Putting half a house in trust to avoid partner having to sell

baz8755

My partner and I are married and recently starting looking at our wills.

We own our property outright and and wish to prevent the situation where one of us may go into care and the other if left with a massive bill or be forced to sell our property. Just to be clear we have no objections to selling the property if only one of us is remaining and needs care.

Our solicitor has advised use to make the property tenants in common (which we have done) and that we need to use a trust to ensure the person not in care is not forced out or left with a bill.

I am little uneasy with this for a couple of reasons:-

- Do I really need a trust to do this?
- What are the tax implications of having half the property in a trust for the surviving partner instead of the whole property just passing to the surviving partner?
- Any other possible drawbacks?

TIA

Keep_pedalling

If one of you needs to go into care and the other is still living in the family home, then the house is disregarded in the financial assessment, so severing the tenancy for this reason alone is pointless, but there are other reasons you might want to do this. 

Do you have children? If so are they all from this relationship? 

Brie

Wondering how much your solicitor is making from his/her bad advice.

poseidon1

baz8755 said:

My partner and I are married and recently starting looking at our wills.

We own our property outright and and wish to prevent the situation where one of us may go into care and the other if left with a massive bill or be forced to sell our property. Just to be clear we have no objections to selling the property if only one of us is remaining and needs care.

Our solicitor has advised use to make the property tenants in common (which we have done) and that we need to use a trust to ensure the person not in care is not forced out or left with a bill.

I am little uneasy with this for a couple of reasons:-

- Do I really need a trust to do this?
- What are the tax implications of having half the property in a trust for the surviving partner instead of the whole property just passing to the surviving partner?
- Any other possible drawbacks?

TIA

This post is confusing in that it seems to contradict the post below where you say a will is already in place that does exactly what you say now concerns you -

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6604529/tenants-in-common-and-trust-fund-clause-in-will#latest

As you will see it was suggested  if  reviewing that old will you would now rather get rid of the trust, there is no especial reason why you need it. I don't think anything will have changed since then in this regard.