Will Writing and helping you plan in the Canterbury & Kent area
Why make a will?
If you die without a Will you are deemed to have died intestate. Even if you are married or in a Civil Partnership at the time, your spouse or partner is not automatically entitled to your entire Estate. If you die without a Will, then you leave your Estate open to claims from people you may not expect or want to have a portion of it, causing upset at an already difficult time.
If you have dependent children, then a Will nominates guardians for your children rather than The State having to get involved.
Wills can be used to maximise your inheritance tax allowances.
You should review your Will at least every two to five years or at a time of a life-changing event, for example, getting married or civil partnership, divorce, the birth of children, and receiving an inheritance to name a few situations.
Inheritance Tax
At the current time as an individual, you have an inheritance tax allowance of £325,000.
If you are married or in a civil partnership then you can pass this allowance to your partner or spouse so on the second death, the total is £650,000.
The government is also introducing a main residence nil rate band, this means that by April 2020, people who own their own home, with children can potentially have a further £175,000 tax allowance each. There are several conditions attached to this and professional advice based on your personal circumstances is needed to ensure that you maximise this and your inheritance tax allowance.
Will Trusts
To guarantee that your Estate passes to who you want in the most tax-efficient manner, Trusts can be written into your Will, these ensure that your wishes are fulfilled and if required ensuring that your spouse or partner can still have a life interest. We will discuss these options during our meeting.
Controlled and lifetime gifting
Controlled gifting is passing something to a beneficiary whilst you are alive this can help to reduce the size of your Estate and you have the benefit of seeing the benefit whilst you are alive. However, tax rules apply to this so you need professional advice on how this will impact on your inheritance tax burden.
The use of Trusts to gift large sums of money to children can be advisable so that there is some protection and control of the gift, I work the Society of Will Writers Trust Corporation to provide this service for you.
There are other tax-efficient gifts that can be given that we can discuss at our meetings, for those with complex Estates I am happy to work with your accountant, a Chartered Tax Advisor and yourself to ensure you have the peace of mind that you are in control of your Estate. This includes landlords with multiple properties.