Hi, me and my wife are in the process of doing our wills. In the event that would both die at the same time we would need someone to look after our estate for our 25 year old son who has aspergers and cannot look after his own affairs.
Our solicitor has suggested a Disabled Beneficiary Trust, has anyone got any experience of this.
Bob.
Welcome boboneleg
Our Wills and Trust Service will be able to help you with this. They run seminars all over the country where they can take you through the process and offer advice. I went to one in York earlier in the year and it was brilliant.
See if there is a seminar near you mencap.org.uk/willsandtrust...
You can also give them a call (or email) and they will be able to help on 0207 696 6925 or email willsandtrusts@mencap.org.uk
They also have free guide etc on their webpages - mencap.org.uk/advice-and-su...
There have also been a few other posts about this subject. You might find this one useful healthunlocked.com/mencap/p...
I hope you find the advice and support you need. Please let us know how you get on.
thanks
Sarah
Thank you for the reply, I have spoken to Mencap today and feel that I'm in a better position now to go back to our solicitors and get this sorted.
Welcome Bob
It’s nice to see you on here 👋🏻 I do hope you find the information from Mencap’s Wills and Trust department. Perhaps you could share your findings as I certainly need to think about this soon?
It’s a friendly bunch on here so I’m sure somebody will have experience they can share.
Best wishes
TTT
Hi Bob
If your solicitor is referring to a normal discretionary trust where your son would be the only beneficiary, they might be thinking of a Vulnerable Persons Election with HMRC. This means that the trust is taxed at your son's tax rate even though its a trust, and usually means paying far less tax, if anything, than a normal trust would.
My late partner set up Jack's Trust before she died, her estate went into the trust (bear in mind that it did not make any difference to the Inheritance Tax bill) and subsequently I applied to HMRC for the Vulnerable Persons Election, so far we have paid no tax at all on the money in the trust.
You can get Mencap to be Trustees, and its great that they offer this, but it does come with restrictions that we found too onerous, so we did our own trust using a STEP solicitor to set up, with myself and a couple of family friends as Trustees.
Best wishes
JacksDad
This is something my partner and I need to get sorted since buying a house together and taking out life assurance policies. I got as far as getting some solicitor names from the Mencap Wills and Trust service but we could not afford the costs that they were asking. We need a will each and a trust set up for our son (my step-son) because we are not married.
Can I be nosy and ask how much people have paid for something similar or is there any financial help available?
Recognition of Disability
will and trust without relatives to be trustees
Disability Commissioner for England
Learning difficulty or Learning disability?
