house trust

twinsister

Hi everyone, can anyone tell me if it is wise or even safe to put my house in trust for my two sons aged 48 and 52. my husband and I are 75 and 77years old and in relatively good health.

flaneurs_lobster

Perhaps if you tell us why you are considering putting your house in trust?

Could you tell us if you have received advice on this matter?

Keep_pedalling

No, it would be a very foolish thing to do. It won’t help with IHT (look up gift with reservation of benefit) and it won’t avoid care costs (look up deliberate deprivation of assets and over my dead body grange).

Having your house in trust also complicates things if you ever need to move and potentially creates a CGT liability when the house is actually sold.

In your position the only type of trust to consider would be an immediate post death interest trust which would protect the share share of the home of the first spouse to die, should the survivor need care or decided to marry again. This requires you hold the house as tenants in common, and have a clause in your will that sets up the trust on your death. Do you have wills and lasting powers of attorney in place?

onomatopoeia99

If you're thinking about care home fees, put "deliberate deprivation of assets" into your search engine of choice, then speak to a solicitor if you still wish to continue. 

If you're thinking about something else, which would make you very unusual among people of your age asking this question, then you should say why you are considering it.

SVaz

No, the only people they ‘help’ are the dodgy companies setting them up. 

Even gifting them your house doesn’t work if you still live there.

twinsister

We have wills that leaves the house to each other should one of us die, we are going to set up power of attorneys and yes we are thinking about care home fees.

Albermarle

twinsister said:

We have wills that leaves the house to each other should one of us die, we are going to set up power of attorneys and yes we are thinking about care home fees.

Then suggest you also think about what happens if you give your home away to avoid care home fees ( although as said already it will most likely not work anyway).
If one of you has to go into a care home and can not pay privately, then you will be at the mercy of the council as to where you will end up, which may not be somewhere very nice.

Wills are good
POA is good ]
Trusts are usually best avoided apart from maybe an ' immediate post death interest trust' as mentioned in a previous post.

Marcon

twinsister said:

We have wills that leaves the house to each other should one of us die, we are going to set up power of attorneys and yes we are thinking about care home fees.

See https://www.radiotimesmoney.com/savings-and-investments/dont-trust-trusts/ 

twinsister

I did look up deprivation of assets and it doesn't look as if it is worth it, we will just have to try and die at home.
Thank you all.

artyboy

twinsister said:

I did look up deprivation of assets and it doesn't look as if it is worth it, we will just have to try and die at home.
Thank you all.

Well that's a very downbeat assessment. Perhaps better to aim to have sufficient assets to be able to fund the best standard of care, should you need it..

dunstonh

twinsister said:

I did look up deprivation of assets and it doesn't look as if it is worth it, we will just have to try and die at home.
Thank you all.

Most people die outside of care homes.   Going into care is something that people worry about too much compared to the statistical likelihood.  Care in your own home is far more common.