Quite simply a Will is the document that will:

1. Appoint someone you trust (‘executor/trustee’) to look after your estate for the ultimate benefit of your beneficiaries
2. Appoint guardians for your children
3. Avoid the Rules of Intestacy
4. Give your executors the authority to deal with your:
   • Investments
   • Bank accounts
   • Property
   • Probate

So a basic Will is a remedy to these issues – but some Wills can be more complex, as they need to offer more wide-ranging solutions.

Trust Wills are most commonly offered to protect one partner’s nil rate band, thus avoiding inheritance tax.

Many people feel that Trust Wills are now invalid, as, since October 2007, a widow(er) maintains the nil rate band of their deceased spouse.

Planning For Married Couples (PDF)   Discretionary Will Trust Planning (PDF)

The Trust Will, however, offers many other important advantages:

1. Protecting against care fees
2. Protecting against children from being disinherited by a step-parent
3. Protecting your legacy from getting eaten up by a divorce settlement
4. Controlling a legacy after your death (gifts with strings)
5. Avoiding legacies being gobbled by debt
6. Preventing your estate passing to a new spouse

Once you have written your will you should review it regularly to make sure it reflects your wishes, especially if you:

• get married / enter a civil partnership as a will is automatically cancelled by these events
• get divorced
• have children or other relatives you wish to benefit, for example nieces, nephews or grandchildren
• have bought a new property or have recently obtained expensive assets (such as buying a new car)

Get In Touch >  or call us today on 0800 023 6524.

One person in the UK develops dementia every three minutes. Yet don’t assume relatives can just walk into a bank and access your money, even if it is to pay for your care.

Unless you’ve a Power of Attorney already, loved ones need to apply through court, which can be long and costly.

A Lasting Power of Attorney is the legal document that allows an individual ‘the Attorney’ appointed by you ‘the Donor’ to deal with your affairs if you are ever incapacitated.

Incapacity is often thought of as Alzheimer’s Disease, yet it could be caused by many things, eg: car accident, stroke, cancer.

Creating a Lasting Power of Attorney whilst you are fit and of sound mind will empower your loved ones to deal with your affairs if ever you are not.

It will avoid the need for Court of Protection who make decisions on financial or welfare matters for people who can’t make decisions at the time they need to be made (they ‘lack mental capacity’).

They are responsible for:

• deciding whether someone has the mental capacity to make a particular decision for themselves
• appointing deputies to make ongoing decisions for people who lack mental capacity
• giving people permission to make one-off decisions on behalf of someone else who lacks mental capacity
• handling urgent or emergency applications where a decision must be made on behalf of someone else without delay
• making decisions about a lasting power of attorney or enduring power of attorney and considering any objections to their registration
• considering applications to make statutory wills or gifts
• making decisions about when someone can be deprived of their liberty under the Mental Capacity Act

Lasting Power of Attorney - The Facts (PDF)   Lasting Power of Attorney - The Process (PDF)

Get In Touch >  or call us today on 0800 023 6524.

It is estimated that one in four of us will be living in a care home during the final years of our life.  Despite this knowledge, very few of us consider the financial implications until it is too late.  Care home fees can cost on average £36,000 per year and if you have been prudent and managed to save for your later years, own your own home or have savings, it is likely that you will be liable to pay for these fees yourself.  In a short amount of time these hard earned savings will be eroded so there is very little left for your children to inherit.

Many couples do not realise that they may be able to safeguard at least half the value of their property simply by changing the way they own their homes combined with having an effective Will.

You can avoid selling your home to pay for care. All it takes is some planning and good advice which Optimate Consulting can provide you with. Often families believe that by gifting their property to loved ones it will protect their home. This is not the case and can leave you open to big risks for example, the people you gift the property to may:

• Get divorced
• Become bankrupted
• Die before you decide to sell the property
• Have their own care issues

In any of these cases by giving your property to one or more people, they become the owners. The property forms part of their estate and if they have claims against their estate the property is therefore under threat. Also this means that you cannot sell your house because it no longer belongs to you. The new owners would need to be the ones who agree to sell it and decide what to do with the capital realised.

It is always possible to avoid paying care home fees, as long as the necessary protection plan has been implemented prior to care being required. Placing property into a Trust means that it will become a protected asset, that cannot be used to cover care home costs. The major advantage of transferring property into Trust as opposed to transferring it to an individual is that the Settlor (person placing property into Trust) is able to retain control as to how those assets are used. As the property is placed into Trust instead of transferred to an individual, it means that there is no Capital Gains Tax (CGT) liability for the beneficiaries. A long term benefit is that Trustees will not need to go through the expensive and time consuming process of Probate in order to sell the property or transfer it.

The Property Trust has two main aims:

1. To avoid your property having to go through the probate process in the event of your death – by using a property trust, the property would transfer to the remaining trustees in the event of death.
2. By giving up direct ownership of your property to a trust, at a time when you are of sound mind and in good health, then the use of your property for the payment of care fees becomes much harder and will often avoid care fees.

