Asset Protection - Wills

[YorkshireParentalPerson]

DH & I just having our wills drawn up. Very simple, everything gets left to each other and then our son. The only thing we have of value is our house which is worth less than £150k.

Whilst having that done, the will writer did a very hard sell on putting our house into trust so that we could protect ourselves from care home fees at some point in the future. We sent him away so that we could talk about this and do a bit of research and everything I've seen so far seems to say that they are not worth the paper they are written on. That you would be very hard pushed to be able to prove that your intention was not deprivation of assets and that if you were to be put in a care home the council could still come after the property because of this no matter how far in the future it happened.

I was just wondering, if any one has come across this and what your thoughts are. Bearing in mind that the house is our only asset.

Thanks

Definitely best avoided. PM me the name of the firm. I'm not sure they should be pushing these schemes.

How old are you both? What were they going to charge you?

Thanks, we are both 51, £20 per month charge.

They will be after the commission.
My mum looked into this and her solicitor told her there was no point as the Council could still pursue for nursing home fees
I think You and yours or similar had a radio segment on it a while ago too and there was a lady on who was employed by various Councils to overturn these arrangements. She said The Council usually won
There was also a representative from one of these Will companies on and he was basically forced to admit that it was worthless too

Thanks both, you've confirmed what we suspected.

Happy to go ahead with the will but not the other.

I'm a will writer and would strongly advise against this type of trust. I've been to a couple of courses run by big firms and both times walked away thinking these are just a scam, unless the client has a reason to keep assets away from beneficiaries because they have a drug problem or whatever and even then, it's not worth bothering for small estates.

Life Interest in Possession Trusts, which only kick in on the first death, are of more use, particularly for elderly clients.

Mumblechum I am a solicitor in this area and totally agree. You also lose your iht allowances! Wouldn’t touch these with a barge pole and find it mildly concerning they are pushed by certain firms and will writers professional bodies. On one course I went on the barrister mused they could be the next ppi scandal. Life interest trust wills yes - May assist with care home fees and helpful for blended families/concerns about remarriage of survivor

I exchanged PMs with the OP. It turns out that this business was offering a simple will containing the grant of a life interest in half the house to the surviving spouse. They were packaging it as something fancy when it’s not.

And charging exorbitantly for it as well.

Thank you everyone. We suspected something was not quite right and after a discussion, realised that there were several other things that did not ring true either. We have gone to a proper firm of solicitors local to us to get our wills drawn up.

We spoke to this firm because it was a tie in to a charity, but the person who came to see us made our spidey senses twitch.

I am currently debating whether to raise a complaint with the company this guy represents. We were told some blatant untruths and whilst we picked up on that, someone less aware could be frightened or coerced into going ahead.

Just out of Interest OP, how much were they proposing to charge? I’m just being nosy because it’s always interesting to see the range of fees for similar work. I charge £300 for a pair of standard mirror wills, plus £100 to add a Life Interest Trust......