Vulnerable Person Trust

Gettingalife

We are grandparents to a young child with ASD. Whilst he has no learning difficulties, he struggled in mainstream and now attends a specialist school. Whilst we have three adult sons, this is our only grandchild and this will absolutely remain so.

We wish to protect our grandchild’s future and are about to redo our wills that we made many years ago before his birth. After discussion with all our adult sons, we have decided that our entire estate will be left to our grandchild. Two of our sons are financially very stable, owning their own homes outright etc. the other son (the parent) gave up his career to care for his child, but also wishes that he is treated the same as his brothers, to the benefit of his child.

Two issues we would like anyone experienced/knowledge in this matter to hopefully feedback on:

1.  Do we have to set up the vulnerable persons trust as part of our will or if can we simply list the child as a sole beneficiary, stating that the funds must be used, by the child’s parents, for this purpose?

2.  Has anyone experienced dissolving a vulnerable persons trust in the event the beneficiary progresses beyond that which was originally thought? For example the funds within the trust will be sufficient to purchase a house and an income. But should they be able to hold down a career and a family, can the trust be dissolved and the proceeds past to the beneficiary assuming that the trustees agree and if so, is there significant costs/taxes to be paid?

We know that a specialist trust organisation will be necessary, but we want to understand if anyone has had this sort of experience? 

Thank you

HobgoblinBT

My wife is trustee for two trusts of whom the beneficiary is her mentally handicapped brother. One, set up by his late mother’s will is a simple will trust. The second, set up by the will of a deceased uncle is set up under the standard STEP provisions.  Best place to start is by looking up STEP.  https://www.step.org/public-policy/step-standard-provisions

 

Hope this helps.