A will query

collectors

Hi, i am single with no kids & have a will made out to my brother that when i die to sell everything & to distribute my estate across several charity's & people of my choosing as a percentage to each one minus any expenses he would encore of up to £1000-00 per charity/person. He is now nearly 80 & i dont want to burden him with this & would like one of my nieces to take it on, but i dont want her getting an IHT tax bill. Estate at the moment is around £400K & i assume she may be liable, or not, on the amount over £325k or will my donations to charities/others off set this ??. 

TBagpuss

The estate is liable for IHT, not the executor personally. 
There is also tax relief where  you are leaving money to charity, so it may well mean no IHT is payable.

Are you planning to leave anything to your niece or other relatives? If not, then then you could consider appointing one of the charities as executor instead.

If you are leaving some of the estate to your niece and other friends or relatives then appoint your niece as executor, and talk to a solicitor to draw up the will. You can specify that gifts to specific people (e.g. you niece ) are made free of IHT, then the tax would be paid out of the estate before the residuary estate was distributed.

your solicitor will be able to talk you through the options 

doodling

Hi,

I would suggest that you think carefully about how you give to charities.  Charities can be very aggressive in pursuing bequests, especially if the size of the bequest can vary according to the actions of the executor or other beneficiaries.  This can cause a lot of hassle to the executor (e.g. them being forced to justify funeral costs, justifying costs of employing a solicitor if they choose to, the charity potentially challenging the executor or the will in the courts, etc.).

I would recommend that you only give charities a fixed monetary amount.  That does create a problem if there is a risk that the size of your estate might vary significantly (e.g. due to care costs in later life) - a £10k bequest might be 3% of your estate or 50% depending on what has happened to your money since the will was written.  You might want to discuss how this could be handled with your solicitor.

Keep_pedalling

doodling said:

Hi,

I would suggest that you think carefully about how you give to charities.  Charities can be very aggressive in pursuing bequests, especially if the size of the bequest can vary according to the actions of the executor or other beneficiaries.  This can cause a lot of hassle to the executor (e.g. them being forced to justify funeral costs, justifying costs of employing a solicitor if they choose to, the charity potentially challenging the executor or the will in the courts, etc.).

I would recommend that you only give charities a fixed monetary amount.  That does create a problem if there is a risk that the size of your estate might vary significantly (e.g. due to care costs in later life) - a £10k bequest might be 3% of your estate or 50% depending on what has happened to your money since the will was written.  You might want to discuss how this could be handled with your solicitor.

That is a bit difficult if you are leaving the bulk of your estate to charities. The OP should really discus this with a solicitor when drawing up a new will. I would not appoint a minor beneficiary as executor for an estate like this, maybe this is one of the rare cases where a solicitor would be the best choice to act as executor.

collectors

Hi, & many thanks for the information. My apologies for not getting back sooner as i cant get this forum to send me notifications on reply's. But you have given me some good guidance & put me straight on a few points. I will make an appointment with a solicitor.