A trust protects your clients’ assets to achieve their family aims. It is a further protection, along with their will, to ensure that their assets are distributed to their loved ones quickly and efficiently by those they trust.

Simply put a trust is a legal arrangement where one or more ‘trustees’ are made legally responsible for their assets. Things such as land, money, houses and even certain expensive items (cars, paintings, antiques etc) can be placed in trust.

The trustees are legally responsible for the management of the trust and ensuring that the ‘beneficiaries’ receive the assets your client wants them to, when they want them to. Their wishes are usually in the Will, however trustees can have discretion in some cases to make sure everyone’s best interests are maintained.

Reasons for setting up are trust can be:

• to control and protect family assets
• to protect young beneficiaries spending inheritance quickly
• to ensure assets are looked after if your client becomes incapacitated
• to pass on money or property while they are still alive
• to pass on money or assets when they die under the terms of their will – known as a ‘will trust’

The benefits of a trust are as follows:

• Assets are not counted towards means-tested calculation, therefore may mean your client is eligible for care funding
• Can help mitigate tax such as inheritance tax