The word "trust" puts people off, and I understand why. It sounds like something for the wealthy, or like handing your home to a faceless solicitor. Neither is true. A trust is simply a set of instructions that ring-fences an asset, like your share of the house, for the people you choose. The people who look after it, the trustees, are chosen by you. Usually they're your own family.
The most common reason couples set one up is to protect a share of the family home. Here's how that works.
Protecting the family home with a trust
For couples who own their home together and want the survivor secure, but their own share to reach their children in the end.
Your 50% share
Your partner's 50% share
What this means in practice: when the first partner dies, their half of the home passes into their trust rather than outright to the survivor. The surviving partner keeps the right to live in the home for as long as they need, and can still move or downsize later. But that first half is now protected, and will eventually reach the children the trust names, whatever happens in the years that follow.
What a basic will leaves exposed
If your will simply leaves everything to your partner, then on your death they own all of it outright. From that point it's entirely theirs, and a few ordinary life events can quietly send it somewhere you never intended.
Care costs
If the survivor later needs residential care, the whole house can be counted towards the fees. A protected half-share sits outside that assessment, so at least part of the home is preserved for the children.
Remarriage
If the survivor remarries, their new spouse gains rights to the estate. Without a trust, your children can be unintentionally cut out of the home you both worked for.
A beneficiary's own troubles
If a child later divorces or runs into financial difficulty, money left to them outright can be pulled into that. Held in trust, it can be shielded.
A trust does not hand your home to a stranger. You choose the trustees, and they're usually people close to you. Their job is to follow the instructions you set, nothing more. You decide who benefits, when, and on what terms.
Is a trust right for you?
Honestly, not everyone needs one. For plenty of couples a straightforward mirror will does the job perfectly well, and I'll tell you if that's you. A trust tends to earn its place when there are children from a previous relationship, a worry about future care costs, or a real wish to make sure your share of the home lands exactly where you want it. We can talk it through and you can decide with the full picture in front of you.
What I can help with, and what I refer on
Within my qualified scope I draft Property Protection Trusts and Discretionary Trusts within a will, along with the severance of tenancy that often goes with them. Some trust work is more specialist, such as certain lifetime trusts, business property trusts, and complex inheritance tax planning. Where your situation needs that, I'll say so plainly and introduce you to a specialist I trust rather than stretch beyond what I should.
Protect what you've built.
A free, no-pressure conversation is the best way to see whether a trust is right for you. I'll come to you or meet over video, with no obligation to go ahead.
Book your free consultationThis guide explains will trusts in England & Wales in general terms and is not advice for your particular circumstances. Trust and tax rules change from time to time, and whether a particular trust is suitable, or achieves a given outcome, depends entirely on your own situation. Deliberately depriving yourself of assets to avoid care fees can be challenged, which is one of the reasons planning should be done properly and in good time.