How do I Protect my Home and Assets from Care Costs? (PDF)   Property and Family Settlement Trusts - Q&A (PDF)

Get In Touch >  or call us today on 0800 023 6524.

Probate is the process of dealing with someone’s money, possessions and final wishes after they die. If the deceased left a Will, they may have specified the designated executor or executors – these people are expected to “execute” the Will, which means they will share out the estate as specified and deal with any related complications, as well as carry out any other final wishes specified in the Will. However, you are not legally required to act as executor, even if you are the only executor named in the Will.

If there is no executor named, or there is no Will, someone must become the administrator of the estate – this will be someone who would benefit from the Will, or a blood relative if no Will exists.

The administrator largely performs the same tasks that an executor would, although they often have no Will to act upon.

Whether there is a Will or not will affect what kind of Grant of Representation you will need in order to continue the probate process.

To execute a Will, you will usually need to obtain the Grant of Probate or Letters of Administration. The Grant of Representation refers to the grant that you must obtain to carry out probate. The kind of grant that you need will depend on your circumstances, which is outlined as follows:

• If you are named executor in the Will – Grant of Probate
• If you are the administrator with no Will – Letters of Administration
• If you are the administrator of a Will – Letters of Administration (with Will)

The Grant of Representation will make it possible for you to access all of the deceased’s assets, such as their bank and building society accounts. Doing so without the Grant of Representation would be very difficult, if not impossible. However, the Grant of Representation may not be needed if:

• The deceased did not have much money in their accounts – a bank or building society may be willing to release the funds without a grant, or;
• Their properties, bank or building society accounts and insurance policies were joint-owned by a surviving spouse or civil partner.

In the event of joint-owned accounts, the bank or building society may be willing to transfer sole ownership to the surviving civil partner or spouse if you present them with the death certificate. However, if they had any sole accounts, you will most likely need the Grant of Representation.

You can obtain the Grant of Probate or Letters of Administration by contacting your local Probate Registry. You can do this by filling out and returning Probate Application form PA1.

Ideally, this process will take 3-5 weeks. However, if there are other complications – if there is inheritance tax to pay, or you make a mistake in filling out a form, for instance – obtaining the Grant could take a lot longer.

You will also need to contact HMRC to pay any inheritance tax due on the estate.

As mentioned above, a blood relative will need to become an administrator of the estate if there is no Will, as without one, the deceased’s estate will become intestate, meaning that it must be distributed according to the strict rules of intestacy. If you are not sure what to do, contact a solicitor for advice.

This will depend on how complex the estate is – if there are complicated assets, such as multiple properties, shares, and accounts, it is likely to take longer than if they had owned a single bank account and very few other assets.

It will also depend on how much time you and the other representatives can dedicate – if you are able to take extended leave from work to deal with probate, for example, you will probably be able to take care of it more quickly.

On average, probate takes between six to nine months to complete and can take up to eighty working hours. However, other complications can cause the process to take considerably longer, such as if the Will is contested, or the deceased did not keep clear records of all their assets. It is not unheard of for the process to take several years to wrap up.

Our Probate Assist service offers:

1. Completion of all paperwork
2. Dealing with winding up of an estate
3. Accompanied probate hearings
4. Greatly reduced fees

Get In Touch >  or call us today on 0800 023 6524.

Release the capital tied up in your home and start making more of your life.

Equity release enables you to use the money tied up in your home to provide a tax free lump sum, to repay your existing mortgage and or to spend as you wish.

We’d all like to make the most of our retirement; however, this isn’t always easy when the cost of living continues to rise. Fortunately, there’s a way which can help you cover your needs and enjoy the retirement you are looking for. If you own your own home, you can release some of the money tied up in the property without having to move through an equity release product.

Equity release can be used for a variety of purposes. These can include:

• Adapting / improving your home to enable you to remain living in
• it independently for longer
• Paying off debts, such as outstanding mortgages or credit cards
• Paying for help around the home, including domiciliary social care
• Purchasing a new car or other ‘large ticket’ item
• Providing financial assistance to your children and
• grandchildren – perhaps with a deposit on a house or to help
• them through university
• Taking a holiday of a lifetime, perhaps to visit family living overseas

We can provide you access to friendly, expert independent advice that could help you unlock the value in your home, without the need to move. Below is a rough guide to how much you could borrow.

How much can you borrow?

For example someone aged 60 with a house valued at £200,000 could borrow up to £52,000.

*Think carefully before securing other debts against your home.

Equity release may involve a lifetime mortgage or a home reversion plan. To understand the features and risks, ask for a personalised illustration.

Equity release may not be right for everyone. It may affect your entitlement to state benefits and will reduce the value of your estate.

Get In Touch >  or call us today on 0800 023 6524.