Life Interest Trusts in Wills

What is a Life Interest Trust?

A Life Interest Trust is a Trust included in your Will and can be a way, in certain situations, of protecting your share of your house for future generations after you die.

A life Interest trust is commonly used in situations such as:-

• There are couples with children from previous relationships and each wants to ensure that their own children inherit
• There are concerns about a surviving partner remarrying and leaving everything to a new partner and disinheriting children
• To mitigate assets available for carehome fees.

To be able to include a Life Interest Trust in your Wills, the property must be held as Tenants in Common. Our Solicitors at Johnson Astills can check how your property is held at the Land Registry and prepare the relevant document to sever a Joint Tenancy.

Death of a Life Tenant

On the death of the first spouse, you would give the survivor a life interest in your respective share of the property. They will be able to live in the property or downsize and enjoy the interest on the capital surplus which would be invested.  On second death the protected share would pass to your chosen beneficiaries.

A change in legislation now requires all trusts to be registered at HMRC. If you have a Life Interest Trust in your Will currently and would like to review this or discuss the requirements post death, our Solicitors at Johnson Astills can assist.

Carehome Fees

A life Interest Trust can be a useful tool to help preserve your half share of the property being used up by carehome fees and our solicitors at Johnson Astills can explain the circumstance in which this Together with possible disadvantages so that you can make an informed decision as to whether a life interest trust is the right for you to include in your Will.

Should you wish to discuss the inclusion of a Life Interest Trust in your Wills or review your current Will our Solicitor at Johnson Astills would be pleased to assist.