Estate planning can be useful to anyone. You can use our estate planning services to:
- Minimise inheritance tax on your estate
- Prepare for future costs, such as care home fees
- Plan for what would happen if you lost mental capacity
- Set up dedicated trusts for things like school or university fees
- Make sure your loved ones are provided for after your death
- Put in place succession plans if you are a business owner.
Whether you’re worried about protecting your wealth, preparing for the future, or just making sure you leave your affairs in good order for your loved ones, we can help.
Yes – we can advise on how to structure your Will to make sure any tax will be as low as possible.
There are different ways you can reduce your inheritance tax bill, including:
- Leaving money to charity
- Setting up trusts
- Giving away parts of your estate while you are still alive.
Preparing for inheritance tax is essential so that the value of your estate is not drastically reduced for your loved ones. With effective estate planning you can make sure your wealth is protected for the next generation – our lawyers and tax advisers can advise on the best way to do this.
Lifetime inheritance tax exemptions are also a valuable planning tool to consider, if you have spare income or capital that you can give away before your death. Our financial planners may be able to help you rearrange your assets so that you can make a gift of something in your lifetime and save your estate being taxed.
Read more about inheritance tax planning.
Trusts are a valuable part of estate planning. They allow you to make gifts of assets or property in a controlled way that:
- Protects it from unnecessary tax
- Ensures the beneficiaries (who receive capital or income from it) use the funds appropriately
- Means various people can benefit from it at different times (this may be helpful, for example, if you have young children from a current relationship and older ones from a previous marriage).
You can make a trust in your lifetime or write one in your Will to take effect upon your death. Lifetime trusts can help save inheritance tax, if you make a gift at least seven years before your death.
To ensure you still have control of what happens to the gift while you’re alive, you can appoint yourself as a trustee. If you don’t want the responsibility yourself, Irwin Mitchell is also frequently appointed as a trustee for lifetime trusts, as well as will trusts.
Find out more about setting up a trust.
Tax regulations are constantly changing, and the laws surrounding international wealth have become particularly strict in recent years.
If you hold assets in more than one country, you’ll need to consider:
- Whether you’re classed as resident or domiciled for tax purposes
- Changing tax laws for structures such as offshore trusts
- Automatic exchange of information under financial agreements such as Common Reporting Standard, Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, and others
- Increase in HMRC enquiries and investigations
- Changes to regulatory and privacy requirements in offshore financial centres.
There can also be different cultural elements for wealth held in foreign jurisdictions – for example, forced heirship and Sharia law. This may affect the ownership status of your assets and how you can pass them on to the next generation.
We frequently work with international clients and have the expertise to deal with the unique issues that arise.
Find out more about international estate planning.
While being a high net worth individual can bring greater financial security, it also means there’s often more to think about in order to plan effectively.
Some issues that our high net worth clients often face include:
- The complexity of UK tax laws – especially if you also have international assets to think about
- Assets held in many different structures (i.e. trusts, businesses, rental property, investment companies)
- Asset protection – from creditors or life events such as divorce
- Protection of privacy – especially important for clients with a high profile in the media
- Succession planning for businesses and family governance.
Our solicitors and tax experts are able to provide the bespoke advice you need to protect your wealth for the future. We frequently work with high net worth and ultra high net worth clients and pride ourselves not only on our expertise but also our discretion.
