A lot of us have Wills that contain trust clauses these days to help protect the familys assets, usually on a first death scenario when half the family home goes into Trust. These trust work well but do not forget that you will have appointed trustees to be in charge of that share, possibly many years ago. So are you still happy with the trustees you chose?
There is a double edged meaning to this question that you should consider carefully, let me explain.
First
the straightforward point here is that you may have simply fallen out with who you originally chose. If you survive your partner/spouse, and are the life tenant of the deceaseds share of the house, do you really want to face conflict with the estranged or out of favour Trustees? Are you really going to agree? It could well be time to update your Will!
Secondly
If you are both the life tenant and a Trustee of the deceaseds share of the house, you could have a problem later on in life because you may well be seen to have the power to directly or indirectly influence the asset(s) in the Trust. If you are unfortunate enough to have to go into care, it could be seen that you have access to the trust assets, and that would not be good news for very obvious reasons. Current thinking recommends you keep it simple and only benefit from the life tenancy, let others that you trust be the trustees of the half share held in the Will trust, but choose wisely and keep your eye on the ball.
The moral is to
Regularly review your Will, we come across plenty that should have been changed a long time ago. We offer free Will updates to our clients that use our safe and secure document storage facility. You will be hard pressed to find a better place to put your Wills, and all other important documents.
We are happy to help, contact us here.
