Wills & Trusts

What makes you laugh?

I love 'one-liners' My favourite is from an American Civil War film. One side is charging the other through a cloud of gun smoke and an officer turns to his men and orders "Fire at will". One of his men shouts back "Which ones's will?"

Speaking of wills, I was talking to my friend Ron Bateman of Sterling Wills, who gave me this interesting snippet of information;

"Most couples own their house as joint tenants, ie. If one dies the other automatically becomes the sole owner. If the survivor then has to go into a care home, he or she is means tested. The house is sold (because no-one’s living in it) and the proceeds of sale are taken to pay the fees. With average fees of £650 p.w there may be nothing left for the children to inherit.

If however, they change ownership to ‘tenancy in common’ they then own 50% each, which means in their wills, they can leave half the house into a trust for the ultimate benefit of the children, giving the surviving partner a ‘life interest’ in the half of the house he/she does not own. If the house sells for £300k, £150k is ‘ring-fenced’ in the trust and cannot be claimed by the authorities. It’s all perfectly legal and every couple in the country who own their own property should do it."

Their website at www.sterlingwills.co.uk gives a case study demonstrating this.