You arrived at this page by selecting:Leaving things in trust for future generations (15/02/10)
You may or may not know that you can leave things in trust. Many people want to do this for future generations to reap the benefits. It is quite common. It is also one way of not allowing the tax man to get hold of your property for such things as paying for your nursing home fees.
You can put things in trust via your will or otherwise but did you know that there are restrictions. You have to put a time limit on giving property in trust. You can't say that whoever is going to get your property for example will get it in 1000 years. We as citizens are not supposed to be overly beholden to people that have passed away. The law deems that is unfair and that it is 'against the needs of future generations to use estates for other purposes that might be more appropriate in future years'. The time limit was 80 years but is has recently been changed to 125 years. This new law will come into affect in April of this year.
It used to be that people could pick a person's lifetime as the time limit. It could be anyone. Many people in Victorian times even chose the Queen believe it or not. The life you chose, however, had to be someone who is already born. You couldn't pick someone who would potentially be born for obvious reasons. All this was proving to be a bit vague so they eventually changed the law to 80yrs as standard until this new law comes into force.
It is becoming more and more important these days with people getting divorced and entering into second and third marriages. They may want some of their wealth to go to existing children of previous marriages. For example if you did get married, have children then got divorced and remarried you may want any personal wealth distributed differently. You may be happy to let your new spouse have your wealth until upon their death but then what happens? When they died you may want this to go to your children of your previous marriage. Perhaps you never got on with your new spouse's family and the last thing you would want was all your money going to your spouse's family when your spouse finally died. Or what about the scenario if you divorced and set up home with a new partner but didn't get married and the home was in your name. If anything happened to you your home could go to your next of kin, potentially leaving your partner homeless. It is so important that you take legal advice before you think you actually need it and get all your thoughts and wishes set in stone otherwise the consequences can be catastrophic.
By John Wilson
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