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about their cause. Any charitable
gifts you make in your Will are
also free from inheritance tax.
8. Trusts
Using trusts in your Will you can
protect your assets such as your
family home for your children
while still providing for your
partner during their lifetime. You
can also use trusts to hold assets
on behalf of a child until they
reach a certain age, or to protect
a beneficiary from their own
improvidence.
Decisions you need to
make?
Aside from the aspects covered
under the ‘why do you need a
Will?’ you should consider the
following:
Appointing Trustees
By definition a trustee is an
individual person or member of
a board given control or powers
of administration of property
in trust with a legal obligation
to administer it solely for the
purposes specified.
When you write your Will you
have the freedom to choose who
you would like to administer the
estate and for who you would like
to manage assets.
Are you excluding anyone?
If there is someone specific that
you do not what to inherit from
your estate, then you should
give careful consideration to the
effects of excluding them from
your Will. Consider whether they
could be able to successfully
challenge your Will. If they
believe reasonable provision
should be made then they will
be likely to challenge under the
Inheritance (Provision for Family
and Dependants) Act 1975. Your
Will writer should tell you who
is likely to be able to make a
claim and some chose to make
provision for these parties.
If you are choosing to exclude
someone from your Will then you
might want to write a letter of
There are many reasons that
you would appoint someone to
manage assets in your Will. If for
example you wanted someone to
benefit from a monetary sum from
your estate but were worried that
they wouldn’t manage if the sum
was given to them then you could
appoint someone to manage the
money and ‘drip feed’ it.
When you appoint a trustee, it
should be someone that you
trust. If they were to mismanage
the assets then this could be a
criminal offence. If there is no one
that you would trust to handle the
assets you would ultimately like
to pass on to a beneficiary then
you could appoint a professional
trustee. Organisations that work
in private client will have divisions
that can help. The SWW Trust
Corporation do exactly this. They
act as both professional trustees
and attorneys and can make
decisions in accordance with the
wish of the donor or testator.
The Society of Will Writers
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