Wills, guardians, trusts for minors etc

[cornflakegirl]

Dh and I need to write a will. We currently have only one child, a 10 month old son.

We've asked his godparents to be guardians, but not sure what to do about leaving money if we both died. I think our choice is probably between leaving the money in trust for our son, our leaving it to his godparents - on the grounds that if we can trust them with our son, we can trust them with his money...

But, I'm not sure about how it would work if we had more kids, and we died when eg the eldest was over 18 and the youngest under 18.

Am I being stupid? :) Will the solicitor be able to advise on how to handle it?

There's a lot involved - including planning for IHT and legal implications of this. There are different types of funds available and the maintenance one is affected by the new Finance Act so it's not plain sailing anymore.

Get expert advice if I were you (and we are taking our own advice at the moment).

I'd go for an ordinary will right away (as a temporary measure), but would get a pro to redraft and also reconsider your trust strategy in a few months time as the legislation regarding trusts taxation is being reviewed at the mo, as MrsR mentions. Also the taxation charges relating to the establishment and maintenance of certain trusts is set to become extremely significant wrt how effective they are as investment vehicles... See \link{http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/budget2006/bn25.htm\these notes here}