Choosing the beneficiaries in your Will, or the amounts that each beneficiary receives, can sometimes be a daunting task. Especially when you consider that you are likely to be making your Will many years before you pass away and you cannot always tell how much your family will grow and change over the coming years.
To account for this, many of our clients look to set up discretionary trusts to give them flexibility for the future. Instead of deciding on fixed shares of who gets what, your assets would instead pass into a trust when you pass away. In a supporting letter of guidance for your trustees, you would outline who you would like to be able to access the funds in the trust, such as children, grandchildren, and/ or nieces and nephews, and how much they should receive. The trust can be as flexible as you like – you could, for example, suggest a sum for each relative if they were to buy a house or marry, or just leave it up to your trustees to choose.
When writing your Will, you would decide who would be appointed as the trustees of the discretionary trust. Their role is to make the decisions and they can take into consideration all the factors in play at the time which of course, in planning ahead, you may not be able to.
Discretionary trusts can therefore provide a clear solution if your family situation is changing or if you simply cannot tell yet who might need the most support.
For any help or advice with discretionary trusts, beneficiaries, or Wills in general, please contact our dedicated team.
