Trust mentioned in Will

[JessieJa]

My Mum and Dad made mirror wills back in 2004. When my Mum died suddenly a few years later my brother dealt with the Will and probate - neither my father or I wanted to be involved. My father has now sadly passed away some 14 years later. The Wills mention a discretionary trust fund for Trustees to manage assets. Am i right in thinking this should have been set up after my mother's death? And that we are now in rather a mess as it was not done ? Shedding any light on this or simple answer would be so helpful.....not sleeping with worry. Thank you

The will created the discretionary trust. Your brother, as executor, should have passed the nominated assets to the trust where they would have been managed by the trustees (who should have been named in the will). Without more detail, it is impossible to say more.

A lot of the time everything will pass to the surviving spouse on the death of the first, then everything will be distributed to beneficiaries on the second death. So it might be that the trust should only have been set up on your dads death but you would need to check the Will.

If you don’t want to have to deal with a trust the executors can do a deed of variation which effectively changes the Will. There are various implications so would need to talk to the solicitor about it.

Thank you. Strangely Trustees not named in the Wills . No other paperwork pertaining to the Trust has been found.

The will may have loosely alluded to a Trust but the question is..was one actually set up?
Can you contact the solicitor who drew up the will?

@JessieJa UK legal wordings are confusing, and the the word "Trust" does not always mean that a separate trust is supposed to be created. I would suggest you ask a solicitor to explain the wording, what was supposed to be done, and how it can be made right. And even if there was supposed to be a trust, so long as assets were not taken away from somebody who was supposed to get them, I would not worry; there should be a pragmatic solution available. Key is that the solicitor is competent and sensible - so if you find them saying something alarming or that does not make sense, check with another one.

Thank you for your replies. The estate on my Mum's death did pass solely to my father who now has left his 3 children as beneficiaries. The mirror Wills were made not using a solicitor but a Will writing service. I don't want to fall foul of the HMRC since IHT payments appear different for trusts. I will contact a few solicitors tomorrow.