills with your daughters appointed as executors (unless you have reasons not to trust them). You could also as we have done, make each other executors as well.

Unless your joint estate is likely to exceed £1M then you don’t really need to worry about IHT, but if it is I would look at lifetime gifting rather than trusts.